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Tom Brady suspended: What an Ohio State Buckeye fan thinks about it

By Austin Layton

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It’s awesome!

I am so happy to see Tom Brady and the seemingly untouchable New England Patriots get hit with some punishment. Sure, deflating footballs isn’t the worst thing that you could do, but it is cheating.

For those who live under a rock, here is what went down: Tom Brady was suspended by the National Football League in large part for his role in Deflategate. Brady will miss the first four games of the 2015 season, and will be unpaid for each and every one of those four games. The Patriots were fined one million dollars and have also been docked two draft picks. Last week a report filed by investigator Ted Wells claimed that it was “more probable than not” the Patriots and Brady had involvement in the incident. The NFL seems to think it’s pretty darn probable as well.

As most Buckeye fans already know, Tom Brady went to the University of Michigan, and that’s more probable than not most of the fuel to my fire. But he also has a reputation of being a pretty-boy who dates supermodels and can seemingly do no wrong.

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His team, the New England Patriots, are routinely in the news winning, but also for being close to crossing the line of cheating. In 2007 they were caught videotaping the coaches of opposing teams and allegedly stealing signals. It was known as Spygate, and was the beginning of the skepticism towards New England, head coach Bill Belichick and by association, Tom Brady.

Brady is regarded as being one of the top quarterbacks in NFL history, and I won’t debate that. He has been highly successful; winning four Super Bowls and being named the Most Valuable Player of three. He is also a two-time NFL MVP.

The Patriots won the Super Bowl last season, and the question has to be asked, should Brady have even been eligible to play? He is in trouble for deflating the footballs in the game in which the Pats won to get to the Super Bowl, so it is a legitimate question. Obviously any form of investigation would not be completed within that week, but I will be curious to see if anyone else thinks that victory should be tarnished.

For comparison, when Terrelle Pryor, Jim Tressel and the boys were punished for Tattoo-Gate, they were stripped of not only their Sugar Bowl victory against Arkansas, but also each win from the regular season. Five Ohio State Buckeyes were suspended for the first five games of the following season.

All of this was not for cheating on the field, or even on their homework, but for selling their hard-earned memorabilia for tattoos. Tom Brady? He had a hand (no pun intended) in modifying an official game ball in an illegal way, and then refused to cooperate in the resulting investigation.

His unwillingness to assist in the investigation is seemingly what got Brady in the most trouble. From NFL Executive President Troy Vincent’s letter to Brady:

"“With respect to your particular involvement, the report established that there is substantial and credible evidence to conclude you were at least generally aware of the actions of the Patriots’ employees involved in the deflation of the footballs and that it was unlikely that their actions were done without your knowledge. Moreover, the report documents your failure to cooperate fully and candidly with the investigation, including by refusing to produce any relevant electronic evidence (emails, texts, etc.), despite being offered extraordinary safeguards by the investigators to protect unrelated personal information, and by providing testimony that the report concludes was not plausible and contradicted by other evidence.Your actions as set forth in the report clearly constitute conduct detrimental to the integrity of and public confidence in the game of professional football. The integrity of the game is of paramount importance to everyone in our league, and requires unshakable commitment to fairness and compliance with the playing rules. Each player, no matter how accomplished and otherwise respected, has an obligation to comply with the rules and must be held accountable for his actions when those rules are violated and the public’s confidence in the game is called into question.”"

See you in week five, Tommy Boy.

Next: Buckeye Brunch: Cardale Jones and Twitter

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