Tom Brady is free!
New York judge Richard Berman threw out Brady’s four-game suspension and ended seven months of Deflategate misery.
Inconceivable? No. We should be celebrating.
The New England Patriots would have squeezed the Indianapolis Colts 45-7 in the AFC Championship Game with or without two pounds of air pressure.
Commissioner Roger Goodell’s witch hunt had all the fancy of The Princess Bride:
Goodell: If you wish a longer suspension, by all means keep fighting me on this.
Brady: I didn’t do it.
Goodell: There’s nothing to deny. You’re trying to get out of what everyone says you did.
Brady: I didn’t do it.
Goodell: There will be no agreement, and you’re digging your grave!
Brady: But if you won’t listen to me, then we are at an impasse.
Goodell: I’m afraid so — I can’t compete with you in Super Bowls, and you’re no match for my rules.
Brady: You’re that powerful?
Goodell: Let me put it this way: Have you ever heard of Robocop, the Terminator, Judge Dredd?
Brady: Yes.
Goodell: Rookies.
Brady: Really? I don’t care.
Goodell: An argument for the ego? To the death? I accept.
Brady: Good. Then try to feel what everyone else feels.
Goodell: I feel nothing.
Brady: What you do not feel is called ‘annoyance.’ It is a tired, frustrated disinterest that everyone but you feels for this whole thing.
Goodell: Hmm.
Brady: Where is the evidence? The battle of wits has begun. It ends if you can prove I did or didn’t, and the judge announces who is right and who is suspended.
Goodell: But it’s so simple! All I have to do is divine from what I know of you: Are you the sort of man who would deflate his own footballs or his enemy’s? Now, a clever man would deflate someone else’s footballs because he would know that only a great fool would deflate his own. I am not a great fool, so I can clearly not inspect your footballs. But you must have known I was not a great fool, and you would have counted on it, so I can clearly not choose the footballs you insist you didn’t deflate.
Brady: You’ve made your decision, then?
Goodell: Not remotely. Because footballs are prolate spheroids, as are Australian footballs, and Australia is entirely peopled with criminals. Australians are used to having people not trust them, as you are not trusted by me, so I can clearly not inspect your footballs.
Brady: Truly, you have a dizzying intellect.
Goodell: Wait ‘til I get going! Now, where was I?
Brady: Australia.
Goodell: Yes, Australia. And you must have suspected I would have known the footballs’ origins, so I can clearly not choose the footballs you surrendered to me.
Brady: You’re just stalling now.
Goodell: You’d like to think that, wouldn’t you? You’ve beaten my Colts 45-7 in the AFC Championship Game, which means you’re exceptionally strong, so you could’ve put the deflated footballs in your own locker room, trusting on your security to protect you, so I clearly won’t find anything there. But, you’ve also bested my Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl XLIX, which means you must have cheated, and in cheating you must have learned that man is mortal, so you would have put the footballs as far from yourself as possible, so I can clearly not choose the footballs you insist you didn’t deflate.
Brady: You’re trying to trick me into giving away something. It won’t work.
Goodell: IT HAS WORKED! YOU’VE GIVEN EVERYTHING AWAY! I KNOW WHERE THE FOOTBALLS ARE!
Brady: Then show us the evidence.
Goodell: I will, and it’s — What in the world is that on your cell phone?
Brady: What? Where? I don’t see anything.
Goodell: Well, I — I could have sworn I saw something. No matter. First, let’s examine the footballs. The ones you surrendered, and the others I insist were tampered with.
Brady: I’ve done nothing wrong.
Goodell: You only think you’ve done nothing wrong. That’s what’s so funny! I inspected all of the footballs when your back was turned! You fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders, the most famous of which is never try to outsmart Roger Goodell, but only slightly less well-known is, never refuse to cooperate when suspension is on the line!
It was then that Berman dissolved the sentence and Goodell was no more.
Brady is the NFL’s destroyer of worlds, idolized within New England and feared without.
Lesser players and coaches have been ousted, but Brady is infallible.
He roasted the Pittsburgh Steelers four times in a 28-21 Week 1 win in Foxborough, even with each and every last football under league surveillance.
Goodell was nowhere to be found for the Patriots’ Super Bowl XLIX championship celebration against the Steelers — “Where is Roger?” asked the fans — but legend tells that on a clear, moonlight night you can still hear the air whistling from his ego.
It’s great to be back to football!
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