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[Tyrone Slothrop]

Speaking of things read and not watched, I agree with quite a bit in this Rolling Stone article, including especially this description of what most Pats fans think:

I firmly believe Patriots fans and fans of the NFL's 31 other teams agree about most everything whereas "Deflategate" is concerned. It's really along the margins where Pats fans will go off on their own, suggesting that this is part of a larger, nefarious effort inside NFL headquarters to smear the Patriots because of their prolonged success. That's a harder story to swallow, but it's also not entirely without merit.

Generally speaking, most (if not all) Pats fans believe that Brady probably did something, in the sense that every single NFL quarterback likes his footballs with a particular feel and grip.

Portnoy: I think that's fair. I think that's how it started. And then as more information came out about what actually went down, it went from a feeling of that to "This was a sting." The problem is, why were these lies made up about what really happened? This is a nothing issue: Every quarterback under the sun has said they want their balls a certain way.

I agree, most Pats fans aren't sitting there thinking he's a choir boy, but it was more like, "This is clearly like this because it's the Patriots," just because they don't like Belichick or Brady, and that's what's caused so much fervor among Patriots fans. We have to defend this to the death because it wasn't a neutral investigation and [Goodell] wasn't a neutral arbitrator. It was clear that this was basically a set-up.

Finn: I think the more reasonable fans look at it and say, "There was a culture of gamesmanship with the way the quarterbacks handle the footballs here." Everybody is aware, I think, that Brady and Peyton Manning sort of helmed the idea in 2006, when it was passed that the quarterbacks get to handle and manipulate the footballs before a game, sort of to their own specifications within specific guidelines.

And as it turned out, the league, for whatever reason – it's hard to gauge what Roger Goodell's motivations are – turned this into some big thing, and it expanded beyond what they probably thought it would be. It became this big mess. Again, the more reasonable majority of Pats fans look at it and say, "Sure, Tom Brady wanted the footballs a certain way, but so does everybody." The crime doesn't fit the punishment. It greatly, greatly exceeds whatever the crime was, if there was a crime at all.

I'm not sure why the NFL and ESPN were smearing Brady and the Patriots, and I doubt it's "because of their prolonged success," but they definitely were.