What others around the nation are saying about the Deflategate ruling:

Don’t do it. Don’t fall for the Deflategate magic trick, the illusion that the rest of the country is falling for today.

Elsewhere, as has been the case for months, they’re paying so much attention to the left hand – the one waving Patriots pom-poms and wearing a miniature Tom Brady jersey – that they’ve somehow forgotten what the other hand has done.

When the right hand cheated – and admitted to it.

Don’t lose track of that, OK? Not here, not in Indianapolis, the one city in America that has the NFL team that was denied the right to a fair football game in the AFC championship against Tom Brady and the New England Patriots.

– Greg Doyel, Indianapolis Star

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The decision by U.S. District Judge Richard M. Berman … is a huge embarrassment to the NFL and to Commissioner Roger Goodell, and it could cost Goodell his job. He has been the man in charge as the NFL has gone to unexpected riches. But he is the man in charge while the league has suffered one colossal embarrassment after another. It remains to be seen if the owners will stand behind him following this humiliation.

– Bob Smizik, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

In an offseason when Brady jumped off a cliff in Costa Rica on a vacation with his family, played basketball with Michael Jordan and golf with Rory McIIroy and beat the $40 million commissioner in court, he’s won’t be kidding around when he says this was an enjoyable offseason.

– Gary Myers, New York Daily News

There are some – Pats owner Robert Kraft chief among them, I’d wager – who’ll see this un-banning as proof the Patriots did nothing wrong. That’s a reach. It’s pretty clear that somebody being paid by the Pats did something at least a teeny bit wrong. Goodell was right to come down hard on a team and a famous player whom he deemed had skirted the bounds of fair play. But now we have to ask: Is Goodell’s judgment – he was wrong twice on Ray Rice, let’s recall – to be trusted?

‘m not sure that justice was served here – I think Brady deserved a suspension, and four games sounded right to me – but the greater issue is no longer Tom Brady. Again, it’s Roger Goodell. He took a big swing at the NFL’s Golden Boy and wound up whiffing, and now it’s the Tiffany League’s commissioner who looks shabby.

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– Mark Bradley, Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Goodell’s job is to make money for his bosses. He’s doing that. Billions and billions of dollars.

And guess what, despite this ruling, Goodell will oversee the NFL’s getting billions and billions more.

Nobody watched less NFL football because of scum such as Ray Rice and Ray McDonald and Greg Hardy.

Sponsors did not race the other way with their cash. Broadcast partners threw more cash and ideas at the league.

So, spare me that mewling nonsense about how this affects Goodell and makes the league look silly.

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– Steve Rosenbloom, Chicago Tribune

So Tom Brady’s suspension is overturned. No question the NFL is freaking out. Not because they care whether Brady plays or not.

Based on what the analysts are saying is the basis of the decision, the lack of transparency by the NFL was the reason the suspension was dismissed.

Brady didn’t have access to all the information the NFL had. So he couldn’t present a defense. So the game was rigged.

In a manner of speaking the courts “deflated” the NFL’s ability to be judge and jury. There is no way the NFL or any league wants to have to share everything they know in a discipline situation. Particularly since everything leaks in this day and age

I can’t wait to hear what our lawyers at the NBA say about the decision.

– Mark Cuban, Dallas Mavericks owner


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