Super Farce XLIX, The Cheats: The DeflateGate Report comes out, and the NFL must now admit the sport is fixed.

The report on DeflateGate came out, and Brian Tuohy had the best take on it:

I love seeing sports twitter world lose its collective mind over this 200+ page report about the Patriots which changes absolutely nothing.

— Brian Tuohy (@TheFixIsInTuohy) May 6, 2015

It changes nothing because it basically admits that the NFL had a concentrated effort in assuring that Associate Commissioner Robert Kraft would get his fourth Lombardi Trophy for good service to the National Football League.

The fact of the matter is that, when you condense the report, some facts are clear:

• Like the Incognito Report, the guy did his job, shockingly.
• The violations were intentional.

From the Wells Report, per the first of many Deadspin articles on the subject today:

"For the reasons described in this Report, and after a comprehensive investigation, we have concluded that, in connection with the AFC Championship Game, it is more probable than not that New England Patriots personnel participated in violations of the Playing Rules and were involved in a deliberate effort to circumvent the rules. In particular, we have concluded that it is more probable than not that Jim McNally (the Officials Locker Room attendant for the Patriots) and John Jastremski (an equipment assistant for the Patriots) participated in a deliberate effort to release air from Patriots game balls after the balls were examined by the referee. Based on the evidence, it also is our view that it is more probable than not that Tom Brady (the quarterback for the Patriots) was at least generally aware of the inappropriate activities of McNally and Jastremski involving the release of air from Patriots game balls."

• And, apparently, the two were no real fans of Brady to begin with, if a set of texts between the two after a Patriots-Jets game was any indication:

So let's see...  You've got two team employees who don't really like the guy, and, yet, in the biggest game of the year, Brady is not aware of the illegal balls...

Shyeah and right!

• The Wells Report establishes the Colts knew of this issue and alerted the league the day before the AFC title game.
• The Wells Report gives nine pages of statistical evidence the balls were being tampered with.

In absolutely no uncertain terms, the 2014-15 AFC Championship Game, played between the New England Patriots and Indianapolis Colts on January 18, 2015, was irretrivably tampered by the New England Patriots, knowingly and intentionally, and with the tacit approval of the National Football League to eventually install the Patriots as the Super Bowl XLIX Champions, in violation of league rules.

Now, normally, I would also add violations of the law here, but, as is well-known to any readers of this blog, it is completely legal for a sports league to rig it's sporting events (Mayer v. Belichick, New England Patriots, and National Football League).

At this point, the league has no options which are going to allow it to quietly let this be.  It will have to count on the religious nature the fans of football blood-sport give to the endeavor to keep this down.  It will have to count on their idiocy to actually believe any game in the future is legitimate.

Why do I say these two things? 

Because the league, to actually accurately punish the Patriots, MUST strip them of, at minimum, their Super Bowl XLIX victory (and, by their 15-year record of illegal conduct, one or more of their three titles in four years between 2001-2002 and 2004-2005).

They also now have to take a look, going forward, as to the Patriots as a "going concern" in the league.  Expelling them from the league would not be an inappropriate penalty at this juncture, given 15 years (a time period in which the Patriots have won six AFC championships (played in nine) and four Super Bowls, only missing the playoffs twice (and one of those two years, they were 11-5 and missed the playoffs!) of blatant illegal conduct in anything the team could get away with.

At barest of minimum, it's time to lay bare the relationship between this league and Bob Kraft.  His status as "Associate Commissioner", at least on an informal level, has blown up all remaining credibility Kraft, Brady, or Roger Goodell ever thought they could have.

As for the Super Bowl title, you have realistically only two options, since directly giving the title to the Seahags would deny the Colts a rightful shot at the championship (with a third if what we all expect to happen (nothing!) happens):

1. You can either go the college route and declare the championship permanently vacant...  Pro:  It is about the only accepted model in American sports which actually allows for a real punishment against a team which has committed an act of ineligibility.  Con:  It denies Indianapolis a rightful shot at the championship.  Con #2:  You basically enter the season with no champion, something anti-thetical to the present NFL.
2. ... or you can do something so delicious to Roger Goodell ($$$!!!) that he won't do it for various logistical reasons:  Super Bowl XLIX:  Seattle vs. Indianapolis from the University of Phoenix Stadium, on July 4, 2015!  Imagine how much money and media whoredom we'd have if they did the Super Bowl all over again.  There's all sorts of logistical problems with it, but the fact is that, even in spirit only, the Indianapolis Colts are the 2014-15 AFC Champions and were illegally (at least in sport rules) denied the right to face the NFC Champion Seahags in the Super Bowl.
3. Failing either, there is only one further result which must be broadcast far and wide to everyone who swears fealty to the religion of football:  Your blood-sport is a fake, the players killing each other for a corporate falsehood in which the games are rigged and championships scripted, and you won't do a Goddamned thing about it.

