Gregg Doyel set the record straight Friday regarding his recent controversial comments about New England Patriots fans. Well, sort of.
The Indianapolis Star columnist has been quite vocal about his stance on Deflategate, but things got personal Tuesday when he went after Patriots fans during an appearance on the Indy Star’s “The Dwayne Allen Show.”
He went on WEEI’s “The Dennis and Callahan Morning Show” on Friday to clarify those comments.
“A lot of folks are mad at me about what I said on ‘The Dwayne Allen Show,’ there’s a little video clip,” Doyel said. “And I thought, ‘Why are they mad at me? I made it clear who I was talking about.’ … I realized what I said was — and I’m OK with it — but I realized it was absolutely misleading. … What I meant was, ‘a whole lot of people’ is a reference to the social media cretins.
“So I would like to make that clear. I was woefully unclear on the video. I stand by the fact that the people that I’m talking about, the social media cretins, miserable human beings, don’t deserve to be happy. But I dang sure didn’t mean to imply the whole city is that way.”
Doyel also stood by his stance that the Patriots cheated during their 45-7 win over the Indianapolis Colts in the 2014 AFC Championship Game, although he admitted New England would have won regardless of the ball pressure.
“The Patriots could have been playing with a football that was made of salami and cheese and they were going to win that game,” he said. “… But the Patriots absolutely — if you believe, as I do, that they rigged the ball — tried to, and therefore did rig the game. Did they need to cheat? No. It doesn’t make it any less that they did.”
Doyel also had some things to say about the man in the middle of Deflategate — Tom Brady. The columnist had some harsh words for Brady after the Deflategate news broke, which he described in detail during Friday’s radio appearance.
“(Brady) is evolution, is what he is,” Doyel said. “But I think his actions that led up to the balls getting deflated were horrible. And that made him a bad guy in that. But anyway, is he a bad human being? Nah. … I did write that, and I write very emotionally. And whatever I wrote, I’ll stand by. I’m not backing off it. I’m just telling you now in the meta sense, does Tom Brady have to spend the next 60 years of his long and happy life being in my eyes a horrible human being? No.”
One thing Patriots fans will probably agree with Doyel on is his belief that it’s time for the NFL to stop pushing for Brady to be suspended.
“It’s over,” Doyel said. “At this point — and this point was reached a long time ago — at this point it doesn’t even matter anymore if Brady misses four games. It doesn’t matter the appeal, who wins, who loses. It matters to (Roger) Goodell, to his power going forward, which I don’t really care about very much.”
Thumbnail photo via David Butler II/USA TODAY Sports Images
