Original subtitles

[Rupert Murdoch] The story of the Patriots

is success through great leadership.

And that's Robert Kraft.

Robert is an example of the American Dream.

Started with very little and built a great business empire.

[announcer] The New England Patriots, solidifying their team as an NFL dynasty.

[Murdoch] He's known for his leadership of the Patriots,

and of the NFL.

[flashbulb pops]

And, I think, admired everywhere.

[jet engine roars]

[Robert Kraft] After the third Super Bowl,

there was a lot of public media attention...

...and I was invited

on a trip to Russia.

We got there, then Putin emerged.

Little guy, but frightening figure.

Putin was going out to speak to the media

and asked us to stand behind him.

Rupert Murdoch was standing right beside me

and I was told,

"Why don't you show the president your Super Bowl ring?"

[Murdoch] The Super Bowl ring, it's a very big, ostentatious thing.

I wouldn't say it's in the best of taste. [chuckles]

But... the recipients of it wouldn't agree with me.

I pulled the ring out of my pocket and I gave it to him.

He put it on, and then he looked at me.

And he said, "I could kill someone with this ring."

"I could kill a man with this."

And, you know, we knew he damn well could.

So I did a whiplash and I said, "Mr. President,

you could kill someone without it.

You know, you were head of the KGB."

He took the ring off,

and I had my hand out and he took the ring.

He put it in his side pocket.

Three KGB guys come around him and he's off.

"He's still got my ring." I said, "Go and ask him. Get it back."

He said, "Oh, I couldn't do that."

And let's just say somehow the story wound up in the New York Post.

[Kraft] And it became a global, international story

that Putin stole my ring.

A call came in from the White House,

and they said, "It would be good for US-Soviet relations

if you meant to give them the ring as a gift."

It was unbelievable, the attention it got.

But to tell you the truth,

we were used to all this attention at this point in our lives.

[song continues]

- [announcer] Tom Brady... - [announcer 2] Tom Brady...

[announcer 3] He's the best of all time.

[announcer 4] Oh, caught. Touchdown!

[analyst] Right now, the best team in the National Football League.

[hip-hop music playing]

[announcer 5] Perfection personified by the Patriots.

- [Tedy Bruschi] NFL history! - [players] Oh, yeah!

[analyst] What these guys have accomplished together is unbelievable.

[Murdoch] The Patriots, after winning many games...

I think the people of America, they're just getting sick of it.

Give me a chest bump.

There's a saying in Australia, the Tall Poppy Syndrome.

If someone's very successful, people look up to it and want to tear it down.

That's a tall poppy situation.

[Kraft] Our team was performing at a level,

no one could believe it.

And anyone who's fortunate to be in that position has to understand,

jealousy and envy are incurable diseases.

["All Eyez on Me" by 2Pac playing]

[announcer] Tom Brady, the guy with the perfect life,

with the perfect wife that you could root against.

[Kraft] When you become number one,

people are going to come after you every way they can.

[song continues]

[crowd chanting] Brady, Brady, Brady.

[song ends, echoing]

[cheering]

[announcer] Playing for the AFC Championship here in New England,

as the Colts take on the Patriots.

[fireworks pop]

And the winner to advance to Phoenix and Super Bowl 49

to take on the Seattle Seahawks.

Brady hands it to Blount...

And he's got the touchdown.

- Touchdown, New England. - [whistle blows]

And it's 7-0 New England, not even five minutes into the game.

The former Patriot Adam Vinatieri back at New England.

[Adam Vinatieri] I was on the Indianapolis Colts since 2006.

The Colts were probably New England's biggest rival in the AFC.

We had a huge hatred for the Patriots, to say the least.

The one thing that was stopping us from going to the Super Bowl

were the New England Patriots.

[announcer] Develin, who is able to bounce off the hit.

Touchdown, New England.

And it's 14-0 here in the first quarter.

We always felt like, they can't be this successful.

So, we spent a lot of extra time

trying to figure out or see if they were doing anything special.

[crowd chanting] Brady, Brady, Brady, Brady, Brady, Brady, Brady...

[Tom Curran] That AFC championship game was, in many ways, a coronation.

Patriots heading to the Super Bowl.

But unbeknownst to the media,

unbeknownst to the fans...

...unbeknownst to the Patriots...

...the Colts had been tipped off

by the Patriots' previous opponent, Baltimore Ravens,

that the Patriots had been tampering with footballs.

