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The NFL made a circus out of deflate-gate, and it made sure in the end it got the reaction it wanted from the general public. That's the only way to really figure the miscues the NFL made with its unprecedented and overdone punishments for the New England Patriots in deflating footballs (an issue, as we'll see, the league never cared about before). [ Yahoo Sports Fantasy Football is back: Sign up for a league today! ] The NFL screwed up this punishment, going for the standing ovation from a mostly Patriots-hating public (all good teams are hated, and the Patriots surely rub people the wrong way) instead of doing what was right. Here are five reasons the NFL got the punishment so, so wrong: The NFL did not care much about football tampering, until it fit its agenda How do I know the NFL didn't care about ball tampering before? Well, there are two cases in which it did practically nothing, seeing them as the misdemeanors they were. Many people have brought these situations up in previous days, including ESPN.com's Mike Reiss. They are perfect examples of the NFL's hypocrisy when it came to the Patriots. Last season, the Carolina Panthers and Minnesota Vikings were caught, on a cold day, using sideline heaters to warm up footballs . That's against the rules. You can argue that it's not the same level as deflating footballs in a bathroom, but it has the same effect: Something outside of the rules to make the football easier to grip and catch. The Panthers and Vikings were ... warned. That's it. Now, even if you don't think it's the same level crime, it is at least similar in nature, and the difference between no punishment at all and what the Patriots got shows the NFL wanted to make an example out of New England. The NFL was simply pandering to the crowd, whether that was Pats-hating fans of 31 Pats-hating owners. Also, in 2012 the San Diego Chargers used towels with an adhesive substance on their game balls and didn't give them up to the NFL immediately when ordered to do so. If you think the Panthers-Vikings thing was just some honest mistake, it's a lot harder to convince anyone that there was no intent by the Chargers to gain an advantage. And the Chargers' punishment? A $20,000 fine. That's it. The NFL just recently started caring about game ball manipulation, about the time of last season's AFC championship game apparently. Heck, the league didn't even immediately act when the Indianapolis Colts told the NFL the day before that game that they were concerned about the Patriots deflating game balls. Doesn't sound like a league that was too concerned about the issue, does it? I don't believe there was necessarily a sting, I just think the league didn't care about the issue. Until it saw which way the public wind was blowing, that is. The precedents are so out of line with the Patriots' discipline, it's hard to reconcile in a way that makes any sense. The argument that Spygate mattered doesn't hold up in Brady's suspension
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