Report: Deflate-gate penalty a make-up call for spy-gate:

According to a report from ESPN, the discipline leveled against Tom Brady for “Deflate-gate” was influenced by the fact that many owners felt Roger Goodell handled the spygate investigation very hastily many years before.

ESPN’s report alleges that the Patriots spied on teams for years, and that Goodell and the NFL very much wanted to sweep it under the rug, going as far as to destroy evidence and asking former St. Louis Rams coach Mike Martz to pen a statement that he felt the Super Bowl his Rams team lost to the Patriots was on the up and up to avoid an investigation by former senator Arlen Spector.

According to Martz, Roger Goodell explained how bad this could be for the league, and pushed Martz to pretend to be satisfied by the investigation the league had done, because it was best for the game. Goodell explained to Martz that a congressional investigation could destroy the entire league, something Martz and others within the league apparently felt as well.

“He told me, ‘The league doesn’t need this. We’re asking you to come out with a couple lines exonerating us and saying we did our due diligence,'” Martz explained.

Perhaps just as shocking as Martz’s suggestion that Goodell asked him to write the letter is the fact that when he was shown his statement, Martz suggests that it had been added to by the league.

“It shocked me,” Martz said. “It appears embellished quite a bit — some lines I know I didn’t write. Who changed it? I don’t know.”

According to ESPN’s report, the entire chain of events which allegedly led to the harsh penalties against the Patriots and Tom Brady for the deflation of footballs started when Goodell and the league office hastily tried to get Spygate out of the way quickly and quietly so as to not draw too much negative attention to the league.

ESPN’s report alleges that when the league sent legal counsel Jeff Pash and others to New England to find evidence of cheating by the Patriots, they found plenty, and that’s when things got weird. After the Patriots complained that much of the materials taken by the NFL were gained legally, and therefore shouldn’t be taken from the team, Pash and other league officials destroyed all of the evidence on site at the Patriots facility.

Many owners were unhappy with the league’s response to spygate, feeling the league should have held onto the evidence and should have done a more thorough investigation. For at least one owner who spoke with ESPN, the penalty and the much more thorough investigation of deflategate was a “make-up call,” for deflategate.

While the Patriots, their fans, and the NFL will likely deflect attention away from this report, and the Patriots and their fans will say the entire story is fiction, there’s no chance that a league partner would run a 10,000 word article attacking the league’s integrity without any evidence at all.

If the allegations in the ESPN report can be substantiated, it has to spell the end for Goodell, and it should spell the end for Bill Belichick as well.

If Spygate spanned years, and the league uncovered documents that proved the Patriots knew the Pittsburgh Steelers defensive signals heading into the 2002 AFC Championship game, then it can be said that it directly impacted that game, and altered the history of the NFL. That can’t be taken lightly by the league.

If the NFL uncovered years of notes and videos compiled by Belichick, and worked to get Spygate out of public consciousness as quickly as possible, and Belichick cheated again, he also has to go.

If the allegations in this story are all true, the Patriots got off pretty lightly, and they should have figured that out and run themselves as the model franchise since. If there’s any evidence to the contrary, heads need to roll at every level of the league and with the Patriots.

NFL suspends five free agents:

If you’re not on a football team heading into the Week 1 games, it’s a pretty bad sign for your future in the NFL. However, if you’re a free agent with a suspension to serve, as five players learned they were Tuesday, that might just spell the end of your NFL career.

Former Patriots and Bills linebacker Brandon Spikes has been suspended by the league for 4-games. In July, Spikes was given one year of probation after he pled guilty in a hit and run incident in Massachusetts, and between the incident itself, the 4-game suspension, and some of Spikes actions and comments while in the NFL, it’s hard to imagine another NFL team giving him a shot this season.

Former Buffalo Bills and Tampa Bay Buccaneers receiver Mike Williams was also suspended for six games this upcoming season, likely spelling an end to his career since it’s been a while since he’s produced anyhow. Williams burst onto the scene as a rookie for the Buccaneers, but the early success was followed by laziness and a lack of focus on football that was a clear sign Williams would go on to waste his talents.

Former New York Jets outside linebacker Jermaine Cunningham, former Detroit Lions guard Rodney Austin and former Arizona Cardinals running back Jonathan Dwyer were all suspended for domestic violence issues with Cunningham and Austin receiving six-game bans and Dwyer being suspended for three games

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Dwyer’s talent may give him the best chance of one day landing in the league again, it’s a long shot that any of these guys will be seen in the NFL again.

Matt Cassel re-signs with the Buffalo Bills:

After Matt Cassel was cut just days ago by the Buffalo Bills, he received offers from several other teams, but because he was made aware of the Bills desire to re-sign him, the veteran quarterback elected to remain in Buffalo instead of accepting offers from other teams.

From having a wife who is eight-months pregnant, to having worked so hard to get comfortable in the Bills offense, remaining in Buffalo just made the most sense to Cassel.

”First and foremost my family comes first,” he said. ”There were opportunities to go to other places, but at the same time, when you look at the situation and the hard work that went in throughout this entire offseason, I thought it was the best place for me.”

Cassel will back up newly coined starter Tyrod Taylor when the Bills open their season on Sunday at home against the Indianapolis Colts.