OK, this is pissy. I admit. But could you call it something other than “Deflategate”? Please? In the great scheme of world history, letting the air out of a frozen football ranks pretty low on the scandal totem pole. This business of labeling every tom, dick and harry scandal trivializes a great historic presidential scandal. Watergate led to the eviction of Richard Milhous Nixon from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. “Deflategate’ has led to our-game suspension for Tom Brady.
I happen to think that the worst of Tom Brady’s sins will not necessarily include letting air out of a pigskin. Lying about it is much worse. The suspension by the National Felons League will cost him a few hundred grand. In one sense it seems harsh. Doubtful Brady needed less air in the ball, particularly given the fact that New England left the entrails of the Indianapolis Colts all over the Northeast. The score was top heavy, the game was boring, the Colts defense abysmal. The best you could do was drink a lot of soda and fill up on chips and salsa. It was a game that made the commercials fascinating and engrossing by comparison.
Watergate, in great contrast, was the height of political drama — “what did the president know and when did he know it” and the wiggle-waggle eyebrows of a country lawyer from North Carolina.
Call it something else, like the least of the NFL’s problems.
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