And then the Colts alerted the NFL by e-mail that the Patriots were cheating.

So, the NFL was lying in wait.

And they were all looped in prior to the game.

All the Colts needed was to get their hands on a football from the Patriots.

[dramatic music]

[announcer] Intercepted by D'Qwell Jackson.

- [players grunt] - [whistle blows]

[Curran] D'Qwell Jackson picked Brady off,

went to the sideline and all of a sudden, the Colts equipment managers

are poking the football, trying to find some kind of smoking gun.

This started the beginning of one of the most bizarre controversies in NFL history.

[host] It's as predictable as the sun coming up tomorrow.

After every big win by the New England Patriots,

there are those who accuse Bill Belichick and his coaching staff

of breaking the rules to get the victory.

The latest headshaking theory, under-inflated footballs.

Deflategate.

- Deflategate. - Deflategate.

- Deflategate. - Deflategate.

Deflategate.

[tweet alert]

[Curran] A tweet from one of the most respected writers,

ESPN's Chris Mortensen,

alleged that 11 of the 12 balls were significantly under-inflated.

Sometime in the last half hour leading up to kickoff,

those balls are returned to the teams in the bench area,

and then who had those... control of those footballs?

[analyst] The advantage of playing with an under-inflated ball?

It's easier to grip and catch, especially in foul weather.

[reporter] That organization is willing to do quote unquote,

"Whatever they need to do to try and win."

It's not the first time they've skirted the rules.

[Curran] We went through it with Spygate seven years earlier.

And I said, if this shit's true, Bill Belichick's got to go.

You can't do this.

It cuts to the heart of the integrity of the game.

[camera shutters click]

All right, I'll, uh, start off by addressing the, uh...

the football issue here. Um...

When I came in Monday morning, uh, I was shocked to...

learn of the news reports about the, uh, footballs.

I could tell you that in my entire coaching career,

I have never talked to any player

about football air pressure.

I think we all know that quarterbacks, kickers, specialists,

have certain preferences on footballs,

and Tom's personal preferences

on his footballs are something that he can talk about

in much better detail than I could possibly provide.

[reporters clamor]

[Michael Holley] Oh, wait a minute. Oh, boy, really?

"Our quarterbacks? They can tell you more about that. Ask the quarterbacks."

"Ask Tom. Tom'd know."

"You'll have to ask the quarterback."

- I've told you everything I know. - [reporters chatter]

[Curran] What Belichick perceived in this

was because of the shit that happened with Spygate,

I'm gonna be in the crosshairs for this.

I have no explanation for what happened.

So, he wanted to make sure that he was...

...as best he could.

We will take steps in the future

to make sure that we don't put ourselves in that type of potential situation again.

- [reporters clamor] - [camera shutters click]

Did Coach Belichick just throw his quarterback under the bus?

Threw Brady over the side.

Star quarterback Tom Brady's fault.

[camera shutters click]

Hi, guys, how you doing?

[reporter] Tom, when and how did you supposedly alter the balls?

I didn't, you know, have any, uh... You know, I didn't alter the ball in any way.

You know, obviously I woke up Monday morning and that was...

Well, the first I heard of it.

[reporter 2] Tom, this has raised a lot of uncomfortable conversations

for people around this country who view you as their idol.

The question they're asking themselves is, "What's up with our hero?"

So, can you answer right now, is Tom Brady a cheater?

[laughs]

I don't believe so.

I feel like I've always played within the rules.

I'd never do anything to break the rules.

You know, I believe in fair play,

and I'll always believe in that as long as I'm playing.

[overlapping questions]

[Brady] Early on, I kind of laughed it off.

But there was a lot of built-up tension and hate from a lot of people

that was part of, I think, our success of the Patriots, you know?

I wish I could give you more answers or the answers you guys were looking for,

but I don't have some of those answers.

Your fans are watching.

So if they're looking in that camera,

what do you say to the fans of the Patriot Nation?

What would you like me to say? I'm not quite sure.

You say whatever you like, guy.

You're the guy.

[reporters clamor]

Everybody's bombarding him with questions. I think it caught him off-guard.

[reporters clamor]

[Holley] He was stung.

Brady did not handle it well.

He was not at his best.

I think if there was a hornets' nest, I mean, man, was I in it.

[reporter] Tom Brady hit the podium for 31 minutes.

