The New England Patriots are a team that can not be kept down. While other teams spend a fortune on players, the Pat's seem to take average players and make them into something stunning, and they do so while coming in way under the salary cap. When the NFL keeps insisting that quarterback Tom Brady was knowingly involved in “deflate-gate” (even though there has never been any proof, and still isn't) by suspending Brady a second time, they still pull together and make the playoffs. Not only that, but they dispatched the Texans, moving ahead even further towards the Super Bowl....again.

Removing players for no reason is called 'cheating'

The NFL basically cheated the Patriots by taking who may be the best quarterback of all time from New England for four more games, but they overcame it. They likely remember the fact that the same thing happened in Pittsburgh. There, quarterback “Big Ben” Rothlesburger was simply accused of rape, and he was suspended. When it came to light that he was innocent, there was never any restitution made from the NFL to Ben or towards the then cheated Steelers.

This matters because players only have so many strong years. When the NFL comes in and decides to start suspending players and playing the game from the office desk, it diminishes the sport.

It may not be illegal since the NFL is a private business that may run itself however it deems appropriate, by coming out and openly tampering with the game before the facts are in – or in Brady's case with assumptions that have no proveable root - the integrity of the game is tarnished. What good does it do head Patriots coach Bill Bellecheck to not only build a team around his star quarterback, not to mention bring up the aforementioned talents under the salary cap, if the NFL is going to insist on assuming?

Pete Rose is forever banned from baseball for betting on the sport, which it is said he did even against his own team, the latter of which Rose said never happened. In any event, it was ruled that Rose's actions hurt the spirit and honesty of the game. If that is the case, then what does suspending a quarterback with the depth of talent that Big Ben displays every time some jilted lover decides to make a false accusation?

The NFL has got to police itself, with the criminal element so much a part of many of the scandals that it has faced. Still, to overstep to the degree that we are seeing with some of the actions coming down upon players who did nothing wrong is nothing short of suicide for the sport if it keeps up.

There are lessons to be learned from baseball

Think about it, many in baseball never forgave the MLB for going on strike before the World Series. That year, the Cleveland Indians were in the best of forms, and was even called by a computer simulation to have won. When the strike ended, people felt differently about the game. The Great America Pastime had now been exposed as a money grab. As things like the X Games, which featured skateboarders and the like showing up with nothing but grit and talent, baseball took a hit in numbers that it has yet to recover from.

A few teams in the league are not even in existence anymore.

The NFL has made football the most popular sport in America, and it may be that of those who run it are seeing themselves as the masters of the ancient arena's did. In those days, warriors would be sent out and the popularity of the sports therein so popular that it was thought that such would always be the case. However, just as gladiators and baseball have fallen from grace, so can football. If they keep passing rules that make it more and more like a game where no one can even tackle someone without a flag hitting the field, the sport is in trouble, because no one wants to spend top dollar to see the ref's play the game. No one pays top dollar to see their star players benched for having committed no crime, either.