Dhaval Patel AJ Heiser

Patel Heiser 1

Professor Blair
Uwrite 1102-016
24, February 2015
Tom Brady The Cheater?
Have you ever watched a sporting event with fans of both sides? What happens at the end
when the score is really close and things can go both ways? Do things get a little heated between
the fans? When it comes to sports, people will say anything they can to protect their team.
Usually it comes down to: one team or the other cheated or there was an unfair call by the
referee. In this case, the Patriots played the Colts and later after the game the NFL found out that
the footballs that the Patriots were using were deflated under regulation pressure. Michael
Rosenberg wrote the article we reviewed. In this article the first thing he stated was, The
problem is that I do like Brady, and I still dont believe what he said(Rosenberg Ln.1). To
convince the readers that Tom Brady and the Patriots cheated, Rosenberg used multiple fallacies
in this article. The most frequent fallacies in this article are: begging the question, sarcasm, and
hasty generalization.
The first kind of fallacy found multiple times in this article was begging the question.
According to Nancy Wood, begging the question is when, The claim is simply restated, over
and over again, in one form or another(Wood 1). Rosenbergs claim for this paper was that he
believed that the Patriots lied and that they cheated. The first place where he stated this claim

was right in the beginning of the article when he stated, I do like Brady, and I still dont believe
what he said(Rosenberg Ln.1). Right off the bat the author stated that he believed Tom Brady
lied about not knowing what happened to the footballs. Then later on he stated, Belichick did
put himself pretty far out there by saying he didnt know(Rosenberg Ln.57). By the way
Rosenberg wrote this, it makes it sound like Belichick knew he cheated but he lied about it. Even
though Rosenberg didnt directly say he lied in this sentence, by using the words, put himself
pretty far out there(Rosenberg Ln.57) he indicated that he thinks the coach lied. Another other
places where begging the question was found was towards the end of the article when he says,
What the Patriots did in their romp of the Colts is the very definition of cheating: altering the
game to give yourself an unfair advantage. I know some people in the sport who think its a large
advantage. Maybe you think its a small advantage. But it is still cheating(Rosenberg Ln.82). In
the first sentence of this quote, Rosenberg restated the claim, which was, the Patriots cheated.
Then a couple sentences later he stated, But its still cheating(Rosenberg Ln.85). which once
again restates the claim. However, how can Rosenberg put this big accusation of lying and
cheating on the Patriots when the NFLs rule book specifically states, The home club shall have
36 balls for outdoor games and 24 for indoor games available for testing with a pressure gauge
by the referee two hours prior to the starting time of the game to meet with League
requirements(Rulebook). This means that the referees had to have tested the footballs before the
game and they were at the correct psi. Also, according to Ben Volin, who is the national NFL
reporter for The Boston Globe, Once the footballs were approved for game use, they remained
in the officials locker room until about 10 minutes prior to kickoff, at which point the officials
handed the footballs for game use to the ball boys on each team(Volin). This shows that it the

Patriots didnt have access to the balls till right before the game so they couldnt have
manipulated them.
Another major fallacy that we discovered while reading this speech was sarcasm.
According to Ross McGuinness, Defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as a sharp, bitter,
or cutting remark, modern sarcasm tends to employ a heavy dose of irony. It originally comes
from a Greek word which means to tear flesh or bite the lip in rage. When stumbling upon
this article, the title was enough of an example to help explain his definition of sarcasm, Oh
great, an article about sarcasm I am really looking forward to reading it. More or less, sarcasm
is when one makes quick remark that may come across as witty, clever, etc to pick fun at in an
obvious way of joking. After reading through the speech, we found three great examples of
sarcasm. Our first example is Presumably, he also likes them worked in so they are not too
shiny, too slipper, too waxy, or covered in maple syrup(Rosenberg Ln.57). After reading this,
we can easily get a sense of sarcasm as the author writes, using a picking-fun-at mentality
which is justified when describing how Brady feels towards the footballs. Our second example of
sarcasm is Maybe a manager did it on his own, maybe there was a porcupine in the ball bag
(Rosenberg Ln.15). The sarcasm is displayed in the second half of the sentence when the author
states that there may have been a porcupine in the bag. Anybody who knows or even somewhat
knows about football, knows that a porcupine in a football bag is Ludacris and an obvious case
of sarcasm. Our last example of sarcasm is Instead, it's a mystery, as baffling as those guys who
didnt vote for Pedro Martinez for the Hall of Fame, and by the way: Lets go
Bruins!( Rosenberg Ln.***) . The metaphor is understandable to some as he references Pedro
Martinez, but people who dont watch hockey wouldnt connect the dots he was trying to draw.
He references a totally different person, from a totally different sport, and then tops it off with

and by the way: Lets go Bruins!. This last statement is the cherry on top as the author shouts
out a quick chant for his favorite hockey team. The references made by this analogy followed by
a stray chant combine to make this a great example of sarcasm.
Lastly we have found hasty generalization as a major fallacy in this article. Nancy Wood
states that Hasty Generalization is when arguers jump to conclusions by basing a conclusion
on too few examplesoften contribute to stereotyping. From our article, we found a couple
great examples, our first being Belichick has to stay as far away from this as possible, because
he has the Spygate cheating scandal on his resume, and many people in the NFL will go
absolutely nuts if they think he is cheating again. But Brady was not personally found sulpable
for Spygate. (Rosenberg Ln.***). This example demonstrates perfectly as to the definition of
Hasty Generalization. The example given describes how the author tries to conclude that
Belicheck is staying away from this because of the Spygate scandal, simply put he is jumping to
the conclusion with too few examples. Our second example of Hasty Generalization is This
way, nobody gets suspended. No individual gets labeled a cheater by the league. The Patriots
would get slapped with an enormous fine and probably lose some draft picks, but that happened
in Spygate too (Rosenberg Ln.***). This can be seen as a hasty generalization by jumping to
the conclusion that all these penalties would take affect towards the Patriots if they were found
guilty of disturbing the balls before the game when in reality there hasnt been any proof
whatsoever that they were to blame. Simply put, he is drawing a conclusion based on no facts
which is yet again a great example of how this author uses hasty generalizations.
All in all, the fallacies in this article made Rosenbergs argument about Tom Brady being
a liar and the Patriots cheating hard to believe. Even though Rosenberg said that he liked Tom

Brady in the beginning of the article, he still talked about how he didnt believe him and
throughout the paper he used some examples that were irrelevant to his argument. The major
fallacies seen in this article were begging the question, sarcasm, and hasty generalizations. By
using these fallacies the writer hurt himself more than prove his point. After analyzing this article
for fallacies, we as readers can formulate a common relationship with the author, as his feelings
towards Bradys cheating are equivalent to our feelings towards the author.

Work Cited
Rosenberg, Michael. "Tom Brady, Your Deflategate Story Is Not Fooling Anyone." SI.com. 22
Jan. 2015. Web. 15 Mar. 2015. <http://www.si.com/nfl/2015/01/22/tom-brady-billbelichick-deflategate-press-conference>.
Rulebook NFL. NFL Enterprises LLC, n.d. Web. 14 Mar. 2015.

Volin, Ben. NFL Confirms Footballs Werent Legal, Says It Is Investigating. Boston Globe.
Boston Globe Media Partners, LLC. 23 Jan. 2015. Web. 14 Mar. 2015.

Wood, Nancy. Essentials of Argument. Upper Saddle River: Pearson / Prentice Hall, 2006. Print.