Quote Originally Posted by pbmax View Post
Sure. Both in terms of the integrity of the game rules and the actual effect on the game. But the generally aware standard plus the inferences made by the texts only hint at Brady's knowledge of tampering after inspection.

Even reading Brady as generally evasive and willfully destroying possible evidence, there is no direct evidence he knew about deflating after the fact.

So you can start an investigation of Rodgers last year, find a number of footballs from low temperature games below 12.5 at halftime (or warm temperature games above 13.5), and suspend him for his comments and failure to turn over texts.

I have no doubt Brady rode his equipment crew like rented mules to get the balls down to the barest minimum they could get away with, just as Rodgers is looking for balloon specs. But the evidence that Brady knew about methods to evade the rules after inspection is sorely lacking.

I would however, on principle, go along with sanctioning Hoody just on general principle. Same with Goodell for destroying the tapes of Hoody's malfeasance.
I see your point, but there still seems to be a substantive diference. In one instance the QB openly explained what was going on and hid nothing. In fact, there seems to be no wrong doing under the rules and he would probably be allowed to continue with the same process.

In the other, there was fraud occurring with cover-up after-the-fact. The inference seems pretty strong to me. I think that had Brady merely thought it was the same situation as Rodgers, this thing would have been over in about 1 day.