If you are feeling a bit melancholy that this story will disappear into the aether anytime soon, take heart, the scandal is set to continue percolating in the headlines for many months to come. After the allegations against one Tom Brady came to light, the league ordered an independent investigation to look into the matter. The investigation concluded that Brady pretty clearly directed his folks to take the game balls approved by the NFL officials and to deflate them. The point is that Brady wanted to gain a competitive advantage because he believes that softer footballs are easier to handle so he took a path to make sure that he got what he wanted.
At this point, pretty much everyone, you, me, the American people, believes that Tom Brady cheated and was caught red-handed. However, when the results of the independent investigation were released and the NFL handed down its punishment, immediately Brady and the management of his team began releasing a ton of propaganda to muddy the waters, to becloud the facts, and to deflect criticism from their star. They then began filing legal paperwork against the league and pretty much anyone who had ever cheered against their team. This whole chain of response with PR folks and lawyers is a rote reaction of everyone with money and power who has been caught with their hand in the cookie jar. Attack, counter-attack, spin, parry, dodge. It is such a tired, threadbare approach that is taken regardless of how guilty their clients are. The man is guilty of cheating, but with the antics, strategies, and schemes of an entire cadre of suits behind him, they will play their games, and millions of dollars will change hands, and the white noise of wasted energy will rise to a crescendo, and nothing worthwhile or the least bit productive will ever come from any of this nonsense. By the end of this whole pantomime you will likely even forget what this was all about in the first place.
