While some people feel that it is laughable that we are still talking about the amount of air pressure in a football, others like Troy Aikman feel the issue is not being taken seriously enough.
During his weekly appearance on SportsRadio 1310 AM in Dallas on Thursday, Aikman came down hard on the New England Patriots and, more specifically, Tom Brady. While NFL rules call for a minimum of a $25,000 fine, Aikman believes that would not be close to harsh enough.
“This whole comment by Roger Goodell based on the Saints when Sean Payton got suspended for the year (for Bountygate), and he says ‘ignorance is no excuse,’ that’s going to come back to haunt him again,” Aikman said, as transcribed by The Dallas Morning News. “That haunted him during the whole Ray Rice situation and now it’s going to haunt Roger Goodell in terms of what the punishment is for the New England Patriots and Bill Belichick. If ignorance is no excuse, and it wasn’t for Sean Payton.”
Aikman believes the Patriots’ latest alleged offense is worse than setting bounties on opposing players, mainly because they cheated. While the Saints didn’t technically cheat, there is audio that proves at least one of their coaches encouraged players to throw cheap shots at opponents.
One issue deals with the integrity of the game. The other deals with player safety. Aikman seems to think the former is more important.
“Now twice, under Bill Belichick and possibly a third time, they’ve cheated and given themselves an advantage,” he said. “To me, the punishment for the Patriots and/or Bill Belichick has to be more severe than what the punishment was for the New Orleans Saints.”
Aikman made his comments before Belichick came out and denied having any knowledge of footballs being under-inflated. Judging by what Aikman said about Brady, he likely believes Belichick.
“It’s obvious that Tom Brady had something to do with this,” he said. “I know going back to when I played, they’ve loosened up the rules in terms of what each team is able to do with the footballs coming into the game. Used to, the home team provided all the balls. And now, each team brings their footballs the way they like them and break ’em in. Used to you couldn’t break them in. So for the balls to be deflated, that doesn’t happen unless the quarterback wants that to happen, I can assure you of that. Now the question becomes did Bill Belichick know about it.”
Aikman isn’t the only former NFL quarterback who feels that Brady needs to shoulder most of the blame. Belichick has a reputation for cheating because of Spygate, but it’s not difficult to believe that he knew nothing about the air pressure in Brady’s game balls.
As for whether the Patriots should be punished worse than the Saints, I don’t agree with that. Even if there was no proof in either instance, threatening the safety of opponents seems like a more severe infraction.
