Patriots Talk: NFL Protocol Issues This Week Prove League Unfairly Persecuted Pat's

“How is it then that it’s not a bigger deal and how big of a deal would it be if the it was the Patriots? I think those are fair questions,” Florio said. “I think there’s a lot of people out there that say it’s Patriots fans again, they are persecuted, but it’s getting to the point where there is a persecution. The way Deflategate was handled was so shameful and now they are running scared from it 23 months later.

“They are never going to be able to convince — I think anybody who looks at this in a fair-minded, critical way that it was handled property, it wasn’t handled properly. It wasn’t handled fairly. It was a rush to judgement that was made [by people] who didn’t understand how the Ideal Gas Law worked and they worked backwards to come to the conclusion they wanted to reach. I firmly believe nothing that anyone from the league says is ever going to change my mind. I probably will keep talking about it until I get myself in more trouble.”

“I think that the media believes that people no longer care about Deflategate, that there is fatigue, that anytime it comes up people are going to roll their eyes, change the channel, or click out that browser window, or throw away the newspaper, whatever the case may be,” he said. “When Jay Glazer delivered his initial report, he was apologetic he was even bringing this up again. Why are we apologizing for it? The only reason the people have Deflategate fatigue is the colossal [way] the NFL screwed the thing up. … I don’t know whether it’s a resentment of the Patriots, a dislike of Bill Belichick, a desire to maintain a good relationship with the league office, I don’t know. Laziness? A lack of intelligence? Refusal to go back on things we’ve already said?

“Once we lock into our hot takes, it’s a lot to give up on a hot take. A lot of times circling our own wagons in the media and defending the dumb things we’ve said, instead of opening our mind and saying we’re wrong and maybe there’s more information out there to change our minds.

“The point that I always make, because the Patriots aren’t the only ones who have seen this. The Chiefs saw it earlier this year when they got whacked for talking to Jeremy Maclin during that two-day window in free agency when you could only talk directly to his agent and you couldn’t talk to the player. The Saints saw it during Bountygate. Washington and Dallas saw it when they were punished two years after the uncapped year for treating the uncapped year as who knew uncapped? The NFL will decide and this is the problem in a lot of organizations.

“You have a rule book six inches high and those rules aren’t fairly and evenly applied in every circumstance to everyone. They will use those rules, they will seize upon one of those rules when it supports a desire to whack somebody. Regardless of whether or not many or any other organization is doing the same damn thing and regardless of whether or not they even locked on that rule at any point in the history of the league.

“That is the problem with Deflategate. They never paid attention to 12.5, 13.5 and they never thought to think about what happens with air pressure when you play football on a cold day.”

To hear the interview, go to the Ordway, Merloni & Fauria audio on demand page.