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The league and press are latching onto this story because it draws more attention to the SB... and frankly draws attention away from some of the other shortcomings of Goodell and the league.
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The League wanted no part of this. This has been the worst season from a public relations standpoint that the NFL has endured in years, IMO. Yet the Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson issues had finally died down. There were wild rumors about Rice being signed late by Pittsburgh to help with RB depth during the playoff chase, and coach Zimmer openly stated that he wants and expects AP to be a big part of the Vikings offense next year– in both cases the public outrage in these stories was long gone. The recent controversial endings to the Dallas/Detroit and Green Bay/Dallas games had also been an embarrassment or at least sore spot for the NFL, yet it looked like those were overcome. Now this– no way Goodell and company are happy about it, and if anything, it puts unwanted attention back on them.
Regardless of whether you think it is a major rules violation, it is a straightforward violation nonetheless, and a slap in the face of league authority. And as often happens, I believe the coverup will be worse than the crime. The Pats should have hunkered down with no comment through this week and then ducked the questions next week on the theory that we were preparing for the big game. The proper response, IMO, would be no press conference but just a simple release saying they were aware of these irregularities with the footballs and would cooperate fully with NFL investigators when questioned about it. The wink-wink of that scenario would be that Goodell would not get around to or at least would not complete his “full investigation” until after the Super Bowl, so any penalty would await next year and the overall fervor would die down. They may get that same result anyway–you heard Brady say yesterday that the league has not even questioned him about it yet– but those press conferences, especially Brady’s, bring their own harm and bad publicity and did little or nothing to calm the situation.