#DeflateGate Week 2

   The wrinkles on Bill Belichick's forehead are screaming "you've got to be kidding me"! His brain is smoldering inside knowing he is again in front of the media talking footballs and air or the lack there of.  His teeth are gnashed as he rugurgitates some blah blah about conditions of the room where the balls were inflated as opposed to the... WHO CARES!  Billy doesn't.  And he is stone cold TICKED he has to keep talking about this garbage.  But he should look on the bright side, and so should the NFL.
     If Bill Belichick presser about the pre-game handling of balls is leading my Sunday morning Sportscenter ONE WEEK after the Patriots serial murdered the Colts imagine for a second what the sports landscape would be like this week leading up to the Superbowl if the Colts had actually showed up.  What furor would hang over this week had the Colts lost by 3, or 4, or 7.  What if the narrative was that this level of cheating had actually had changed the outcome of the game?  How would the NFL deal with yet another colossal black eye in this season? How would Belichick fare through a scandal like this if it mattered?
      There is already a percentage of the football watching public that will not be convinced that the Patriots were not intentionally cheating, AGAIN! With just cause the number of people who believe that New England's success, at least in some part, is due to video tape and grippable balls and what ever myriad of other ways to cheat that they haven't been caught at yet is increasing daily. In this era of social media and fan involvement the Patriots legacy has already been tainted in a way that won't ever go away. Imagine the venom if it was perceived that the evil dynasty had actually stolen an AFC Championship Game. 
      "The Patriot Way" would be an immense national punch line, even more so that it is already (see Aaron Hernandez). It is already defined as doing anything, and they mean anything, necessary to win.  Sort of the embodiment of what much of the nation views the northeast to be: ultra greedy, ultra powerful, dynastic, big business types that love to chomp up and spit out inferior "little guys".  Tom Brady, your thrown in there too.  Everyone knows the QB's fondle all the balls pre-game and pick out their 12 best.  Had this scandal truly blown up Brady might not have gone down as the orchestra leader but he'd be first chair violin I guarantee you.  "Poor helpless Colts" America would bemoan.
      King Belichick and his wizardry would truly come into question. And those questions would come from all media.  Is this guy really the coach we all thought he was or is he truly just a mastermind of cheating and ill gotten advantages?  The chant of "they haven't won anything since they quit video taping their opponents walk through's" has become "now they'll even tamper with the balls to win"?  That cry is loud enough now.  If the Colts had a head coach and a game plan capable of winning last Sunday and had made it close this would be the biggest story in all media, not just the sports world.  Even Bill wouldn't be able to "Sling Blade" his way through a press conference like that.
     But the luckiest entity in this whole mess is a tie between the NFL and its' fearless leader.  League HQ should find some secret loophole to give the Colts an extra draft pick or something.  If the Colts do not lose that game in a blowout, if somehow they hang with the Pats, yet came up short in the end and it is subsequently discovered that New England had doctored balls to their advantage to decrease the effects of the weather on their offense the social media verse would have exploded!  That explosion would reverberate through the glass entrance of the NFL offices down the halls and right into Roger Godell's office yet again.  This little deflated ball bruise on the cheek of the NFL could easily have been the knockout blow that Godell couldn't get up from.  Sure Rog would have come down hard on somebody, but how much clear and complete incompetence can the commissioner of the most powerful sport in the country take before the other owners ask him to disappear? The most sacred week of the year on the NFL's corporate calendar would have been COMPLETELY sabotaged, the whole thing.  All the media would be pre-gathered to toss gas on the fire.  A redi-made BBQ of the Pats, Bill, Brady and the ineptness of the league.  Like leadership had set up their own funeral.
    Oh what this week of Super coverage and Super hype could have been.  It would have been fun for a lot of us, and sheer torture for some others.  In fairness the Colts pathetic showing in the AFC Championship has helped reduce this story to what it probably should have been all along, a story that will fade away because it really doesn't mean much.  It had no noticeable effect on the outcome of the NE vs. Indy game.  But in my opinion Bill Belichick and a lot of other folks running the show in the NFL should shut up, answer questions cheerfully and just be happy #DeflateGate isn't completely out of control. Oh, and be sure to thank the Colts.