Say it taint. So?

(Disclaimer: If the scandal known as Deflategate involved a team I did not have a rooting interest in, there is no way I would’ve spent as much time following it and writing about it as I have. Even if it involved a team I hated--let’s say the Lakers--I doubt I ever would’ve taken it seriously enough to become part of a torch and pitchfork mob like the one in pursuit of Tom Brady. One of the only things clear in this teapot tempest is that your degree of objectivity about it pretty much correlates-- like so much else in our ongoing culture wars--to one's tribal allegiance. And there has been some tricky shifting of allegiances within the tribes as well, indicating that sports sometimes trump politics. Progressive icon--and unabashed New Yorker-- Keith Olbermann called for the league to hand down a Cheneyesque year-long suspension of Brady, thus revealing himself to be exactly the wild-eyed hysteric conservatives always accused him of being. So, as I launch into this extended expiation of favorite son, TB12, let me be clear…if it had been Kobe Bryant at the center of all this, he couldn't count on me to write a single word in his defense…though Kobe or any other athlete similarly caught bending the rules is welcome to use what follows.)
I would have preferred that Tommy-boy had come clean about this whole matter when it broke back in January, since I believe it was well within his power to put the craziness into a context that would’ve gotten by with much of the sports world…and certainly would’ve left lying the sleeping dogs in the world beyond sports. To wit: I, Tom Brady, am a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to playing football. Call me anal, but it’s what got me here. It drives me nuts to go out and play this game with balls inflated to a totally arbitrary standard. It’s as if every hitter in Major League Baseball was told he had to use a 32-ounce bat. It’s worse when whoever’s overseeing the pressure negligently allows balls into games, as has happened, that are over or under the regulated pressure. I’m sorry that I may have put undo pressure on our staff to keep the balls within a range I’m comfortable with. In doing so, I probably pushed up against NFL rules. I apologize to the league and will accept whatever penalty it deems appropriate. At the same time, I hope the league addresses the issue of ball pressure in the off-season. I’m sure other quarterbacks around the league would join me in contributing to a re-evaluation.
That’s the old Catholic boy in me, of course…a good Act of Contrition and move on. But the old Catholic boy in Tom heard some cockamamie play come in from the sidelines and rather than audible out of it, he went with it, turning a venial sin into a near mortal sin that threatens his legacy. The word "cheater" is now attached to him individually and “tainted” to the championships of his team. To all that, I say, “Whoa, Nelly!”
After the media frenzy, the exact infringement here will earn the perspective it demands. Some wizened observer of the sporting life will note that in football, holding, for instance, is against the rules and yet offensive linemen cannot survive without perfecting their holding skills, which includes hiding their elicit acts from game officials. A savvy cultural observer will note that any “cheating” Brady did here is at the level of driving 75 in a 65 mile an hour zone or inflating a $250 charitable donation to $450 on your taxes. A shrewd political observer (of which there are damn few) will explain that deflating footballs by 1 or 2 psi should not be compared by any fair and rational person to cops who rough up prisoners, bankers who defraud investors, or politicians who take bribes. As tempting and facile as it might be to draw a mosaic of such national corruption, it is superficial and supercilious.
Until the fog clears and such astute observers come down from their ivory towers to talk the nation off the ledge, let me draw upon old friend Johan Huizinga whose book Homo Ludens: A Study of Men at Playremains the definitive work on the role of game playing in human culture. Somewhat incidentally, Huizinga tells us that in the world of games, the cheater is a far more benign figure than those who stand on the sidelines draped in disdain for both the game and its players. He calls them "spoil-sports": “The spoil-sport is not the same as the false player, the cheat; for the latter pretends to be playing the game and, on the face of it, still acknowledges the magic circle. It is curious to note how much more lenient society is to the cheat than the spoil-sport. This is because the spoil-sport shatters the play world itself.”
Deflategate has attracted an inordinate number of spoil-sports--gadflies from the arenas of journalism, politics, religion, entertainment, etc.—who not only don’t know much about the sport they now have very definite opinions on, but don’t care about the sport…and actually may hate it. Their contributions to the entire discussion, fully outfitted in all the ignorance of the outsider, have been painful to endure. Personally, I have more respect for the opinions of the most rabid Jets fans who pass judgment on Brady from the depths of their Patriot-hating hearts. That’s because, as Huizinga says, we all--Jets fans, Pats fans, Colts fans, etc.—respect what Huizinga calls the magic circle. And every one of us knows--as Jon Stewart admitted in his own scathing Brady takedown--in our heart of hearts our respective takes on Deflategate are a tribal, rather a moral prerogative.  
And speaking of morality, Huizinga further writes:

To our way of thinking, cheating as a means of winning a game robs the action of its play character and spoils it altogether, because for us the essence of play is that the rules be kept—that it be fair play. Archaic culture, however, gives the lie to our moral judgment in this respect, as also does the spirit of popular lore. In the fable of the hare and hedgehog the beau role is reserved for the false player, who wins by fraud. Many of the heroes of mythology win by trickery or help from without. Pelops bribes the character of Oenomaus to put wax pins into the axels. Jason and Theseus come through their tests successfully, thanks to Medea and Ariadne. Gunther owes his victory to Siegfried. The Kauravas in the Mahābhārata win by cheating at dice. Freya double-crosses Wotan, granting the victory to the Langobards. The Ases of Eddic mythology break the oath they have sworn to the Giants. In all these instances the act of fraudulently outwitting somebody else has itself become a subject for competition, a new play-theme, as it were.

So, I think it’s safe to say that in time Brady’s legacy, like the Pelops and Ases before him, will indeed belong to the ages and not to the moral equivalency fetishists among us. Ten years from now, American culture may very well be more corrupt than it is today, but it will hardly be a result of Deflategate. The real shame lieswith those who pretend otherwise while letting the true dangers pass.