Thoughts on Deflategate

Making sense of NFL punishments is hard to do because you can’t make any sense out of any of them.  The punishment handed down by the NFL against the Patriots for deflating footballs is completely beyond what it should be.  Back in November of 2015 the Panthers and Vikings were caught red handed heating footballs during the game.  This is a violation of NFL rules.  You cannot artificially affect game balls.  Their punishment?  None.  They received a warning and were allowed to continue..  Meanwhile the Patriots were accused of artificially affecting game balls.  Instead of heating them up, they were accused of deflating them.  Were they caught red handed?  No.  A massive investigation concluded it was more probable than not that they were guilty.  What punishment was given to the Patriots?  Was it just a warning?  No.  Instead, their quarterback was suspended for four games.  They lost a first and fourth round draft pick, and they were fined $1 million.

It is true that after the Vikings and Panthers tampered with the footballs, the league notified all teams so the Patriots along with everyone else were on notice not to mess with footballs.  But the NFL travelled a long way to go from “hey you naughty boys cut it out” to the loss of a first and fourth round pick, a major suspension, and $1 million in fines.

Meanwhile in Atlanta, the Falcons were found definitively guilty of pumping in fake crowd noise during home games.  This, of course, gives a distinct advantage to the home team.  Being the Falcons, though, it didn’t really matter much.  But still, they cheated.  They admitted guilt.  No “more probable than not” here.  We’re talking 100% guilty.  Their punishment?  They were fined $350,000 and lost a 5^th round 2016 draft pick.;  Their team president was suspended from the competition committee for three months even though the investigation concluded he had no knowledge of the crowd noise.  Suspended from the competition committee.  Wow, what a stunning blow to the team.  But overall, I think that punishment was the most fair punishment of the lot.

And of course, the Cleveland Browns were fined $250,000 because their GM texted play recommendations to the coaching staff during the games.  Being Cleveland, though, no amount of cheating could actually help them win anything so the league let it go with a simple fine.

Some argue the Patriots were punished harshly for two reasons having nothing whatsoever to do with the actual deflation of the footballs.  These are:

·         The Patriots were not completely cooperative with the investigation.  Brady did not turn over his phone to investigators and they did not allow equipment personnel to have a second interview with the investigative team.

·         The Patriots are repeat offenders.

There is some merit to the notion if Brady had nothing to hide, he should have readily turned his phone over to investigators.  But let’s look at this more closely.  If the Wells report were an actual legal proceeding they could have subpoenaed the phone and emails.  But Brady would have had the chance to fully refute any adverse interpretations of those records.  More importantly, he would have been able to do his argument justice.  In the case of the Wells team, Brady would not have had this opportunity.  And given that the NFL gave the Panthers and Vikings a “knock it off” while launching a full blown mega investigation against the Patriots along with lots of public statements to this effect, the Patriots had every reason to think witch hunt.  And would any of us have turned over our phone to someone we thought was conducting a witch hunt?  Had the NFL simply said “Look guys, you read what we said about the ball heating episode in Minnesota yet you persisted in tampering with footballs.  We’re going to fine you” the story would have come and gone.  That is exactly what the NFL should have done.  It should be noted that NFL rules specifically address air pressure in footballs.  Violations of the rules in this regard results in a $25,000 fine.  That’s it.  No suspensions and no loss of draft picks is mandated for this offence.  The rules do allow the NFL to tack on a more severe punishment, but no one can seriously claim the rule violation is meant to allow the punishment actually meted out against the Patriots.   But instead of simply following their own written rules, the NFL launch a full-fledged investigation costing thousands of dollars as if the Patriots had breached national security.  And when all was said and done, Wells could not definitively conclude anything or, was not man enough to make a bold stand for fear of a lawsuit.  Either way, the Patriots were punished based on probability.

Brady was not obligated to turn over his phone.  He exercised his right not to do so.  Why then is Brady being punished for exercising his legal rights?  To top this all off, the Wells report specifically said the team and head coach had no idea anything was going on.  Why punish the team then based on this report?  The NFL was intent on punishing the Patriots regardless.  Their actions show this conclusively.  In effect, the NFL said this.  Hey Brady, the Wells report says you are more probably guilty than not so we’re going to hit you hard.  Hey Belichick and Patriots, the report says you’re innocent but we’re going to hit you hard because. . .well. . .just because. 

