Bell: Patriots could be next team to be hammered by NFL

It's Hammer Time in the NFL.

If you think the punishments revealed on Monday against the Atlanta Falcons, Cleveland Browns and a couple of their high-ranking executives sent a stern message in the name of the game's integrity, imagine what could be coming around the corner.

If the latest Ted Wells investigation determines the New England Patriots deliberately underinflated footballs during the AFC Championship, the Super Bowl champions better brace themselves for a big hit.

Unlike the Falcons and Browns, the Patriots have acknowledged no wrongdoing after being publicly implicated.

At the very least, however, the resolutions in the Falcons and Browns cases provide a template for future punishment.

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We knew that Browns general manager Ray Farmer, who drew a four-game suspension that begins at the start of the regular season, had it coming. He owned up to his infractions of sending text messages to the sidelines during games.

Still, the fact that Farmer was suspended on top of the $250,000 fine levied against the team by NFL executive vice president Troy Vincent was the expected outcome.

On the other hand, the suspension of Falcons president Rich McKay from the league's powerful competition committee sends a much stronger message.

McKay wasn't personally implicated in the matter of pumping in artificial crowd noise during the 2013 and 2014 seasons. The finger was pointed at a guy named Roddy White, who has since been fired as director of event marketing. What an odd twist that the Falcons' big-play receiver has the same name.

More odd is that this monkey business occurred with the team that McKay – so respected in NFL circles that he was once considered a candidate for NFL Commissioner – is associated with.

It's a bad look. The NFL needed to pull McKay from the competition committee, just for the sake of appearance. A couple of years ago, Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin, a member of the committee, was docked $100,000 for stepping on the field of play (inadvertently, he declared) as a Jacoby Jones kickoff return came his way against the Baltimore Ravens.

If Tomlin can get nailed, a similar, expect-better-from-him standard has to be applied to McKay, too, because it happened in his shop.

How serious is pumping in crowd noise? Some people in NFL circles maintain that it can provide much more of an advantage than any edge Tom Brady might get from a football that happened to be under-inflated by a couple of ounces.

What isn't good for the Patriots is that the NFL is attaching individuals to the punishments.

Patriots coach Bill Belichick has said that he knew nothing about any deflated footballs. But, assuming the Wells investigation determines a violation occurred with the team he's responsible for, the template is set for the coach to get hit with the hammer, too.

Brady, too, denied any knowledge of how, according to the NFL, 11 of 11 footballs used by the Patriots in the AFC title game – the 12th football was disqualified from measurement after being intercepted by the Colts – were underinflated.

Maybe it was the work of someone on the Patriots' equipment staff, or some game day staffer who handles footballs. The NFL's contention that the Colts' footballs all passed muster doesn't match up to Belichick's scientific explanation that the chilly weather caused the balls to deflate.

Unlike the teams docked Monday, the Patriots also have to contend with history.

When the Spygate case blew up in 2007, Commissioner Roger Goodell fined Belichick $500,000, largest for a coach in NFL history, on top of the team's $250,000 fine and loss of a first-round draft pick. But he was not suspended.

At the time, Goodell said the punishment would be harsher if the Patriots were found violating the game's integrity in the future.

Well, the future is now – if the allegations stick – and the NFL has its hammer out.

Follow Jarrett Bell on Twitter @JarrettBell.