Super Farce XLIX, The Cheats: Brady got off easy, IF AND ONLY IF this legally stands.

I'm going to show you two incidents of leagues with far more integrity than the National Football League, and incidents in their championship matches which show that the leagues take it even a level more seriously when an egregious action "brings the game into disrepute".

They're both rugby.  This first one is from the 2013 English Rugby Premiership Grand Final between Leicester and Northampton.

Hartley, nearing the end of a first half where Leicester leads by 13 points to Hartley's Northampton side's 5, has already had one serious warning from the official at the top of the video.  So there's already been one exchange where Hartley has been smarting off to the official.

Northampton illegally (and disputedly) believes it has a penalty rather than a scrum, to the head official awards the option to Leicester, who takes a scrum, and another penalty is called on Northampton within the scrum.

All this in added time of the first half.

Hartley is then abruptly sent off.  He is the first player in the history of the championship match of that league to get expelled from the match.  The second penalty is decided to be kicked for three points, and halftime is blown with Leicester leading 16-5.  Leicester wins the championship 37-17.

And then we find out why the referee was so quick in sending Hartley off...

Hartley -- who, by this time, was already banned three different occasions by the league (and tacked two more on for a total of six since!) -- was reported for calling the referee a "fucking cheat".

For this, he was banned ELEVEN WEEKS and thrown off the British tour of Australia.

If you want to see a good analogue to Brady and the Patriots, look at this track record:

• 2007:  Banned half a year and forced to see a psychologist after an eye-gouging incident.
• 2012:  Banned 8 weeks for biting in a Six Nations match.
• 2012:  Banned 2 more weeks for a punch in a league cup match.
• 2013:  Banned 11 weeks for the above-referred incident.
• 2014:  Banned 3 weeks for an elbow to the head.
• 2015:  Banned 4 weeks for a headbutt, and thrown off the England 2015 World Cup team (they host, starting in September) as a result.

What this asshole is still doing in rugby is beyond any sense of my comprehension.  This guy has been banned over a solid calendar year for SIX different incidents in eight years.

But the point is here:  He's banned 8 weeks for biting after the gouging incident, but telling the referee off in a Grand Final is made eleven?  That tells you how important the English take their championship matches.

Now, to one of the most egregious championship match rugby fouls in the history of the game:  Ben Flower. 

Literally a minute and forty-five seconds into the Grand Final of the Super League (a different UK rugby league than previously mentioned) between St. Helens and Wigan, Wigan's Ben Flower absolutely cold-cocks St. Helens' Lance Hohaia, and then adds one to the unconscious Hohaia for good measure.

Rightly, he is expelled from the match.

The problem should be obvious:  What in the motherfucking Hell is Ben Flower doing committing such an obvious sending-off offense less than two minutes into the match, unless he was actually trying to fix the match?

That was not considered by the tribunal.  The league banned Flower for the longest time in the history of the league for simply an on-field act, six months.  It was believed, and possible, Flower could (and, especially that the incident no less than ENDED HOHAIA'S RUGBY CAREER!!!!, should) have been banned for life.

But the fact is that the incident took place as part of the championship match cannot be understated as an aggravating factor.

That said (and even I will admit this is a big IF -- though some early talk from ESPN's supposed legal eagles says Brady will lose), IF this legally stands, Brady probably got off easy.

The whole point of me bringing up these two incidents:

Anyone who wants to tell me the rout New England put on Indianapolis was not at least partially precipitated upon and partially aggravated by New England's illegal manipulation of their game balls is probably covering for the fix.

I'm not saying sole reason or aggravation by any stretch of the imagination, but the fact is that the increasingly-flagrant nature of this Deflate-Gate situation, as well as the aggravating factor of Spygate in the Patriot organization, must leave people to question how many of those four Super Bowl banners need to come down.

It is clear that the NFL doesn't care -- and, perhaps before the ratings came in from Super Farce XLIX, it was probably an Alfred E. Neuman "What?  Me Worry?" idea.

Now, it's going to be ENCOURAGED.  170,000,000 (minus a few of us who were awake) watching the rigged interception at the end spoke loud and clear.