Pat's Scandal Erased to Save the League

The Pat's won three of the past four Super Bowls by three points or fewer. Their wins were all gained by last-minute field goals. None of those wins were decisive, like the Colts cleaning the clock of the Bears last season.

So it is appropriate to ask whether the Pats' illegal filming of D signals helped them win those Super Bowls. It is obvious that it did, as why on Earth would they videotape, and risk sanctions, if it did not help them win games?

I had hoped that Goodell would have investigated this more fiercely, but he decided to destroy the tapes that Belichick had compiled.

Goodell is being a good businessman, as the revelation that three of the past four Super Bowl wins might have been tainted would potentially destroy the Golden Goose.

Still, I am with Easterbrook:

The situation with the National Football League is a lot worse than people realize, and the only one who seems to grasp this fully is commissioner Roger Goodell. You don't issue emergency orders backed by threats on Sunday morning of a game day, as Goodell just did regarding the New England Patriots' files of cheating information, unless the situation is a lot worse than people realize.

Why is the situation worse than people think? Because the NFL is on the precipice of blowing its status as the country's favorite sport. The whole NFL enterprise is in jeopardy from that single word: cheating. It's the most distasteful word in sports. And now the Patriots have brought the word into the NFL.