Who can possibly make sense of this?  They issue a warning to two teams for ball tampering and completely slam another for ball tampering even though the teams receiving the warnings were caught red handed while the one getting slammed has not actually been found definitively guilty. 

With respect to Brady not giving up his phone I have been confronted with the same situation except before the days of cell phones.  Back in 1992 I was involved in a court proceeding involving the Branch Davidian cult.  This was before the siege and therefore before the cult burst into public prominence.  The court proceeding was in family court and involved trying to get a little girl out of the cult.  I accused the cult of some really bad things and they exercised their right to defend themselves in court.  When I left the cult they had stolen a computer of mine on which I had written down some private philosophical musings in the form of notes.  I never distributed them because they were notes made to jog my memory should I ever get back to musing on those subjects.  This meant the notes were very disjointed to anyone else reading them, but made perfect sense to me.  This is why they were private.

When I was on the witness stand the lawyer for the Branch Davidian member brought these notes to light.  He read some passages and because they were disjointed to him and everyone else, accused me of taking drugs and being mentally unstable, and along with everything else evil about me according to the lawyer, this meant my testimony was worthless.  The lawyer did exactly what he should do in a court case.  He was a very good lawyer doing his job.  Never mind the documents were from a stolen computer and never mind the documents were private and meant only for myself.  In fact, the document represented thoughts which I did not necessarily actually agree with.  I was brainstorming as it were.  And somehow that was turned into me being on drugs and a crazy mentally unstable person.

But because this happened in a court room, the lawyer representing the plaintiff, for whom I was a witness, along with myself, was able to counter the arguments.  I was able to explain the context.  The judge accepted my interpretation and, in fact, called both lawyers to the bench and told the Branch Davidian lawyer his use of such tactics was irrelevant to the case.  That is when I knew we were going to win and the little girl in question would escape the cult. 

This happened in the days before social media and also before anyone knew of the cult.  IF this trial had happened a year later, the public might well have seen what the lawyer tried to use against me.  And the public would have jumped to all manner of conclusions. 

My point is, even if you think Brady is guilty, he was under no obligation to release private material to anyone.  He had every legal right not to do so and given his public prominence and what must have been his feeling of a witch hunt, I perfectly understand why he chose this course.  I understand that too many in the public Brady looks guilty for withholding this information.  In a legal proceeding, Brady would have had no choice.  But had he released his phone records to Wells, he would have been at their mercy and at the mercy of public opinion.  Brady would not have had his day in court so to speak.

Of course it is entirely possible Brady was guilty and he withheld the records precisely because they would prove his guilt.  But we don’t know this for certain.  It is equally possible Brady chose not to subject himself to false interpretations.  If a non binding investigative team had asked me to release all my computer files there is no way in hell I would have done so because I knew people reading some of the stuff on my computer would jump to the wrong conclusion.

We have a big problem in our society.  That problem is we think too highly of social media.  We pay too much attention to tweets and text messages without knowing the full context.  We pass judgments based on insufficient information despite the fact we live in an information age.  You can have lots of information and misinterpret it.  As someone once said “Logic is a systematic method of coming to the wrong conclusion with confidence.”  ( I wish I knew the author of this quotation).  It’s not that social media is wrong.  The problem is social media gives us the false illusion we know and understand a subject well.  In some cases, we might, but in many cases, we do not.  The above quote could as easily be reworded as “Social media is a communications phenomenon which facilitates coming to the wrong conclusion with confidence.”

It is clear to me the NFL paid attention to all those tweets and all those talking heads and meted out a punishment based on those things, and not on the merits of the case.  Brady is punished for exercising his legal rights.  The Patriots are punished harshly even though the report says they were innocent.  And the Patriots are being punished far more harshly than other teams who were definitively found guilty of cheating.  In what possible way is this fair?  The NFL needs to get its own house in order when it comes to meeting out discipline and not care about what’s out there on social media.

One might argue that a corporation has the right to protect its brand.  Yes they do, but we are talking about peoples’ reputation and livelihood here.  Brady can afford to go without four weeks of pay but can the equipment staff?  The NFL’s Mickey Mouse methodology for meeting out punishments is damaging to individuals and does not pay any attention to their legal rights.  And that is something they do not have the right to do.