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Tom Brady Suspension: Is his legacy ruined forever?

By Josh Hill

Feb 1, 2015; Glendale, AZ, USA; New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady speaks at a press conference after defeating the Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl XLIX at University of Phoenix Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports
Feb 1, 2015; Glendale, AZ, USA; New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady speaks at a press conference after defeating the Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl XLIX at University of Phoenix Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports /
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Tom Brady has been suspended four games over his role in DeflateGate, but does this run his legacy the same way steroids have ruined baseball legacies?

Tom Brady has been suspended four games for his role in DeflateGate — which is just the tip of the iceberg full of problems that this all presents when it comes Brady’s legacy in the NFL.

First and foremost, the NFL has thrown down the hammer on Tom Brady — one of the league’s most prominent faces. That should deb the headline here, but there’s more to it than that as we watch the cookie crumble on this whole situation.

The league came down as hard on Brady as they do on violators of the PED policy in the CBA, as the NFL feels that the integrity of the game was compromised when Tom Brady messed with the inflation of balls and could have changed the outcome of the AFC Championship game and matchups before that.

Just think about that, Tom Brady has been suspended as long as someone who uses steroids — which makes you think.

Does DeflateGate and this suspension taint Tom Brady’s legacy?

If taking steroids to make yourself better is a violation worthy of ruining a legacy, is deflating a football to cheat yourself into a win the same thing?

On the surface, it would appear that this is more of an NFL problem than a Tom Brady problem and that’s what Brady had better hope continues to be the narrative as this all unfolds. All it takes is one thing to ruin the legacy of a player and this is as bad as a steroids violation in the eyes of the league.

Will that be the same in the eyes of the public?

For some reason, everyone other than Patriots fans love to hate on Tom Brady and that has a lot to do with people wanting to burn Bill Belichick at the stake. The NFL couldn’t get Bill Belichick on this, so they roasted his poster boy in Tom Brady.

Barry Bonds, Roger Clements and a slew of other baseball players have had their legacies tainted forever over allegations of cheating — and this seems to be no different than that. No matter how badly you want to hate on Belichick, this all boils down to Brady being branded a cheater — something that has ruined legacies of player before him in other sports.

It’s never happened in football though, which makes this unprecedented. Brady’s legacy speaks for itself, but this is now a black and white, etched in stone punishment for cheating; an indictment of Brady and the what he does to win. If taking steroids to make yourself better is a violation worthy of ruining a legacy, is deflating a football to cheat yourself into a win the same thing?

All we need is a shadow of a doubt to ruin a player’s legacy, and the question is now there to be asked: has Tom Brady cheated his way to the top?

It seems ridiculous, but that’s now something that people can argue because when the annals of time are written, contained among the records of human existence will be Tom Brady’s suspension for cheating. Is that over-the-top — perhaps. Is it now a fact written in stone — no doubt.

There’s no easy answer to that, but this now gives those who want to bury Brady’s legacy a reason to do so. The asterisk is now an option on his legacy, and that’s all it takes to take a player down.

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