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Deflategate Tarnishes New England Patriots’ Super Bowl XLIX Victory

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Joe Camporeale -- USA TODAY Sports

Joe Camporeale — USA TODAY Sports

All around Boston and the surrounding areas, the celebration continues for the New England Patriots. Yet, like a party where a guest has too much fun and a little too much to drink, the big hangover may just be around the corner. The hangover in the room is Deflategate, but you can call it what you want. Someone on the Patriots tampered with footballs, and depending on what the NFL finds out, this victory may be tarnished for years to come.

How high up does this scandal go? Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein would have fun investigating it. No, the blame won’t fall at the hands of our president. However, every time I hear Tom Brady or Bill Belichick talk about the scandal, I do see images of Bill Clinton wagging his finger, Barack Obama saying, “If you like your health care plan, you can keep it,” or Richard Nixon defiantly saying “I am not a crook.”

The point is that Deflategate isn’t Watergate, but it’s potentially a huge issue for the NFL and for the Patriots.

Until the league releases its investigation findings, the speculation will remain. Did Brady order a ball boy to tamper with the footballs? Did Belichick look the other way? It’s Spygate all over again, and he had a hand in that! The mere fact fans are still talking about this suggests this is football’s watershed moment. This is the moment where we find out what the team knew and when the Patriots knew it.

My personal belief is Brady and Belichick didn’t order the footballs to be tampered with, but maybe they found out after the fact. Who’s to say an overzealous ball boy may not have done this on his own? After all, the needle to inflate and deflate the balls is included inside the bag. Look for the NFL to change that before the 2015 season.

The Seattle Seahawks practically gift-wrapped the Patriots a victory thanks to a play call so stupefyingly dumb that Dr. Phil would have sat Pete Carroll down and said, “What the heck were you thinking?” It was a thrilling Super Bowl, but Patriots fans better grab some Alka-Seltzer or Pepto-Bismol. This may get ugly.

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