There has not been an unscripted NFL Championship since at least the Patriots' first, the 9/11 Championship:

• Super Bowl XXXVI:  One of the biggest scams in history, including the world's first seven-second field goal, Spygate, and numerous other means to put the Patriot Champions over in a homeland-propaganda win straight out of W's playbook.
• Super Bowl XXXVII:  So much was the Patriots win a scam, that both Jon Gruden and the Raiders were repaid the next season, but the Raiders could not be allowed to win (because Al Davis), so the game went on with Bill Callahan tipping the Buccaneers off to every audible they called during the game.
• Super Bowl XXXVIII:  Gruden and the Raiders repaid, the Patriots were put back over to continue the propaganda.
• Super Bowl XXXIX:  So much so that, by this point, even the President of the United States himself is putting Tom Brady over as a paragon of drug-free athletic excellence (even though between one and three championships that Brady's Patriots had won to this point were illegal, probably not only as a question of rules, but, before Mayer, a question of law!).
• Super Bowl XL:  Universally understood as one of the openly-worst officiated sporting events in championship history, the Pittsburgh era begins with a retirement present for host city Detroit's Jerome Bettis, who would get a Super Bowl championship on his way out the door.
• Super Bowl XLI:  A Chicago team probably not eligible for the game because of the use of Tank Johnson, and the league attempting to put over Peyton Manning as the "next Tom Brady".
• Super Bowl XLII:  New England comes within probably one day of going 19-0.  The Boston Globe, however, begins exposing Spygate the day before the Super Bowl with the Giants, forcing a late change in the script (made quite reasonable, since the Giants had already demonstrated in the final regular-season game that they were one of the few teams who could adequately pressure Tom Brady and his record-breaking passing attack).
• Super Bowl XLIII:  One of the most blatant cases of scripting a championship based on the monetary return championship memorabilia could grant the NFL.  The Arizona Cardinals, though an upstart organization playing a team rapidly filling with thugs of all colors and stripes in the Pittsburgh Steelers, could not match the merchandising power of the Steelers in any respect.
• Super Bowl XLIV:  The Katrina Super Bowl.  The Bounty-Gate Super Bowl.  A bunch of hired cripplers in the New Orleans Saints effectively end the career of Brett Favre by mercilessly beating the shit out of him in their win over Minnesota in the NFC title game, and evidence comes out that Peyton Manning knew he was to take a dive before the Super Bowl, and threw a late interception believed by some of us to be one of the most obvious "tells" in the history of the event.
• Super Bowl XLV:  Pittsburgh becomes a bit too uncomfortable for the NFL (which see the James Harrison "crossed-guns" Men's Journal cover), and, with a player lockout looming, the league elects to go with Old Reliable to bring the Lombardi Trophy home for the balance of the lockout.
• Super Bowl XLVI:  The league was now in full damage-control mode for the Spygate championships, trying to save the credibility of those three titles, and effectively scripted another Giant over Patriot win to save face while they were doing so.
• Super Bowl XLVII:  Not only to give Murderer Ray Lewis a retirement present, this Super Bowl had one of the singly most suspicious incidents in the history of the championship game:  A lengthy third-quarter blackout stunts a probable Baltimore rout to allow San Francisco to come back, make the game closer, and maintain television ratings.  Anyone paying attention six months before, however, could've made a mint:  Visa had a pair of ads starring the Harbaughs, the coaches of the two teams in the Super Bowl.  Those commercials began airing in August.
• Super Bowl XLVIII:  With Roger Goodell becoming more openly tolerant of dirty play and wishing to trumpet the concept of your very lives centering around football, Goodell elects to parlay a massive replacement-referee gaffe/fix into the impetus for a championship for a drug-addled bunch of trash-talking dirty thugs with a fanbase who centers their entire lives around the sport, even more so than most of the others.  (And, if you were paying attention, you got another "tell" from Peyton Manning before the game -- but, this time, no pretense to a close game was made, as the Denver Broncos spent sixty minutes taking a dive.
• Super Bowl XLIX:  Three months ago, this was the most toxic sporting event in American history.  (Now, that has to be debated between this game and the May 2 debacle, but it's now clear the two most toxic sporting events in the history of American sports both have taken place in 2015!)  For the rest, see above.

In no uncertain terms, the Patriots not only deliberately broke league rules, they had the tacit approval of the NFL to ensure a result it got.