For over 500 days starting in January 2015, Tom Brady and the New England Patriots had to endure the scandal-turned-TV-drama that had people wishing for an end. The QB described the Deflategate stretch as ‘exhausting’ in 2024, wishing to put a forever lid on it. That’s hardly surprising because not only was the media in the face at all times back then, but it was a season the Pats couldn’t lose their grip over. 

In the decade leading up to the event, NE had qualified for the playoffs several times. They even made two Super Bowl appearances, but the ring remained elusive. So, a championship win was the sole motivation for them in the 2014 season, something that helped them remain privy to media noise all around. 

“This was my first time getting to Bowl as a core player,” Julian Edelman, a former Patriots wide receiver, recalled on Games with Names. “We had a new nucleus of guys. But we had a bunch of guys that lost in that game [2011 Super Bowl]. So we were all on ‘no distraction’ program. ‘Worry about what’s on our plate right now’. And that’s what we did. 

“That shows mental toughness of that team because we had – I want to say – 500 reporters in our locker room every day asking about it. Going into the Super Bowl they are asking about it. Like it was a f—ing big deal.” Only about 12 days ahead of the Super Bowl, the scandal had hit the Patriots like a storm.

In the second quarter of the AFC Championship game against the Colts, Indianapolis linebacker D’Qwell Jackson intercepted a pass by Brady. Soon after, he handed the ball over to a member of the Colts’ equipment staff to save it for him as a ‘souvenir’. But what transpired next was the staff noticing that the ball felt ‘underinflated’, forcing him to report it to head coach Chuck Pagano. Upon a brief inspection, 11 of the Patriots’ 12 balls used in the first half were found below the sanctioned PSI of 12.5. 

All of the balls were replaced at halftime, and for the most defining moment, NE came out dominant in a way no one expected. After securing a 17-7 lead in the first two quarters, Brady & co. showed up for 21 points in the third quarter and seven more in the fourth to finish 45-7.

Yet, the scandal blew so out of proportion that the league reportedly ended up spending north of $22 million on an investigation in the months that followed. 

In the period between the Indianapolis game and the Super Bowl, Brady was subjected to hour-long conferences, where his answer to every question had remained pretty much the same: “I didn’t alter the ball in any way.” On the other end, HC Bill Belichick was out explaining the science behind ball inflation under different conditions that he himself had learnt over the course of the previous few days. 

The Patriots were busy proving they had nothing to do with the underinflated balls.

In fact, a documentary, The Dynasty, released in 2024, even revealed that Brady had bawled his eyes out in front of his teammates, saying, “This is something I wouldn’t do. I would not ruin the season for us. The allegations are false.” However, nobody ruined the season for the Pats. 

On February 1st, 2015, Brady & team went on to defeat the Seahawks 28-24 to win Super Bowl XLIX– their fourth title in 14 years. But the scandal continued long after. 

Early in May that year, the 200-odd page report released by ‘The Wells’ concluded that the rules violation was ‘more probable to have occurred than not’. The evidence they could muster up, at most, was:

1. A locker room attendant brought the balls into the bathroom with him before the game. Whether he underinflated them was not proven.
2. The text messages between equipment assistant John Jastremski and locker room manager Jim McNally. What was marked suspicious was the assistant calling himself ‘deflator’. The Pats argued that he was merely referring to ‘weight loss’. 

And Brady’s involvement? The NFL believed he was “generally aware” of the scheme due to the call log between him and the equipment assistant. Despite appealing to the court and fighting for months to prove he had nothing to do with the ‘underinflated’ balls, Brady was suspended for four games at the beginning of the 2015 season, while the Patriots had to pay $1 million in fines and lost two draft picks: a first-round pick in 2016 and a fourth-round pick in 2017.

Like the thousands of fans who protested, Edelman believes the whole Deflategate deserves to rank high among the ‘greatest injustices of all time’. His guest on the show, John Feitelberg, not only agreed but was also reminded of a Caitlin Clark instance. 

Tom Brady finds ‘injustice’ in common with Caitlin Clark 

On the Games With Names, while discussing where Deflategate would rank among the greatest injustices (incredibly high), Feitelberg shared that he was recently talking about the WNBA commissioner’s alleged quotes about Caitlin Clark, the 2024 TIME’s Athlete of the Year, who has been instrumental in drawing attendance and viewership to the women’s basketball league. 

As per claims by star forward Napheesa Collier,  commissioner Cathy Engelbert reportedly said that Clark should be grateful for the millions she makes off deals and advertisements because of the WNBA platform. While Engelbert went on to refute the claims, the damage was already done. 

Feitelberg added, “We were like, ‘Yeah, that’s kind of a dog —- way for a commissioner to handle their star.’ And then I was like, ‘Wait, hang on a second. At least she hasn’t been suspended for four games for no goddamn reason.'”

U.S. District Judge Richard M. Berman had initially erased the QB’s suspension after his first appeal. But soon after, the league and commissioner, Roger Goodell, appealed for it to be overturned. After a few more months of court hearings, Brady’s suspension was reinstated in April 2016. 

Though the QB made a second appeal, it was denied, forcing Brady to just drop the rope and go, “enough is enough.” He served his suspension and continued his career. Do you think it was fair?