[reporter 2] Taking the hits from reporters,

but insisting he knew and noticed nothing.

[Tony Kornheiser] Tom Brady said, "I didn't alter the ball in any way."

- Okay, so who did? - Who did?

[both] Who did?

Well, I think really what it comes down to now

is trying to determine why were those footballs deflated?

And how did they get to that?

Thank you, guys. Goodbye.

[Curran] After Brady's press conference, there were even more questions.

And a few days later, the NFL says, "We're gonna get to the bottom of this."

We are conducting a thorough and objective investigation.

We are focusing principally on two questions.

Why were some footballs used in the game

that were not in compliance with the rules?

And was this the result of deliberate action?

The NFL is going to begin its independent investigation with Ted Wells.

[reporter] The NFL has hired Ted Wells, getting a truly independent person.

Wells is the key here, because he will get to the bottom of it.

- [shutter clicks] - [Curran] Ted Wells was a big gun.

I mean, his law firm had been involved in defending tobacco companies.

So, for Roger Goodell to get a guy like Ted Wells to run an investigation

added to the notion that maybe something had happened.

And all of a sudden, in the week leading up to the Super Bowl,

this pissant little conversation about deflated footballs

kind of overshadowed everything.

[engine roars]

[reporter] Boy, the New England Patriots better win this Super Bowl.

[Michael Wilbon] If they lose this Super Bowl,

everybody's going to be talking about,

"And that's what happens when you're forced to play fair!"

The New England Patriots' legacy is officially on the line.

[reporter] I think that Tom Brady has some questions to answer.

America is looking at him with a jaundiced eye.

That "Tommy Perfect" is not perfect.

The two weeks were very difficult on Tommy.

He was taking it...

...very hard.

[Darrelle Revis] When the Deflategate happened,

and Tom was the headliner of... of, uh, the whole situation.

He addressed us as a team. You can tell that he was distraught.

He said, "This is something I wouldn't do.

I would not ruin this season for us.

The allegations are false."

He was actually bawling his eyes out in front of us.

Tom can be a very fiery person.

But he can also be a very soft person, very emotional.

It took a massive toll on him because of his kids.

Just having to listen to his kids come home from school

and talk about the things they heard from their friends

or their teachers or whoever.

I felt for him.

When the shots are being fired at you, you can handle it.

When they're being fired at people you care about, that's when it gets hard.

[crowd] Cheater! Cheater! Cheater!

[Nancy Brady] We've been to many games where people didn't like my brother,

yelling obscene things,

but this was different, because they were going after his character.

They didn't believe him.

[man] Cheater! You cheat!

[announcer] The AFC Champion, the New England Patriots.

[Tom Brady Sr] It was extraordinarily difficult

in the life of the Brady family.

Not only did I suffer from it, but my wife...

It crushed her.

Because he's not a liar.

I felt very helpless as a mom.

I mean, usually when your kids are little,

you can hold them or you can fix their problems.

And watching Tommy having to go through this,

you know, there's nothing we could do about it.

But for Tommy on the football field,

that's when he could prove to the world that he was calling the shots.

[crowd cheers]

[Brady] All right. Let's go, boys.

Let's go whoop their ass.

One. Two. Three. Super Bowl champs.

[Al Michaels] Brady throws. Caught. LaFell, touchdown.

We wanted to beat the Seahawks.

They were a little bit cocky, I would say.

[Michaels] Wilson.

To Lynch.

Touchdown!

It was so back and forth of we'd score...

[Michaels] And Brady's gonna throw deep down the right side

for Gronkowski and a touchdown.

[McCourty] ...they'd score.

[Michaels] And it's caught! Touchdown.

That was a clash of the titans.

[Michaels] Play fake. The lob, wide open.

Touchdown, Doug Baldwin.

[Cris Collinsworth] This game is turning into something here.

We could be playing football all night tonight.

[Michaels] Tom Brady, he said to us yesterday,

he said, "There would not be a game I would want to win more than this one."

Under five minutes, a three-point game.

[Brady] Hey, we need a big fucking championship drive.

- That's what we need. Ready? - [players] Break!

[Brady] Fifty-four. Hike-hike!

[Michaels] Second and 11.

Brady, and as he throws,

caught by Gronkowski.

Second and goal.

Hey, 50!

[Michaels] Tom looks left.

Throws for Edelman.

