If someone robs a bank and gives you a wad of cash, are you innocent for spending what you know to be stolen money?
All kinds of anecdotal data out there about how he like softer balls and he could not have been unaware that the game balls were just how he likes them - made a difference in the path to and playing the Superbowl - in football, it don't get no bigger than that.
Lots of nonsense about this on these threads.
1. It doesn’t matter whether the rules infraction was material to the outcome of the game or not. Nobody applies that logic anywhere else - you’re allowed to cheat as long as you fail to change the outcome of the game.
2. There is not “no evidence”. There is circumstantial evidence in the report. It is clear to this reader of the report that the conclusion - “more probable than not that Brady knew” - is the correct conclusion. “No physical evidence”, “wouldn’t stand up in court” - none of this matters.
3. The rules governing this exercise are in a contract between people in a private business. The league and the players’ association have agreed on some things, among which is a concept “conduct detrimental to the game”. Brady agreed to the concept. Brady agreed, when he signed his contract, to the commissioner’s power to determine, and his certain rights to appeal, and the rules for the entire process. Brady is being treated under rules that he agreed to when he signed a contract making him a wealthy man.
4. That other quarterbacks “like” balls that are outside the prescribed PSI is immaterial. There is no evidence they arranged said balls in games.
5. That people may be just jealous of the Patriots is immaterial. The motive of the commissioner is not part of the contractual agreement that he and Brady both accepted. The rules were broken, Brady is found to be complicit, and he pays a penalty. This is justice.
6. That there are too many rules, and everybody commits some infraction whether he knows it or not, is completely beside the point. Nobody is claiming a rule was broken unknowingly. Nobody calls that cheating, in any venue. Brady’s cognitive awareness of the infraction is the heart of the matter; did he know? The report says it looks like he did. Other situations, where somebody broke a rule without knowing, are apples to this orange.
I wouldn’t want the emotional thinkers hyperventilating about this on my jury. He did it, he knew he did it, and pays the price. Full stop.