So, let me see if I have this right? The New England Patriots took air out of the balls in order to cause a traffic jam at the George Washington Bridge. Oh wait, I am mixing up Deflategate with Bridgegate. The NFL just released its report and while it’s “probable” that the Patriots equipment personnel took air out of the game balls, there is no smoking pin. SU may be on the wrong side of this but I just cannot get too excited over this. I know the golfers out there will be outraged as they play by a thousand specific rules and police themselves on the course (I guess be careful if you play with an NFL player). The baseball players will just yawn as MLB stars have been taking PEDs for years and before this era you had catchers and pitchers scuffing balls and hitters corking bats. In hockey, they curve their sticks a little extra. In tennis, they try and put a few extra dimples on their sneakers to play at Wimbledon for better traction. Basketball is harder – not a lot of equipment other than the ball. No doubt there will be suspensions for Brady and the equipment guys and by the way, once again you really shouldn’t use email to communicate with one another about how you are going to circumvent the rules.
Many in the SU universe will say that the integrity of the game has been damaged and that this is a gross violation. SU says that in every sport, players and coaches are constantly looking to gain advantage and that they push the rules to the limit and beyond in doing so.
Do you agree? What say you? Or will you leave SU talking to myself?
Sports Update Intergalactic 
First of all, it is a big deal. It probably wasn’t isolated. And it tarnishes the legacy of an amazingly successful team, coach and player. Brady’s lies don’t look good, particularly when he said he couldn’t tell the difference when a ball had less pressure. If so, why was he one of the players who asked the league to allow for customized pressures in the first place?
Regarding the “integrity of the game” this is different from messing around with your tennis shoes or hockey stick or even pine tar. They may all be cheating but to me there’s a difference between personal equipment and common equipment. The ball is in play. It is key to everything that happens. Allowing QBs to tailor the ball pressure (within a specified range) is a silly rule that highlights the NFL’s emphasis on entertainment over competition. (The same could be said about not wrapping up this investigation before the Super Bowl…they simply couldn’t have a bump in the road on the way up to the big game.) But it’s a rule where the NFL caved to diva QBs with the justification that more offense is more exciting but they still realized that there should be some limits on the range and Brady et al pushed it further.
Finally, the QBs asked for flexibility here because they knew that they could perform better with the balls inflated to a certain pressure. Brady went over the line. The QBs should loose this privilege. Everyone should use the same ball at a standard pressure. Kickers should use that ball too.
I like the passion! Good points on the QBs’ demands. Basketball, football, hockey, tennis, baseball all use the same ball but only football allows a team to mix and match the balls.
SU, as usual, you are right about this one. Why each team doesn’t use the same balls like every other sport is absurd. But, even though this is wrong in terms of violating rules and then lying about it, how is this really relevant if the Pats scored a bunch of touchdowns in the second half with the kosher balls, not the “soft” balls? Change the rules so that there is one set of balls for both teams, whether they’re soft or hard! This is ridiculous!
Somehow the NFL will let quarterbacks bring their own balls but not their own headphones: http://recode.net/2014/10/04/nfl-bans-beats-headphones-on-camera/
The only way to solve this would be to get some group to pony up a couple $million to make 12 psi the “Official Ball Pressure of the NFL.”
I must say that I have been struck by the tone of the various columns on Deflategate today. They are all universally calling for severe suspensions (Ian O’Connor expects 4 games). One game ball sounds about right to me and I love having a Ball Pressure sponsor. Maybe SU will pony up the money to get on the sports map!