Deflategate battle lines prove there’s little middle ground in choosing sides

You tell me where the Deflategate Line of Demarcation was ultimately drawn, because clearly everybody is having one hell of a time finding it.

There’s hardly any measure of even ground in the ongoing coverage of Patriots quarterback Tom Brady’s deflated aura. You’re either with Tom or against him, leading to a suffocating media scrimmage between pitchforks and pom-poms.

Brady’s a cheater. His legacy is tainted!!! Usually followed by an unhealthy frothing at the corners of the mouth. Species found in Indianapolis, Baltimore, and East Rutherford, New Jersey.

Brady’s innocent. Ideal gas law!!! Usually followed by an unintelligible salute to the Pats. Species found in Foxborough, New York City holding cells, and WEEI’s afternoon studio.

Somewhere in the midst of the apex and nadir of the most public scandal to ever plague the NFL, there has got to be some semblance of balance, but nine days after the Wells Report was released, and three days after commissioner Roger Goodell levied his punishments upon Brady and the Patriots, what we seemingly have is a situation where battle lines have been drawn. Come out against the duplicitous NFL for its handling of the Wells Report, and you’re somehow a Patriots toadie. Call out the arrogant Patriots for their refusals to cooperate fully in Ted Wells’ investigation, and you’re labeled little more than a troll.

It doesn’t help when a topic of such originally-benign nature becomes saturated to the point of suffocation. No different than any other media-driven scandal, everybody wants a ride on the Deflategate Express, leaving newsrooms scratching for the next, less-than-great angle, which is how we eventually end up with “How to talk to your cat about Deflategate.”

But truly, even though the fans, media, and particulars involved in this whole mess have chosen sides, nobody looks good here. I’m not sure how any grown adult can still not believe with some inkling that Brady had a part in the process of deflating footballs, and the fact that he and the team insisted on making a big deal out of it.

Patriots owner Bob Kraft seems like someone who should have learned his lesson when Bill Belichick delivered Spygate to him. Perhaps his unrelenting faith in Goodell was ultimately his team’s undoing. Wells, the man of the hour, wants to stress the independence of his investigation, despite the fact that it was, indeed, the NFL which paid him millions in order to deliver his report.

There’s such a hypocritical nature to every step of this whole story, that it’s impossible to believe any one entity in it any longer. Yet here we sit around like jackals at the dinner feast, debating the merits and missteps of the report as if it were the Dead Sea Scrolls.

At the heart of the trip-ups, of course, is NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, who looks like the power-wielding, incompetent boob that he is, asking up for the league’s past sins of disciplinary action in what is now the wild west of punishments. As Yahoo Sports’ Dan Wentzel writes in his excellent column, “He’s supposed to ‘protect the shield,’ not provide talk radio fodder.”

Oh, have you noticed the NFL Network lately? Brady and the Patriots have become their LeBron.

If hitting the Patriots hard can create that sort of non-stop programming on the league’s fledgling network, what’s to keep us from imagining how far the scheme goes back? The NFL has created a narrative to keep it on the forefront of everybody’s minds all summer, all the way up until training camp, when NFL Network will likely have every single NFL hopeful be required to give his take on Brady and deflated balls.

This is what Goodell has helped create, a soap opera reality show — literally — starring the most polarizing team in the NFL and its Hollywood star quarterback How will Brady respond? Can Jimmy G. handle the load? Is Brady’s legacy tarnished? Tune in next time…

There’s reason why people shouldn’t trust the day-to-day operations of this league. If that stance makes you a Patriots homer, then it’s a burden that more need to take. Of course, it’s not like you can put your ultimate faith in the New England Patriots either, an organization of greatness that has questionable tactics in order to attain its goals.

It’s OK to see it both ways, folks. Instead, what we have is not only the Patriots vs. the NFL, we also have media on media, fan vs. fan, and — not if we can help it — the children asking us about the moral implications of deflating footballs.

Depending on how outraged you want to feign to be should carry the level of fiction you implement into the lesson plan.