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JARRETT BELL
Tom Brady

Bell: NFL must hammer Tom Brady, Patriots in Deflategate aftermath

Jarrett Bell
USA TODAY Sports
Could Patriots quarterback Tom Brady miss the 2015 season opener after winning Super Bowl XLIX MVP honors?

Go ahead, NFL. Suspend Tom Brady.

In the wake of findings revealed in the latest Wells Report, this one stemming from the Deflategate investigation, now is not the time to suddenly go soft and underinflated with discipline — even when it would mean sitting one the league's icons.

If Cleveland Browns general manager Ray Farmer was banned for four games for text messaging his coaching staff during a game, if Atlanta Falcons President Rich McKay was temporarily kicked off the competition committee he chairs for noise pollution at the Georgia Dome, if coach Sean Payton and GM Mickey Loomis were suspended a few years ago amid the New Orleans Saints bounty scandal, then Brady needs to take a seat, too, in the name of integrity.

It doesn't matter that Brady really doesn't need his footballs inflated to less than the required 12.5 pounds per square inch to be one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time.

But a violation is just that. And this one, while it doesn't rise to the level of offering a bounty to inspire injuring an opponent, strikes me as worse than text messaging Kyle Shanahan or piping in extra noise when the Falcons defense is gearing up for third-and-long.

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The NFL — with executive VP Troy Vincent swinging the hammer and Commissioner Roger Goodell needing to back him to the hilt — had better take Brady off the field temporarily for this or never utter another word about integrity, fair play or competitive balance.

Speak your message, NFL, then support it with strong action. That means sitting Brady down for at least a game or two, which would send a strong message about cheating.

And Brady shouldn't be the only one to take a hit.

Even though Patriots coach Bill Belichick, team owner Robert Kraft and the organization at large were not found to be engaged in underinflating footballs — according to the findings of investigators led by Ted Wells — it happened on their watch. That's why Payton got hammered with his one-year suspension. Ignorance, Goodell said in the Saints ruling, is not an excuse.

And in the Patriots' case, the benefit of the doubt — expired a long time ago in NFL circles by opponents — doesn't apply because they were warned by Goodell after the Spygate controversy in 2007 that if they were ever found violating rules in the future, it would be held against them.

Well, the future is now. I can't see how the punishment won't include, in addition to a sanction against Brady, a hefty fine for New England and maybe even a price to be applied in next year's draft.

You can bet more than a few people around the NFL, many of whom have suspected the Patriots of crossing the line in instances over the years, will be watching intently to see how hard the league will hit one of its signature franchises and most popular players.

I know it might be hard to fathom on one level, especially with Brady.

Where's the hard evidence? Shoot, Tom Brady Sr., the GQ quarterback's dad, even suggested to USA TODAY Sports that his son was being framed.

No, Brady is being identified as an obvious suspect because it's naive to think a professional quarterback doesn't have an inkling about the footballs he throws. And this is the same Brady who joined forces with Peyton Manning in 2006 to lobby the league for a rule change that allowed road teams the opportunity to prepare their footballs just like the home team. You know, competitive balance.

Brady's unconvincing assertions during a January news conference — so weak that they inspired a Saturday Night Live skit —obviously weren't on par with Michael Vick lying about his involvement in a dogfighting ring. But when Brady refuses to turn over celphone records to investigators, it does nothing to clear his name.

The circumstantial evidence is damning. Jim McNally, New England's longtime locker room attendant, and John Jastremski, the equipment staff assistant, implicated Brady — as well as themselves.

Without question, McNally and Jastremski need to be relieved of their game-day roles.

McNally, who called himself the "deflator," was the guy who took the footballs from the officials' locker room to the field without permission from those officials before the AFC Championship Game against the Indianapolis Colts and stopped off at a bathroom for 1 minute, 40 seconds, with the footballs in tow.

Jastremski is the one who talked with Brady multiple times after the Colts' suspicions and NFL involvement became public knowledge and, for the first time in his 20 years with the Patriots, visited with Brady in the "quarterback room" at Gillette Stadium the morning after the title game.

Wells doesn't buy these instances as coincidence, and neither should the rest of us.

That's too bad for Brady, who has been such a class act and big-time winner throughout his career. He still will go down as one of the greats, just like Belichick is among the best coaches in NFL history.

But now it's pretty apparent that Brady's legacy is not complete without mention of Deflategate.

That doesn't tarnish Brady's standing as a clutch winner. Yet this adds fodder for debate.

Now it's up to the NFL to come down on one of its marquee players, as hard as that will be for a league that has been rocked over the past year by so many more heinous episodes courtesy of situations that were far more serious.

But imagine the stain that a Brady suspension would put on the NFL's kickoff game in September, when the Pittsburgh Steelers — minus suspended all-pro running back Le'Veon Bell — open the season at Gillette Stadium against the defending Super Bowl champions. Brady's potential absence would be so much worse — and more symbolic — than him skipping the team's recent visit to the White House. It might even prompt the Patriots to buck tradition and pick another time besides the season opener to raise their newest championship banner.

If, that is, the NFL brings down the hammer as it should.

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Follow NFL columnist Jarrett Bell on Twitter @JarrettBell

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