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I think it's a huge stain on Brady's legacy. Especially since he didn't cooperate at all with the investigation.

@Mamasig: Several teams in the NFL have had players openly admit that it's common practice for quarterbacks to alter the balls.

@Ra: agree with you 10000%.
I am all for punishing the Pats for cheating (and I am a Patriots fan), but the nfl needs to get their priorities in order.

I'm not originally from Boston but I live here now. Honestly, Patriots fans are worse than Yankees fans. They're so entitled and self righteous. They deserve every single sanction IMO.

@mrbee: I agree. I think its easier for the NFL to deal with something that happens on the field vs. off the field.

I think the punishment is more than fair and was a little surprised that's all it was. In all honestly I couldn't really care less about Tom Brady or football in general, but I do love all of the ball/deflated ball jokes that are coming out of this

New England girl here, born and raised, huge Pats fan. I grew up watching the Patriots with my Dad and rooting for our underdog team, and clearly remember the game when a young Brady stepped in and began his legacy. He earned his success with hard work ethic, and I am a proud fan to have watched him do it over the years. So I actually don't think it's self-righteousness that fans are exhibiting, I think it's feeling like we finally got a couple of wins under our belt after years of sticking with the underdog despite the seasonal heartache. Boston fans get pretty passionate about their home teams. It's one of the reasons I love the city.

Don't get me wrong, cheating shouldn't be tolerated and the NFL should respond swiftly, and I'm disappointed that Brady would risk ruining the hard work he put into his career with something stupid like a deflated ball. BUT... I do think these sanctions over air pressure are overly harsh on purpose, to prove that the NFL is now cracking down on bad behavior and Brady is any easy target because, well haters gonna hate.

So what I'll probably tell my future LO when we bring him/her to games: true success is earned, you should give your all and be proud of your accomplishments - but any cheating (at all) can hurt that success forever.

I'm a Bostonian through and through and I'm all for punishing cheating but what irks me about this situation is the following:
1. The report reads "It is more probable than not that Tom Brady was at least generally aware of the inappropriate activities". That is such a wishy-washy statement. "More probable than not" still means "we don't really know if he knew".

2. The rest of the country loves to hate the Patriots for being so successful and this (plus the spygate thing) has really felt like a witch hunt to me. I get the sense from statements that other NFL players have made that there is lots of shadiness going on with other teams too, but they are just not scrutinized as heavily.

3. What @Ra said. Punishment in the NFL seems arbitrary at best.

That being said, I'm super mad at Brady and the Pats too if they did know about it (and it seems likely at least someone did, even if it wasn't Brady). Their legacy is forever tarnished by this. This has been such an incredible run for our team (I remember the years when the Pats were terrible) and *most* of it was great coaching and great playing, but these scandals will be the thing everyone remembers. I would definitely not contribute to paying their fine.

@mrbee: you're right, any cheating diminishes prior wins. But should it discount them completely? At the end of the day Brady is a fantastic player and we can't forget our defense (Wilfork! I love you!). One bad judgment call that probably didn't seem like a big deal at the time and now all of Patriots nation is getting absolutely slammed. There really is no excuse for cheating, just feels like it's being blown way out of proportion to make a point.

@catlady: Yup. I'm with ya.

@catlady: If he's texting with team personnel from his personal phone, then he kind of opened that door himself! Anyway I think his lack of cooperation was a factor in the penalty received, and why he was singled out in the report.

Ha! This had me curious, so I just followed up with DH about his opinion... He has convinced me that the punishment is too harsh, the case against Tom Brady has not been proven, and this is a witch hunt, and any punishment given has been an attempt to appease the public (which generally dislikes the Patriots).

One example he used is that Aaron Rogers came out and said he likes the balls overinflated, yet no one seems to care about that enough to open an investigation as to whether he has tested the limits on that. Also, just because Brady wouldn’t turn over his texts doesn’t prove guilt. There is possibly a lot of texts (unrelated to this) that he wouldn’t want the public to see because it could possibly tarnish his image (locker room talk, etc.).

I think I will be tarred and feathered on the Boston Common for saying anything negative about Tom Brady in a public forum but I'm all about being honest. Throughout the whole investigation TB said he had no preference and didn't know anything about it and then clips from interviews were played about how he preferred the balls, etc, and had them prepared for him. He said he couldn't tell the difference. Then the cell phone thing...

I'm more of a Gronk girl : http://www.boston.com/sports/football/patriots/2015/05/12/how-talk-gronk-about-deflategate/LrOzkT2qdvvzIwoIKtmKiM/story.html

@Truth Bombs: Just curious if you think he for sure even broke the rules? At halftime is when the PSI of the balls were tested, and they fell below regs. But it was cold outside, so they conceivably could have started the game right at the low end of the range...

Cowboys fan here. I think the penalty is totally unfair to Brady, they couldn't prove he knew anything, from everything I've heard it was that 'he most likely should have known' ehhh, innocent until proven guilty or not. That said the team penalty is fair to me, it was a team issue.

@RLCeigh: I think he should've said all along that he prefers them on the low end of the regulation limit. Instead of saying, "I have no idea, I can't tell the difference", etc. That just made him look bad. IMO

@Truth Bombs: Understand, and he may have, but I am questioning whether the halftime PSIs actually prove that, as they weren't *that* far below limits, although I am not sure whether there are studies about how much PSI a ball should lose in X temperature in X amount of time? I guess I am going with the innocent until proven guilty thing here and I am not sure anything has been proven in regards to Tom Brady...

@jetsa: Interesting. That to me says a little more that he knew, but still not definitively (agree with what you said above). I understand that people have way differing opinions on this though... It is certainly an interesting debate.

@Truth Bombs: I am not 100% educated on the story, and those seem to be fair points. In fact, those are the best points I have heard (as the actual PSI of the ball and the texts things don't really prove anything to me, and the fact that rules are not applied consistently across the league turns this into more of a witch hunt for me).

I am going to use that one with DH though . I actually kept arguing against him, but he is following the story very closely, so keeps bringing me around to the side of the Patriots and Tom Brady based on his wealth of knowledge on it... Don't know if his mind can be changed, but I am curious as to what he might say about this LOL!