Lying, More Than Cheating, Will Cost Brady

This post originally from my 970 ESPN Page

What did we learn as kids when we got in trouble?

"If you tell the truth, you will be in less trouble."

Or another way of putting it, "lying will make it worse."

That might be the most damning thing for Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, as it was discovered in the Wells Report that he knew more about the deflated balls than he let on back during Super Bowl week.

Brady has not given an actual statement on the findings of the report. He did speak at Salem State University Thursday night, an event scheduled months before, but did not address deflategate or the Wells Report directly.

Hopefully, your expectations were low during that event with Jim Gray. Brady was speaking at a college in Massachusetts. Obviously, it was a pro-Brady audience.

Patriot fans in Massachusetts and the New England states will defend Brady. Just like some fans defended Roethlisberger after his incident down in Georgia. But, everyone else outside of the Patriots fan base is not giving him a pass.

Nobody, not even the Wells Report, can say that Brady had an advantage with the under-inflated footballs. Brady played the second half of the AFC Championship game with fully-inflated balls and won Super Bowl XLIX with footballs that were under a lot of surveillance. 

It's not the cheating everyone and the NFL should be concerned about. It should be the lying.

If you're Tom Brady, you lie to keep yourself eligible for the Super Bowl. People are upset that he was not honest during that press conference during Super Bowl week. But if he's honest, he might have been out for the game.

In the end, whatever the outcome is, it's more about what Brady did not do. Not what his involvement was with the deflated footballs.

For those hung up on the whole "cheating" part of deflategate, you should redirect your attention towards Brady not cooperating with the investigation, not giving up his phone messages and being dishonest when he spoke back in January.

If (and more likely, when) Brady gets suspended, the lie may cost him more than the cheating, regardless the number of games.

Learn from your parents. Lying doesn't do you any good. Unless it keeps you in the Super Bowl. But it has finally caught up to Brady.


Photo: Getty Images