Touchdown, Patriots!

They're back in the lead!

Touchdown. We're back in the game.

There's a light at the end of the tunnel.

[Michaels] And that makes it a 4-point lead.

[Josh McDaniels] We're up by 4 in the 4th quarter of a Super Bowl.

You love the part, 6 minutes to go and you have the ball.

You hate the part with 2 minutes to go and you don't.

[Michaels] Under a minute and a half to go.

[Collinsworth] Good snap to the quarterback.

[Michaels] Russell fires down the right side.

He's got Kearse, and the ball is knocked incomplete.

Good play again by Malcolm Butler.

But did Kearse catch it? He caught it on the carom! Unreal!

[Collinsworth] Huge play.

They had the rookie Malcolm Butler.

You know, in preparing for the game, I studied everybody.

But I didn't spend a ton of time on Malcolm Butler,

because he wasn't going to play very much.

[Michaels] 1:06 to play.

[Malcolm Butler] After the tip ball, I come to the sideline.

Nobody really saying anything.

But you could feel it.

It got...

kind of quiet and...

it felt like everybody...

...everybody hope was, like, gone.

Last year I worked at Popeyes in Vicksburg, Mississippi.

As a rookie, my first year in the NFL, I go to the Super Bowl.

I know I did the best I could do, but, like, goddamn, I'mma feel, like,

if we lose, it's my fault.

[Collinsworth] Seattle huddling up,

down 4, but on the verge of the lead.

With 33 seconds and counting.

[Butler] I'm thinking I'm not gonna get another opportunity

to go back in the game.

But all of a sudden, they say, "Goal line 3 corner."

And it was, like, "Malc. Malcolm, go."

Three corners, three!

Malcolm, go!

[Michaels] Second and goal.

Play clock at 5.

[Butler] I was looking at Russ. I was like...

"He's looking over here too much.

He's looking too much."

[Wilson grunts]

[Collinsworth] Wilson, quick throw.

- And it's... - [Michaels] It's good!

[Collinsworth] Intercepted! Intercepted by Malcolm Butler!

Malcolm Butler stepped in front of the throw!

[Michaels] No way!

[players cheer]

I lost my mind. I mean, I was jumping all six inches I can jump.

[screams with delight]

[screams with delight]

[Michaels] Malcolm Butler, unreal!

The New England Patriots are the NFL champions.

Butler, this kid is a Super Bowl hero.

[Butler] I started crying.

It was meant to be. It was meant to be.

We have to say hi to my guys. Wanna say hi to my guys.

[Brady] We had gone ten years before winning the Super Bowl.

We lost two in between. Without him, man, we don't win that Super Bowl.

Malcolm! Are you fucking kidding me?

What a fucking play!

- You're unbelievable, man. - Thank you.

Way to go!

That was, in my view, one of the greatest plays

in the history of any Super Bowl. It was so spectacular.

[Butler] I think that's one of the best things I heard in my life,

Tom Brady telling me that.

[Kraft] This is our fourth Super Bowl championship

in the last 14 years.

Yeah, baby!

Tonight, once again, the Patriots are world champions.

[crowd cheers]

[Michaels] The New England Patriots...

...are the NFL champions.

[reporter] Obviously, in the aftermath of Deflategate,

now comes the parsing of a very complicated legacy for New England.

[reporter 2] Instead of talking about the Super Bowl,

all eyes are on Deflategate.

[Curran] Tom Brady won his fourth championship

despite the fact that the league had checked the footballs.

To me, everything was validated by Brady with that one Super Bowl win.

[fans chanting] Brady! Brady!

But you can't have that forever,

especially when the NFL's wheels of justice are still churning.

[horns blare]

[reporter] Breaking right now, the Deflategate report released.

The NFL has just released this.

So, here's your lengthy Wells report, 243 pages in all.

[reporter 2] The much anticipated report finding it's more probable than not

that New England Patriots' staffers

took air out of footballs in the AFC championship game,

and that Tom Brady knew something about the practice.

[reporter 3] Tom Brady was, and this is a quote,

"At least generally aware of the deflated balls."

[Curran] So, when the Wells report is released,

it's hard to not conclude that there was a high interest on Brady's part

to make sure the balls... were soft enough.

Really, the first thing the Wells report did

was prove the Patriots' ball boy had an opportunity

to take air pressure out of the balls.

