May 11, 2015: Deflategate

May 11, 2015: The New England Patriots became the 1st major league sports team ever to break the power of its league's Commissioner.

The Pats had already flouted the law before, with "Sypgate." Surely, quarterback Tom Brady had benefited from the cheating of his head coach, Bill Belichick. But when "Deflategate" happened, it appeared to be only on Brady, not Belichick.

On January 18, 2015, the AFC Championship Game was played, at Patriots' home field, Gillette Stadium, in the Boston suburb of Foxborough, Massachusetts. The game was no contest: The Pats won, 45-7. So any accusation of cheating seemed petty. (Of course, they went on to win Super Bowl XLIX, beating the Seattle Seahawks because coach Pete Carroll called a pass on 3rd & goal at the 1.)

But after the game, claims emerged that the Patriots had used under-inflated footballs, presumably to Brady's advantage. The results of the NFL's investigation, and possible sanctions against the Patriots, concluded on May 11, with Commissioner Roger Goodell suspending Brady for the 1st 4 games of the 2015 season, and the Patriots forfeiting their 1st and 4th round draft picks in the 2016 and 2017 NFL Drafts, respectively.

Four games, for cheating your way into the Super Bowl. That day, I wrote the following on Facebook:

Roger Goodell is a coward. Four games was the absolute minimum he could have given Tom Brady and still looked like he was doing his job.

In college football, we've seen teams stripped of conference and even national championships, and made ineligible for subsequent ones, for cheating to win them.

I expected milquetoast reactions toward cheating teams, coaches and players from Bud Selig (ex-MLB), David Stern (ex-NBA) and Gary Bettman (still making a mockery of the NHL). The NFL is supposed to be different. The NFL is a league where you get a big fine if you so much as wear your socks wrong. But cheat to win a championship, and you get FOUR GAMES? Where's Kenesaw Mountain Landis when you need him?

It's like I said the other day, when the Rangers got caught by the cameras, but not the officials, with too many men on the ice for a key goal: What's the point of having a rule if you're not going enforce it when you've got proof it's been broken? Especially when you consider who the Pats beat: Pete Carroll, who had a national championship taken away for cheating. Since when are a bunch of college presidents more dangerous to cross than the commissioner of the National Football League?

It got worse. On May 14, the players' union, the National Football League Players Association (NFLPA), filed an appeal on Brady's behalf. That's understandable: The union has to stand up for its players as best it can. On May 26, Patriots fans held a "Free Brady" rally at Gillette Stadium. This was also understandable: Fans do tend to stand up to their players when they believe their players have been wronged. But it was unacceptable: It meant that Pats fans were okay with cheating.

On June 23, Brady appealed his suspension before Goodell at the NFL office in New York. On July 28, Goodell announced that the 4-game suspension would stand. On July 29, the NFLPA announced that it had filed an injunction that would prevent the NFL from enforcing the suspension.

On September 3, just 7 days before the start of the Patriots' regular season, Judge Richard M. Berman overturned Brady's suspension, citing a lack of fair due process for him. The NFL announced that it would appeal the decision. Until it was decided, Brady could play. Brady played the entire 2015 regular season, and he got the Patriots into the AFC Championship Game, which they lost to the Denver Broncos.

On April 25, 2016, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reinstated Brady's 4-game suspension, starting with the start of the 2016 regular season. With Jimmy Garoppolo as quarterback, the Pats won their 1st 3 games, before losing their 4th. Then Brady came back, and they finished 14-2, and won Super Bowl LI.

So the suspension ended up being meaningless: It was minor; it got delayed; the Patriots won a Super Bowl, anyway; and it all combined to make Goodell look like the weakest Commissioner in memory in any sport.

It also deepened the message sent by other sports: Cheating is okay if a New England team does it.

Now, you can argue that the Patriots would have won those games anyway. But think of it this way: We have more investigated-and-proven instances of Belichick and/or Brady cheating, and the other benefiting from that cheating, than we have investigated-and-proven instances of them not cheating. So which is more likely: That these were the only times they cheated, or that they cheated in many more games?

UPDATE: On February 16, 2024, it was announced that Garoppolo, by then with the Las Vegas Raiders, would miss the 1st 2 games of the next season, for violating the NFL's performance-enhancing drug policy.

Brady's backup, caught cheating. Gee, what a surprise. And yet, Brady's suspension for stealing a Super Bowl berth, and thus also the Super Bowl win, was only twice as long as Garoppolo's suspension for PEDs. Where's the fairness? I stand by everything I wrote in 2015, and I stand by what I wrote in this update.

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May 11, 2015 was a Monday. Football was out of season. The Stanley Cup Playoffs were underway, but no games were scheduled. There were 2 games in the NBA Playoffs. The Atlanta Hawks beat the Washington Wizards, 106-101 at the Verizon Center (now the Capital One Arena) in Washington. And the Golden State Warriors beat the Memphis Grizzlies, 101-84 at the FedEx Forum in Memphis.

And these 10 Major League Baseball games were played:

* The New York Yankees beat the Tampa Bay Rays, 11-5 at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida. It was CC Sabathia's 1st win of the season, after losing his 1st 5 decisions. He was supported by home runs from Alex Rodriguez, Chase Headley, Carlos Beltrán, Brett Gardner and Mark Teixeira.

* The New York Mets lost to the Chicago Cubs, 4-3 at Wrigley Field in Chicago. Jon Lester was the winning pitcher. Jacob deGrom only lasted 5 innings.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 4-3 at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia.

* The Baltimore Orioles beat the Toronto Blue Jays, 5-2 at Camden Yards in Baltimore.

* The Atlanta Braves beat the Cincinnati Reds, 2-1 at Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati.

* The Milwaukee Brewers beat the Chicago White Sox, 10-7 at Miller Park (now American Family Field) in Milwaukee.

* The Texas Rangers beat the Kansas City Royals, 8-2 at Globe Life Park (now Choctaw Stadium) in the Dallas suburb of Arlington, Texas.

* The Washington Nationals beat the Arizona Diamondbacks, 11-1 at Chase Field in Phoenix.

* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Miami Marlins, 5-3 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.

* And the Boston Red Sox beat the Oakland Athletics, 5-4 at the Oakland Coliseum (then named the O.co Coliseum). Pablo Sandoval was a bust signing for the BoSox, but he won this game with a home run leading off the top of the 11th inning.