Deflate-gate latest official fumble by NFL

More probable than not, the NFL wanted to get the New England Patriots and Tom Brady.

Because Deflate-gate, as it turns out, was indeed a sting operation.

Or as Brady’s father Tom Sr. termed it Wednesday to USA Today: “Frame-gate.”

Granted, such a harsh conclusion about the NFL’s intentions in this case cannot be reached beyond a reasonable doubt, nor even on the basis of clear and convincing evidence — two legal burdens of proof more strict by far than the “balance of probabilities” threshold employed by the NFL’s Deflategate investigator, Ted Wells, in carving the integrity of Brady, one of the greatest players in league history.

All of the unfair, unnecessary angst over this — the entire week of curious leaks and news conference melodrama that followed the AFC championship game, the soiling of Brady’s reputation, a billion bad puns about balls and finally Wells’ over-indulgent investigation — easily could have been avoided by the NFL.

All the league had to do upon receiving another complaint from the Indianapolis Colts about the alleged use of under-inflated footballs by the Pats is warn the Patriots hours before the game not to use under-inflated footballs. Tell them the league’s going to gauge the balls during the game, too.

Done. Avoided. Crisis killed before it can even incubate.

Because do you think head coach Bill Belichick wouldn’t have got involved at that point and wagged a finger of warning at his ball boys, equipment handlers and quarterbacks alike? No matter how little he subsequently claimed to know about air pressure in footballs to that point in his life? Of course he would have. But no. The NFL thought otherwise. Because it knew better. It always does now.

Here’s how the NFL handled the matter at the outset, according to Wells’ 243-page report following his team’s turtle-paced probe.

Colts GM Ryan Grigson emailed two members of the NFL’s football operations department on the day before the AFC title game to raise concerns about Patriots footballs.

Grigson quoted Colts equipment manager Sean Sullivan as saying “it is well known around the league that after the Patriots game balls are checked by the officials and brought out for game usage, the ball boys for the Patriots will let out some air with a ball needle, because their quarterback likes a smaller football so he can grip it better.”

Grigson closed by thanking the two league officials — David Gardi and Mike Kensil — “for being vigilant stewards … not only for us but for the shield and overall integrity of our game.”

Gardi informed the Colts GM they’d “speak with the game officials” about his concerns.

Kensil then informed his boss, director of game operations James Daniel, who shared it with other game-ops personnel, as well as with the two senior members of the NFL’s officiating department, VP Dean Blandino and sub-ordinate Alberto Riveron. On the morning of the game, Riveron mentioned the concerns to referee Walt Anderson without identifying the Colts as the source.

The Patriots weren’t warned. Better to entrap.

Elements of the report are troubling in a number of areas, not the least of which is its implication Brady — in phone calls and text messages in the hours and days after the scandal went public — must have been conferring with the two Patriots equipment guys about getting their stories straight. Then there’s this. After the Colts complained to the league in the second quarter that they suspected the Pats indeed were using under-inflated footballs, league officials — right up to executive VP of football operations Troy Vincent — got involved. They ordered all footballs be gauged at halftime.

You know what happened with the Pats’ footballs. But the officiating crew only got through testing four of the Colts’ 11 footballs when it was time to head out for the second half.

Two important take-aways from that. First, on one gauge, three of the four Colts’ balls proved to be under-inflated, reading 12.15, 12.30 and 12.35 PSI. Second, by extrapolation, it’s more probable than not that most of the other seven Colts footballs were under-inflated, too.

Yet the NFL knowingly allowed the Colts to play the second half with those likely under-inflated footballs.

What hypocrisy. What bull.

The only other plausible explanation for the NFL’s actions that weekend and since — besides wilfully setting a trap to catch the Patriots in the act — is extreme managerial incompetence.

Which, come to think of it, given the NFL’s record in crisis management over the past year, also qualifies as more probable than not.