The investigation said that they had surveillance tape from within the stadium

that showed that.

Video evidence being examined by the league,

and a so-called "person of interest" identified

who took the footballs in question behind closed doors.

[reporter] The Deflategate investigation is now centered

on a 90-second bathroom break

taken by a Patriots locker room attendant

before the AFC championship game.

[Curran] The tape showed the ball boy carrying the footballs into the bathroom.

The fact that he made that stop creates a level of suspicion.

Well, why didn't he just leave the balls outside?

What did he do for 90 seconds?

Is he emptying his bladder?

Is he emptying the bladders of the footballs?

The Wells report alleged that in that period of time

he more probably than not removed air from the footballs.

Contributing to the circumstantial evidence of that perhaps happening

were the texts.

Text messages between the Patriots' locker room attendant

and the equipment assistant seem to implicate Brady.

[reporter] A lot of shady stuff going on.

Text messages back and forth about using the needle.

They had text messages, they had phone records.

They found that the equipment assistant was joking about being "the deflator."

I find a guy who's called the deflator

deflating footballs...

...plausible.

It is not hard and fast evidence,

but it is a very damning circumstantial case.

But that's the thing about the Wells report.

Everything is inferred. There's nothing conclusive that really nails him.

[camera shutter clicks]

[Curran] Ted Wells needed something that hung Brady...

[shutter clicks]

...that said the ball boys were not working on their own

and just randomly deflating footballs.

Can we find something where Tom tells them to do this?

[shutter clicks]

[Curran] So, the investigation was dying to get its hands on Tom Brady's phone.

Big new developments tonight in the Deflategate cheating scandal,

as the league reveals Brady had his cell phone destroyed

right as investigators wanted to see it.

He said that was something that he just did ordinarily.

Every so often, he would get a new cell phone,

and he'd tell his assistant to destroy it

so nobody could extract information or use it.

Brady had destroyed his phone.

And that touched off a shitstorm.

[reporter] Now, critics are imagining the moment

when the NFL asked to see Tom Brady's phone.

[reporter 2] Any reasonable person

would read this and say, "They did cheat, they did lie."

- May have been caught cheating... - Cheating.

It would be cheating.

He **** knew!

[audience laughs]

He knew that the balls were being deflated.

- You cheating ****. - [audience laughs]

[Holley] Everyone was saying,

"You're cheaters. You have been. You have been for a long time,

and here you are at it again. We're sick of it."

[reporter] Major news. The NFL, we are now told,

has suspended Patriots quarterback Tom Brady for four games without pay.

[reporter 2] For the first four games of the next season.

They're really taking

their most high-profile star player out to the woodshed.

I have great admiration and respect for Tom Brady, uh,

but the rules have to be enforced

and they apply to everybody, like...

[Goodell] Anytime there's a violation of rules,

my job is to approach these things without emotion

and without a view

of anything other than what truly transpired here,

and deal with it.

[producer] But on the outside world, it became...

But I'm not living on the outside world.

What I'm living on is what we have to do as a league

to deal with this appropriately.

[reporter] This is huge.

There had been speculation that maybe Roger Goodell's relationship

with, uh, Robert Kraft might have him go easy on the Patriots,

but it doesn't appear that that has been the case here.

This is certainly on the tougher side of any potential punishment that...

[Kraft] Once the NFL came out with their very harsh ruling,

I realized the league was not our ally here.

Because of the solid relationship I had with Commissioner Goodell,

he probably had to go overboard

to make sure no one could ever accuse him of equivocating or being soft.

This is a statement made against the owner, Robert Kraft.

Goodell is saying, "Everybody thinks I'm buddy-buddy with Bob Kraft.

Well, watch this!"

Roger Goodell is probably saying, "Thank God,

I get to show I'm tough. I get to be the iron fist."

[Jackie MacMullan] The Commissioner of the NFL, Roger Goodell,

works for the owners.

Yes, that includes Robert Kraft,

but it includes quite a few others who were decidedly unhappy

with how Roger Goodell had handled Spygate.

[Holley] There was a lot of anger and resentment

from the other owners who were chirping in Goodell's ear,

"You got to do something.

They got away with Spygate. Gonna let them get away with this too?"

[MacMullan] This time, instead of going easy, they're going hard.

And it just became, in my opinion, a witch hunt. It was a witch hunt.

And Tom Brady was the witch that was getting hung at Salem.

