Pelissero: What if the Patriots are telling the truth?
PHOENIX – Let's get this out of the way before one week of weirdness gives way to another here at Super Bowl XLIX:
Any suggestion the New England Patriots have spent the past 15 years cheating their way to the top is unfounded at best, ludicrous at worst.
You don't win like the Patriots continue to win – 12 consecutive 10-win seasons, six Super Bowl appearances, three titles with a fourth on the line Sunday against the Seattle Seahawks – because you videotaped some signals and played with some underinflated footballs.
You win because you have a brilliant coach and quarterback. You win because you're prepared. You win because you are constantly one step ahead of the opponent, even if that consistency fuels speculation you're doing something untoward to get the edge.
Every team in the NFL "steals" signals. It's the only reason scouts who could watch every snap of every game from their offices and couches still hit the road to advance the next opponent.
Every team in the NFL works up footballs to their quarterbacks' liking, too. And the rules allow that, if not encourage it, by allowing each team to prepare and handle its own stash.
If a league investigation finds the Patriots intentionally skirted the rules about inflation on their way to another AFC championship, the punishment should and will be severe, especially after coach Bill Belichick's emphatic denial Saturday.
Just look back to the New Orleans Saints bounty scandal to see how a lie compounds a situation in the eyes of the league office and Commissioner Roger Goodell, who banned coach Sean Payton for an entire season in 2012 over what he should've known.
But as the Patriots arrive here Monday, the NFL's probe ongoing with no clear timeline for resolution, Deflategate has come to embody the broader question that has hovered over the franchise since Spygate back in 2007:
If they were caught doing something like this, what else are they doing and getting away with it?
Teams aren't supposed to win like the Patriots. Teams aren't supposed to never have a down year, even when Tom Brady blows out a knee in Week 1 and a former college backup named Matt Cassel leads the way to an 11-5 finish.
The Patriots play games with the injury report. They play games with formations. They play games plenty of other people in the NFL play within the rules – they're just much more successful doing it.
But games aren't the reason the Patriots are the closest thing a generation of fans has to a dynasty. Games aren't the reason they whooped the Indianapolis Colts 45-7, including 28-0 in the second half after the balls had been pumped up to proper pressure.
What if Belichick and Brady are telling the truth?
What if they've been railroaded by reputation into holding media conferences and learning physics instead of turning their full attention to a game that has (or at least had) a chance to redefine their legacies?
For all the scientific theories and statistical studies, the only evidence the NFL has acknowledged is some of the Patriots' game balls were found to be underinflated at halftime, with no explanation for why that was.
The mere existence of an investigation will be as good as a guilty verdict for a segment of fans who will be convinced Sunday's game is the champs against the cheaters, no matter how unquantifiable a change in the pressure of a football may be.
That's a huge problem for Goodell, whose words three years ago at the league meetings in the aftermath of Bountygate seem particularly notable now.
"I have the good fortune of hearing from fans directly throughout the year," Goodell said in March 2012. "The one thing that really struck me from the fans reaction was how important integrity of the game was. They put that as number one on their list.
"One of the fans articulated it in a very simple fashion: I want to know what I am seeing is real and that there are no outside influences. I think that resonated with people. It certainly did with me."
Goodell has no choice but to take this seriously, and in turn, neither does Belichick, whose media conference Saturday was his best hope to turn attention back to the game.
Take away the deflation, the investigation, the speculation, and a win Sunday would be the finest moment of the Belichick-Brady era – perhaps even one capable of silencing those skeptics who believe their first three titles were tainted by illegal videotaping.
Instead, no matter what the NFL finds, a Patriots triumph this time would yield calls for answers from the league and raise new questions from those same people, louder than ever:
What are the Patriots doing now?
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Follow Tom Pelissero on Twitter @TomPelissero
