Overblown ‘Deflategate’ reveals warped priorities

Let’s get this out there right away. I don’t like Tom Brady, and haven’t for quite a while.

Here’s why:

When he was asked by an NFL public relations guy to make himself available for a quick walk-and-talk interview after a Pro Bowl practice about 10 years ago, he dropped a long drawn out F-bomb, with me — obviously the person requesting the interview — standing right there next to him. I would have liked to have just thrown one back, with the word "you" added and walked away. But I had a specific assignment that day that required asking him a couple of questions.

Before that, I’d bought into the St. Tom narrative common to the early part of his career, had even written a freelance story for the Boston Herald the previous year about how great Brady was for prioritizing the Make-a-Wish kids and spending real time with them when he could’ve been hitting the beach, the links or the nightclubs.

Sometimes, sustained stardom changes people, for the worse.

Did it ruin my life or my faith in mankind that an NFL quarterback treated me with disrespect for a few seconds? Nah, part of the job, it wasn’t the first time, and you kind of get used to that sort of thing. And it didn’t even mess up my assignment that day, as I was eventually allowed to ask him what I needed as we walked toward the locker room and he provided answers — not great quotes, but usable ones.

He ended up doing his job, but he’d treated another human being — namely me — like a piece of garbage. Part of our job is to take note of things like that.

Maybe six out of seven days a week Brady is a prince and I just caught him on his day off from being an amicable, approachable professional. Maybe, but I tend to believe over the years there have been other incidents similar to what I experienced.

And it’s not a grudge, it’s just a pertinent fact; I bring it up because I can relate to why people may dislike Brady and his increasingly smug image — or you may simply be a fan of a rival team and that’s your reason to loathe him.

With all that being said, I think it’s possible and actually incumbent to separate any disdain for the person (and to a degree the team) from the reality of what’s going on with the overblown story about under-inflated footballs.

Does Brady deserve a one- or two-game suspension and should the Patriots lose a draft pick? Oh, yeah.

New England has a history of bending and breaking rules, and who knows how much of the iceberg remains unseen? We can argue semantics about whether Brady was obstructive or merely unhelpful to the investigation when he declined to turn over his personal phone or otherwise cooperate.

But more than a couple of games or even a season-long suspension as some suggest? That’s ridiculous — and not because he’s Tom Brady, superstar. It’s because it would be another example of the NFL’s warped priorities.

It’s really hard to tell what punishment fits a crime now because the league has flubbed it so many times.

Ray Rice? Adrian Peterson? Sean Payton?

How about this for a simple rule of thumb: If a player gets violent outside of the rules or off the field, especially with a woman or child, bring out the hammer. But if something is the result of a rule that is dubious to begin with and doesn’t hurt anyone but puts a little dent in the almighty shield, go a little lighter. The message won’t be lost; teams don’t like to lose draft picks.

Integrity of the game? Give me a break. That ship sailed long ago — probably around the time the players union got too cozy with the owners.

Isn’t it very sad and strange that more fans are in an uproar about what Tom Brady did or did not know about the air in his footballs than how many people his former teammate Aaron Hernandez did or did not murder?

Reach Star-Advertiser sports columnist Dave Reardon at dreardon@staradvertiser.com. His “Quick Reads” blog is at hawaiiwarriorworld.com/quick-reads.