[interviewer] When we decided to do this four months ago,

there was a little bit of a different circumstance.

However, there is an elephant in the room.

- Where? - [laughter]

You may be the only one who doesn't see it.

[laughter]

So, Tom, you're in the news here, uh, and the Ted Wells report was just released.

- [audience boos and jeers] - [Brady laughs]

Is the Super Bowl tainted? Should there be an asterisk?

- [audience jeers] - What do you guys think?

[audience boos]

Neither do I.

[Curran] By the time the Wells report rolled around,

New Englanders had basically been sharpening their knives,

and taking to the streets and losing their minds over Deflategate.

[audience] MVP! MVP!

Tom, it looks like you've picked a pretty friendly place to reappear.

[audience chants]

Thank you, guys, for being here. Thank you very much.

[Curran] Patriots fans had galvanized and came to Tom's defense.

Deflategate is the ultimate bullshit fucking outrage of sports ever.

What they did was suspend Tom Brady for four days

for not giving them his fucking cell phone.

And for having a friend who called himself the Deflator.

If I got in trouble for all the things that my friends called themselves,

I would be finished.

I would never give an organization as leak-prone as the NFL

my fucking cell phone so you could just look through my emails.

Ben Affleck. Did you see that?

Yeah, I did. He got... he got a little animated.

- Look, Boston fans... - A little animated, yeah!

We're a little crazy. And, uh, we take this stuff very seriously.

[Bill Burr] You weasels in the media

couldn't handle that he had movie-star good looks,

he had a supermodel girlfriend.

And what it did was reminded all you out-of-shape sportswriters

how many times you didn't get picked in gym class,

and you went after him.

All these fans couldn't admit the fact you couldn't beat us.

They became a bunch of little girls crying,

[he blubs] "The... the... the football weighed a little bit less." Right?

Get the fuck outta here.

- Free Tom Brady! - [cheering]

[Holley] The Patriots and their fans

wanted to yell to anybody who would listen,

"Hey, hey, hey. No, the story's not how it looks."

The proof is right here. Tom Brady is not a cheater.

He wanted to prove that the weather had something to do with

the pressure of the ball and not Tom Brady.

[Holley] Some fans, they were talking about science

and the Ideal Gas Law.

[man] It's just basic laws of physics.

This is what happens to footballs in cold weather.

[Holley] And others pointed out there'd been bad reporting.

[reporter] Mortensen falsely reported

that 11 of the New England Patriots' 12 game balls

were two pounds underweight,

a story that pretty much burst Deflategate.

Others were saying, "Everybody's doing it."

We do know that doctoring the football is a common practice.

[MacMullan] I went back and did a story

on all the things quarterbacks did to the footballs before games.

People would put them through the washing machine.

All these things more egregious than PSI.

Did Tom Brady deflate footballs?

He probably did, but what are we talking about here?

It just makes me... All these years later, I just still can't believe it.

[fans clapping] Free Tom Brady!

Roger sucks!

[fan] It's just frustrating to sit as a fan,

and watch these morons in the front office get away with this type of crime.

[fans] Free Tom Brady!

[David Portnoy] Once Brady was suspended, Patriot fans, we were furious.

Myself, we're a Boston company,

a bunch of our employees were like, "What are we gonna do?

We're not taking this laying down.

We want to fight this, basically, to the death."

[Portnoy] Today is May 12th.

Getting ready to do a sit-in in the Commissioner's office.

We are gonna walk in and say, "We'd like to meet with Roger Goodell."

I assume they aren't gonna grant that meeting.

And then we're just gonna fall down onto the ground handcuffed to each other.

Something that people gotta understand about Barstool

is we're not the most thought-out organization of all time.

It's like, "Hey, let's go to NFL headquarters."

Like, "Everyone go home, get your shit, and we're going."

[protestors] Free Brady, fire Goodell!

Free Brady, fire Goodell!

[Portnoy] We did that little circle march that you see

when someone's picketing, and then we just walked right into NFL headquarters,

we talked to the secretary, she's like, "Do you have an appointment?"

We could tell we were not getting up there,

and we handcuffed ourselves to each other, demanding to speak to the Commissioner.

Give us five questions to Roger and we'll leave.

Why did you lie? Why do you hate Tom Brady?

How can you convict somebody without proof?

[guard] You guys wanna get arrested, right?

