Patriots’ Brady will take this lie to his grave

I’m guessing things will go something like this: In his quest to continue denying any involvement with two equipment staffer lackeys over the deflation of footballs, New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady will reach retirement and beyond having never admitted to any wrongdoing.

He will always lie about this.

Isn’t that why the NFL hammer was swung with such ferocity on Monday, anyway?

It couldn’t have been just about air pressure. Not a four-game suspension. Ray Rice decked his then-fiancee in an elevator and there was video evidence to support the attack.

Rice’s original discipline was just two games, until commissioner Roger Goodell realized his tenure was changing a league that had forever understood the importance of strong public relations into a bumbling exercise of incompetence.

Pete Rozelle wasn’t just turning over in his grave with Goodell’s mishandling of such situations. He was doing triple somersaults.

Brady was suspended for the first four games of next season and New England fined $1 million and docked two draft picks (one a first-rounder in 2016) as punishment for deflating footballs used in the AFC Championship Game against the Indianapolis Colts, won by the Patriots 45-7.

It’s true. Brady could have been throwing a medicine ball that day and still advanced to a sixth Super Bowl.

It’s part of the irony in this whole mess.

The fact Brady and his bosses won’t admit to a little shenanigans by one of those lackeys in a bathroom stall with a needle isn’t.

Athletes often lie when suspected of or caught cheating, and the greatest ones are hardly excluded from the group.

Lance Armstrong. Ryan Braun. Alex Rodriguez.

Gisele Bundchen’s hubby.

You know the saying: Deny, deny, until you die.

There’s some money to be made in T-shirts there.

Some eventually backtrack and admit to their dishonest ways. Some don’t. Some actually react by playing the victim and going on the offensive, a tactic those in New England again appear prepared to adopt with unceasing commitment. The Patriots sure are proficient at breaking rules and then acting shocked that anyone would question their claims of innocence.

They’re as good at that as they are winning games.

“Despite our conviction that there was no tampering with footballs, it was our intention to accept any discipline levied by the league,” Patriots chairman and CEO Robert Kraft said in a statement. “Today’s punishment, however, far exceeded any reasonable expectation. It was based completely on circumstantial rather than hard or conclusive evidence.

“Tom Brady has our unconditional support. Our belief in him has not wavered.”

What he is saying: Brady will appeal the suspension, and Kraft believes the 243-page report delivered by investigator Ted Wells is nothing more than a mountain’s worth of drivel.

Listen. The fact we as a society have come to a point where more words are needed to explain how two knuckleheads traded deflating some footballs for autographed shoes than it took F. Scott Fitzgerald to pen “The Great Gatsby” says a lot about us, and not much in a positive sense.

But thank goodness masterminds in locker room attendant Jim McNally and equipment assistant John Jastremski foolishly texted back and forth on company cellphones like two teenage girls about their part in helping Brady deflate his balls to an acceptable level.

Thank goodness those two jamokes, now suspended indefinitely (translation: find other jobs, boys), were stupid enough to actually air the dirty laundry that ultimately painted Brady a liar.

Wells concluded that Brady was “generally aware” of the violations.

Yeah, like NBA coaches are generally aware DeAndre Jordan can’t shoot free throws.

You figure there is a good chance Brady’s suspension will be decreased, perhaps cut in half, on appeal.

My goodness, we’re still talking about deflating footballs. It’s not like he punched a woman or beat a child.

I would even argue, depending on how many games Brady eventually misses and we are forced to watch someone named Jimmy Garoppolo lead one of the league’s best teams, that losing two draft picks in two years is just as bad as Tommy Boy sitting out a few, if not worse.

NFL teams covet first-round choices like California would a few hundred days of rain right now.

Make no mistake, the NFL hit New England hard Monday. The hammer was swung fiercely. Goodell doesn’t play nice with those who are untruthful to his face.

It’s all part of Brady’s legacy now, just as much as the six Super Bowls and four championships. He cheated and then lied about it, laughed at direct questions about his alleged involvement, obviously having misread the loyalty, or lack of it, from the two jamokes.

“The discipline is ridiculous and has no legitimate basis,” said Don Yee, Brady’s agent, in a statement. “I am very confident the Wells report will be exposed as an incredibly frail exercise in fact-finding and logic.”

Really?

I am very confident Brady will deny playing any part into retirement and beyond. He will continue to lie. He will take his deflated balls to the grave.

That is arrogance of an elite athlete, of this specific quarterback for this particular franchise.

We would expect nothing else from him or it.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ed Graney can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4618. He can be heard on “Seat and Ed” on KRLV 1340 from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. Follow him on Twitter: @edgraney.