Barrett Media
Author (when available): BSM Staff
When former New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady was alleged to have asked for footballs to be deflated during the 2014 AFC Championship Game, it prompted an investigation by the league that was released a few months later. The team was ultimately fined $1 million and coerced to forfeit two draft selections, and Brady was suspended by the league for four games, during which the Patriots collected three wins. Fred Toucher recently revisited the scenario while being interviewed for an article by Justin Sayles of The Ringer surrounding teams in the Boston area.
Toucher first started hosting on 98.5 The Sports Hub in 2006, and he explained in the story that he realized that Patriots fans were “f*****g assholes” upon arriving in the city. Recapitulating his points on the air, he added that he expressed rage while discussing Deflategate, which prompted Sayles to request to speak with him again the next day.
“I had hit the rage because that was the worst period of sports talk radio maybe in the history of sports talk radio,” Toucher said on Thursday’s edition of Toucher & Hardy. “Well first of all, the feigning interest in it or feigning passion in it by people was incredibly aggravating. People that I knew didn’t care about it – I hated it.”
Toucher proceeded to explain that people claiming that others did not understand the molecules within the footballs used in the games agitated him as well. From there, he proceeded to outline how some people ostensibly claimed that NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell needed to do something about the success of the team. Moreover, Toucher remembers people sifting through legal documents, resulting in him expounding on the responsibilities of lawyers and why they receive significant remuneration for their services. Later in the segment, he talked about the dichotomy between the fans and people in positions of power within the league ecosystem.
“This is the worst part about being a sports fan is like when you go, ‘Oh, I’m being played,’” Toucher said. “These guys are all making billions of dollars – billions, billions of dollars. What does Goodell get paid a year? $50 million? $50 million a year, and you know [Robert] Kraft is billions on billions upon billions of dollars, and we’re all sitting here arguing about the Ideal Gas Law and b******g about legal documents while those two guys are just sitting back making money and laughing at everyone.”
In further analyzing the situation, Toucher equated it to someone rooting for two boxers who are having tea instead of fighting one another in the ring. Although he understands Kraft wants to win, he averred that his interest ultimately lies with the billion-dollar asset he owns in the Patriots organization. Toucher continued to analyze this situation at the macrolevel, leading to a plea of sorts from co-host Rob “Hardy” Poole to cease further discussion.
“I don’t want to talk about Deflategate anymore,” Poole said. “I don’t want to talk about how we don’t want to talk about Deflategate. Thank you.”
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