National Football League

It's a mad, mad world, and that's why Tom Brady's punishment is right

Published May. 11, 2015 10:12 p.m. ET

share

facebookxredditlink

foxsports

Tom Brady can wipe that smile from his face for at least four games. And maybe the rest of us can wear it, and enjoy it, for just a while.

Finally, in a society filled with so many who operate as if the rules were written for lesser beings, one of the Smug Ones was given a moment of sober reality. Finally, an apparent cheater caught red-handed. A man so content with himself and, to my eye, contemptuous enough of the rest of us to think his good looks and easy ways would be enough got a very rude awakening.

That a dose of reality came from a commissioner not often heaped in praise is incidental. In suspending Brady for four games for his role in Deflategate, fining the Patriots $1 million and forcing the team to forfeit its 2016 first-round and 2017 fourth-round draft picks, Roger Goodell served notice: Sometimes, even the brightest star shielded by the thickest layers of protectors gets his comeuppance.

This is good news, despite the outcry that the punishment was excessive.

Brady cheated, more probably than not. He lied, the evidence says. He threw low-level guys who helped him under the bus, it says. He refused to cooperate with the NFL's investigation, also a no-no. The trail of text messages ferreted out by the Wells report between Patriots employees Jim McNally, the officials' locker room attendant, and John Jastremski, a team equipment assistant, may be incomplete. But it's also damning.

For me, sports are a way to make sense of bigger facts at play around us. They can and should reflect deeper, more important things in our culture. And this story hones in on a tendency for liars -- big or small -- to feel comfortable there will be little punishment meted out. Because too few of us give a damn.

We live in a time and place where our police officers gun down the unarmed. Where politicians on both sides of the blue-red divide pander to the worst parts of their bases. Where those who lie -- in ways important or not, in ways that enact great injustices or simply daily wrongs -- go unpunished. The least we can do, when we catch one of those liars, is not pretend he is somehow worthy of our praise or that those who caught him or condemn him are somehow the bad guys.

It's our insouciance, as much as anything, that we can adjust here.

Is it any wonder we feel shame being self-righteous or angry or loud on behalf of some wrong? The word "troll" is thrown out to stop "negativity" in its tracks. Cheating itself is explained away as some silly overreaction (it's like scuffing a baseball!) with no mind paid to the elaborate lengths the accused went to in order to, you know, cheat in the first place.

Well, the story of the NFL right now is that the greatest quarterback it ever produced (as he is, or was, at least by my estimation) didn't just cheat. He threw some low-level guys under the bus. He assumed you and I were dumb enough not to find out, or care, or dare to punish him. He hurt a game his organization had already been accused of damaging, because winning and legacy and whatever drives Tom Brady was more important than anything. Including the idea that there is right and wrong, even in sports.

The Wells report unleashed on Tom Brady some truth, and Goodell, forced or otherwise, followed suit. The letter sent from NFL Executive Vice President Troy Vincent to the Patriots included particular focus on a pattern of these very things, including Brady's refusal to cooperate.

Among its excerpts:

"... the refusal by the club's attorneys to make Mr. McNally available for an additional interview, despite numerous requests by Mr. Wells and a cautionary note in writing of the club's obligation to cooperate in the investigation. The ... the failure of Tom Brady to produce any electronic evidence (emails, texts, etc.), despite being offered extraordinary safeguards by the investigators to protect unrelated personal information ... Finally, it is significant that key witnesses -- Mr. Brady, Mr. Jastremski, and Mr. McNally -- were not fully candid during the investigation."

I get it. People want to move on. Want to point out this is simply overblown. Want it to be about football, and only football. In that context, then Brady gave the NFL little choice. Faced with limited evidence, Brady played dumb, stonewalled, failed to cooperate, and then seemed to taunt all of us -- Goodell included -- with a lack of remorse during his talk with Jim Gray.

In the face of that, at least, the rest of us, like Brady last week when he sat on that stage, should flash our pearly whites. A probable liar got caught and punished, and in a time where that happens all too rarely in things more important than football it is, at least, a good start.

Bill Reiter is a panelist on FOX Sports Live and columnist for FOXSports.com.

share

Get more from National Football League Follow your favorites to get information about games, news and more

in this topic

National Football League