Nobody paid that much attention to it,“ Wells said about the Colts’ claims the day before the AFC championship game. "It wasn’t a sting operation. I addressed it because the Patriots urged me to look at it.”

Wait, nobody paid that much attention to it? The NFL, with its punishment, found that deflating footballs was the biggest crime in NFL history. Seriously. It was arguably the harshest punishment the league has ever given out, in terms of a team punishment (the $1 million fine is the largest single team fine ever), draft picks stripped (a first-round pick in 2016 and a fourth-round pick in 2017) and Brady’s four-game suspension. So what is it NFL? Is deflating balls the biggest crime in NFL history? Or was the thought that the Patriots were pulling off the biggest crime in NFL history so insignificant that “nobody paid that much attention to it”? Should be one or the other.