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Deflategate? NFL’s integrity was already in doubt

Patriots coach Bill Belichick held a press conference Thursday morning.David L. Ryan/Globe staff/Globe Staff

Yes, OK, Deflategate is irresistible. The story has it all, for football fans nationwide: the spectre of cheating, the chance to root for the underdog, a jackpot of cheeky puns for headline writers. Accusations that the Patriots used deflated game balls in last Sunday’s AFC Championship game have overtaken media coverage, inspired t-shirts and cookies, prompted even non-sports-fans to call into radio programs with well-formed ideas about the pounds-per-square-inch capacity of pigskin. News stations are offering lessons in physics, which isn’t entirely bad.

What’s disheartening, though, is the tone of some of the handwringing, the earnest lamentations over how Deflategate reflects on the integrity of the sacred sport of football. This is where the NFL stands to lose its credibility forever?

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It was only a few months ago that public conversation about the football league was focused on far more serious issues: The video of then-Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice, punching his then-fiancee and dragging her out of an elevator. The indictment of Minnesota Vikings running back Adrian Peterson, accused of beating his son so badly that he bled.

Some predicted, at the time, that the NFL wouldn’t recover. That hasn’t turned out to be true. The season went as planned. The league made some donations, tweaked its conduct policy, and aired a smattering of public service announcements. But NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, who presided over the disastrous handling of the Ray Rice case, is still safely in his perch. The Ravens are still in business. Bill Belichick never hastily called a press conference to express his dismay over how a longstanding culture of looking the other way, when it comes to players’ off-the-field actions, might affect the future of the game he loved.

Belichick is hardly the only one to love football, or to get caught up in Super Bowl fever. No one wants to be a spoilsport, but let’s at least have a little perspective. The NFL’s integrity was in question long before any doctored balls showed up on the Gillette Stadium field.