Wednesday was a rough day for a certain Thomas F. Brady. He found a new nemesis in Hall of Fame coach John Madden, who made a simple yet compelling case for Brady to be the prime suspect in #DeflateGate.
Brady also heard from an old enemy. A guy who vaulted into the public consciousness with his “U Mad Bro?” moment after a one-point win over Brady and the Patriots in Seattle.
“I think people some time get a skewed view of Tom Brady,” Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman told reporters on Wednesday, “that he’s just a clean cut, does everything right, and never says a bad word to anyone, and we know him to be otherwise, but in that moment of him being himself, he said some things and we returned the favor. Unfortunately he apparently didn’t remember what he said, but I’m sure at those moments of yelling at the ref, I’m sure he was saying, ‘Good job, you’re doing a fantastic job, keep it up.’”
Apparently, that’s not what he said to the refs -- or to the Seahawks.
“He was pretty much saying that we were nobodies and that we should come up to him after they get the win,” Sherman said. “So we should take that pretty well. ‘Cool, can I get your autograph too?’”
Sherman fully expects to see Brady in the Super Bowl, despite wild speculation in some circles that Brady or coach Bill Belichick could be suspended for the game.
“Nobody is going to get suspended, nothing is going to happen, they’re going to play this game, whatever they did, the risk-reward was greater,” Sherman said. “They were trying to suspend Marshawn [Lynch] for gold shoes. That really affects the game if you suspend Marshawn for gold shoes, but then you got balls being deflated and that’s an issue.”
That’s a very good point. If the NFL would eject Lynch from a game based on the color of his shoes, why wouldn’t serious action be taken for an affront to the integrity of the game?
The league office suspended Lions defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh for a wild-card game after he stepped on the leg of Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers. If a player with a history of illegal hits had committed a blatant violation in a conference title game, that player would be suspended.
Given that suspension would be in play for a player who violated safety rules, should suspension for the Super Bowl at least be on the table for Brady, Belichick, or anyone else who is deemed to be responsible for a violation of a rule that deals with the integrity of the game? Discuss.