Now, I'm a Patriots fan, and so is Bill Simmons, so maybe we're both equally biased. However, this is the most sane media take I've heard on the Patriots' ball deflation controversy so far. We're talking about footballs that were under inflated by less than 10%, when the rule itself has an 8% margin for error written into it. Brady threw 4 TD's in the AFC championship game after the balls were properly inflated, and he threw 4 more TD's to win the Super Bowl, when the league was managing the footballs. Clearly the deflation gave him a huge advantage.

I totally agree with Simmons' take that Brady handled this whole thing wrong, though, too. The denial is what's making it worse. And the media are blowing the whole thing up like he was throwing self-guided footballs or something.

And, as Deadspin points out, it may have been his "testicular fortitude" comments about Roger Goodell that led to the timing of his firing.