Brady and Hillary Share Deleted E-Message Legacies

Tom Brady is the Hillary Clinton of the National Football League. Hillary Clinton is the Tom Brady of politics.

Regardless of what you think about them, both have stellar resumes. Millions adore them. Yet both have sizable portions of the population that abhor and despise them. Their detractors won’t believe a word they say. And they now share legacies of deep-sixing sought-after electronic messages that could implicate them, or vindicate them, in scandal. 

Politics in the United States has been steeped in conspiracy theories, probably going back at least to Aaron Burr and the unsuccessful attempt to convict the former vice president of the United States of treason in the early 1800s. There indeed was a conspiracy, a partially successful conspiracy, to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln and members of his cabinet. Never proven were innuendos that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt knew in advance about Japan’s plans to attack Pearl Harbor but let it proceed as a pretext to enter World War II against Japan and Germany. Nor were conspiracy theories proven for the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. 

Richard Nixon’s Watergate conspiracy engendered numerous other “-gate” investigations, two of which involved two more Republican presidents—Ronald Reagan’s Iran-Contra affair and George W. Bush’s weapons of mass destruction in Iraq hoax. Lots of investigations into Bill Clinton’s presidency produced no tangible conspiracy. Hillary’s actions before, during and after the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi remain an open festering wound Republicans continue to investigate as a means to derail her presidential bid.

So what do I think about Hillary and Brady? Nothing so far has swayed my belief she is the best announced Democratic candidate. Yes, she showed hasty judgment in deleting all of her emails. But aside from fostering more conspiracy theories, many of which have been dispelled by Republican-led Congressional inquiries, Hillary’s main challenge is weathering the years-long assault on her character the GOP has waged. Such is the life of a frontrunner.  

With four Super Bowl rings, Brady, as well, is a leader. His image is now tarnished. But I will say that tinkering with equipment, as Brady is alleged to have done in Deflategate, is not unusual in almost all sports. Jerry Rice, considered the best receiver in football history, admitted to putting stickum on his gloves to aid in catching passes. Hockey goalies have been known to dress in leg pads wider than permitted, while their teammates try to bend the rules by curving their stick blades beyond the legal limit. Returning to football, linemen swab their uniforms with Vaseline so their opponents can’t grab them easily. Vaseline also was a favored tool of baseball pitchers hoping to influence the flight of a ball, while batters corked their bats to hit it further. 

Did Brady have his minions on the New England Patriots take the air out of balls used in the team’s 45-7 victory in the AFC Championship game? Who knows? What we do know is that in the second half, in driving rain, after the referees inserted properly inflated balls, Brady scorched the Indianapolis Colts with 28 points compared to scoring 17 points in the first half using under-inflated balls. 

Perhaps a better question to ask is why Brady would think he needed the supposed advantage of under-inflated balls. Probably for the same reason Nixon had the Democratic Party offices bugged in the Watergate Apartments. Because they could and they thought they could get away with it. And no matter how sure you think victory is, they think it’s never wrong to take steps to make sure of that victory. Until, that is, you’re caught. When that happens, it’s wise to remember, it’s not the crime but the coverup that trips you up. 

Look to Becket to Solve Mystery of Deflategate

Finally, a controversy of national, possibly international, import worthy of my sleuthing talents. Finally a brouhaha worthy of, and waiting for, presidential pronouncement, equal to, if not exceeding, previous statements on the absurd rush to arrest a distinguished Afro-American Harvard professor caught in the act of breaking into his Cambridge, Mass., home, arrested merely because said professor was black, or the tragic, possibly fatal, mistakes awaiting Afro-American young men encountered by police. 

Yes, we now have a cliffhanger of a crime that defies explanation and threatens to upstage the NFL's Super Bowl party. Deflategate. How could 11 of 12 properly inflated footballs each lose two pounds of pressure per square inch from the moment two hours and fifteen minutes before game time that the officials handed the balls over to the New England Patriots till half time of their conference championship game against the Indianapolis Colts when the refs re-measured the pressure inside the balls?

Who did it? We don’t know. We know the why. Patriots quarterback Tom Brady is on record as saying he prefers underinflated balls. Brady denies any involvement in the deflation scandal. So does coach Bill Belichick.

It’s too much of a coincidence to believe all but one ball lost air pressure naturally without the aid of knowing hands and a small air pin.

The mischievous, illegal deed had virtually no impact on the game—New England handily won 45-7. In the first half, using soft balls, Brady’s bunch scored 17 points. In the second half, with regulation balls back in play, Brady engineered 28 more points. Go figure.

But who did it? We can’t go to the videotape, or maybe we can if the perp did it on the sidelines. Surely a camera must have caught the pigskin paring. Probably a long shot at best, however. 

Instead of the videotape, let’s go to the movies (or stage play) of…Becket, a dramatic presentation of the war of wills between former best friends King Henry II of England and Thomas Becket, archbishop of Canterbury. Frustrated that Becket continuously thwarted his designs, Henry voiced out loud his exasperation. “Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?,” Henry is said to have uttered. Four well-intentioned knights, patriots all, took it upon themselves to commit murder in the cathedral, a crime for which Henry took the blame and some punishment, though not excommunication. 

So here’s my theory—knowing Brady’s preference for underinflated balls, someone, or some few, on the Patriots’ equipment squad took it upon themselves to let the air out of the balls. For all we know, this practice could have been standard procedure before all games this season and many a season prior. No one was the wiser until the cheating was discovered during the conference championship game. 

Will we ever find out who did it? Doubtful. Will Belichick and Brady be punished? Maybe the coach will be suspended for a few games next season, as he is the person ultimately responsible for everything football related. Brady will walk away with no penalty other than a cloud over his once hallowed reputation.