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From Boomer Esiason in the Cincy paper this morning:

"I used to argue with (punter) Lee Johnson all the time about balls. I wanted them one way, he wanted them another. We played with balls right out of the box. Peyton Manning lobbied the commissioner so quarterbacks could be allowed to scuff up balls. The argument then was you could scuff up baseballs, you could put the hockey puck in the freezer to keep it from bouncing all over the place. A lot of this (has) more to do about people hating the Patriots and trying to attach Spygate to this. Quarterbacks have been doctoring the ball for years. ESPN is putting the narrative on this and everybody else is making a mountain out of a complete and utter molehill.''

From Boomer Esiason in the Cincy paper this morning....

Quarterbacks have been doctoring the ball for years. ESPN is putting the narrative on this and everybody else is making a mountain out of a complete and utter molehill.

First....In my opinion, Boomer Esiason is a moron. I hear him do updates frequently on CBS Sports Radio and he's almost unlistenable. Never liked him, never will. He was a crappy quarterback and is worse as an announcer. Phil Simms is the only ex-qb I dislike more.

Second....There is a legal amount of "doctoring" a team can do to the ball. The team is allowed to mess with it so long as it remains in "game ready" condition as deemed by the referee. They are legally allowed to squeeze it, scuff it, and wipe it down. One thing they are NOT allowed to do is deflate it to less than minimum league specifications.

And if Boomer chooses to use the "everybody cheats" justification for cheating, well then shame on him.

Consider the spitballer in baseball. We know there's quite a bit of doctoring of baseballs going on. We're even a bit affectionate about some of the more creative cheaters. But when they get caught, they get caught. They are immediately ejected from the game. They also face fines and additional game suspensions. Why? Because they are doctoring equipment beyond what has been determined reasonable by league rules. The same applies, or at least should apply for the NFL.

If it's a dumb rule, then remove if from the rulebooks in your spring owner's meetings. But until then, violators should be penalized, regardless of what Boomer Esiason thinks.