Troy Aikman says Patriot punishment should be worse than Bountygate
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Per Pro Football Talk:
“This whole comment by Roger Goodell based on the Saints when Sean Payton got suspended for the year, and he says ‘ignorance is no excuse,’ that’s going to come back to haunt him again,” Aikman said, via the Dallas Morning News. “That haunted him during the whole Ray Rice situation with he, himself, and now it’s going to haunt Roger Goodell in terms of what the punishment is for the New England Patriots and Bill Belichick. If ignorance is no excuse, and it wasn’t for Sean Payton. …[The Saints] did not give themselves a competitive advantage. Now twice, under Bill Belichick and possibly a third time, they’ve cheated and given themselves an advantage. To me, the punishment for the Patriots and/or Bill Belichick has to be more severe than what the punishment was for the New Orleans Saints.”
First off, Aikman assumes a lot. He said that it was "obvious" that Tom Brady had a hand in this according to Pro Football Talk, which is still up for debate. I could be wrong, but we have yet to hear from Tom himself (which we will in a few minutes), so we don't know for sure what he's thinking or if he was involved. We'll here from him soon, so that will be a little clearer. Second, worse than Bounty-Gate? That's debatable, to me. Doctoring footballs was something that a lot of quarterbacks have done in the past, and Aaron Rodgers openly admitted to liking game balls a certain way. We'll have to wait and see, but I personally don't believe the punishment handed down by the league should be worse than losing their head coach for a whole season, assuming the league takes action.
Hopefully, we'll have more answers within the next 24 hours or so, because there are a lot things still to be answered.