[Portnoy] No, we wanna meet with Roger Goodell.

OK, so you're going to wind up getting arrested.

I mean, I've got the cops coming over now.

[Portnoy] The police showed up and we got taken to jail.

[protester] Free David Portnoy!

[protester 2] Hate us 'cause they ain't us!

Hate us 'cause they ain't us!

[shutter clicks]

[Portnoy] If you look back at it, for such a stupid thing,

it was crazy. It was crazy. For a long time, it was crazy.

The potential cheating scandal

involving one of the great teams and great quarterbacks

in the history of the game

continues to consume a colossal amount of time and attention.

[reporter] The Deflategate scandal

has moved from the football field to the courtroom.

[reporter 2] Brady is appealing his four-game suspension.

[host] I've gotta talk about the court sketches.

Here's the thing, Tom Brady is a really, really handsome man.

But this?

Do you think it should be a huge story?

Well, let's see. The government of Yemen has collapsed.

You have terror cells in France.

And all three network news, uh, broadcasts tonight were led with Deflategate.

Oh, my goodness, yeah!

This is a story that should have been a speck.

But it's the Patriots.

It's the biggest story in town.

It's our top story. It's the ongoing Deflategate scandal.

In other news, the fate of two Japanese men held hostage by ISIS is uncertain.

I mean, it was insane.

But you look at the ratings, it's so big

that it just builds on itself over and over and over and over.

[Lenny Leonard] Boston wins because they cheat.

You know, for three games, Boston used a volleyball painted brown?

There's only one thing you can deflate.

These nuts!

[laughter]

[MacMullan] The NFL, the media,

fans across the world,

we all took this nothing event

and turned it into one of the most ridiculous controversies

I can ever remember in my lifetime.

[reporter] This scandal over footballs

in professional football will not go away.

[reporter 2] The NFL's Deflategate scandal appears headed to federal court.

[shutters clicking]

It was like the crime of the century had occurred

for the NFL's lawyers.

For whatever reason, they chose to drag out everything

and create a huge distraction.

I think it hurt the NFL.

It didn't help it.

[Howard Bryant] I remember watching this and wondering,

"Why are you spending so much time and so much money on this?"

And I think that at that same time...

...the NFL's got these domestic violence issues.

The NFL has got labor issues.

And those things got pushed to the side to concentrate on this,

because it was the Patriots.

[reporter] The big news coming out from the NFL,

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell is upholding the four-game suspension

against New England's QB Tom Brady,

by many accounts, the face of the NFL right now,

one of the most popular quarterbacks out there.

[Robert Kraft] I felt it was important to make a statement today

prior to the start of training camp.

I had hopes that Tom Brady's appeal to the league

would provide Roger Goodell the necessary explanation

to overturn his suspension.

I was wrong to put my faith in the league.

When we have a fight, we like to win,

and win every battle.

But, in the end, you know, Goodell has the ultimate authority.

We weren't gonna win the battle.

And I wanted to get it over.

After this, I will not be talking about this matter,

and I would advise everyone in the organization to do the same.

[producer] Okay, so, Tom, sitting here today,

would you like to respond to any of the allegations from the Wells report,

and the months-long NFL investigation?

[laughs]

No.

You know, obviously, I have a lot of personal feelings and, um...

But I really don't care to share many of those.

I really care to think about what I need to do going forward.

Thanks, guys. Nice to see you.

[Brady] I mean, look, I saw, like, venom from people

that was so far beyond comprehension.

But it was more than about under-inflated footballs in the end.

Now it's probably football lore.

But at that time, it was exhausting.

And at some point, you just drop the rope and you go,

"Okay, like, that's enough," you know?

[reporter] Brady will not play the first four games of the 2016 season. He's out.

[chatter]

[Amendola] Obviously, Tom, it took a massive toll on him.

All Tom wanted to do is be a good teammate and be out on that field.

But after the training camp,

he was gonna miss four games,

and he was pissed.

Hike!

[Amendola] He was fucking angry.

No!

[Amendola] You know, there was definitely the feeling like,

when he gets back after his suspension,

he's gonna rain vengeance upon thee...

[laughs]

[Brady] Hey, go whoop their ass.

[reporter] Tom Brady, he's going to come back and play possessed.

[Stephen A. Smith] We have a reason to be scared.

A lot of teams, if not every team, is simply saying...

"Uh-oh."