I was of the mind set that this was no big deal, but that article lays out a pretty good case for it actually being a pretty big deal.  Not sure how the NFL can proceed though until there is evidence beyond the shadow of a doubt that someone actually did something.  One can reasonably assume that they've been deflating balls since 2007, but there is no evidence of it since they were only just tested during the AFC Championship.  I would guess this was kept very close to the vest by Belichick and Brady.  You wouldn't want this widely known with the amount of turnover on a roster each year and someone moving on to another team squealing about what was going on in New England.

 

I'm a little shocked the NFL let it even get to this point.  You'd think they'd rather just send the Patriots a private "cease and desist" order than to have the story continue to grow and become a distraction like it has become.  Maybe they subscribe to the notion that there's no such thing as bad publicity or maybe they didn't want any other issues to be mishandled and blow up in their face.

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