As I said earlier, it is not the crime but the cover-up that gets you busted. If he is allowed to attend training camp and pre-season meetings, four games will not be that severe. I am sure the Cheatriots will be just fine exiting his suspension at 2-2. I really think that Bellicheat and Kraft were at least aware of what was going on, given what control freaks both are, so I am guessing the draft choice penalty is the league basically saying "we can't prove it, but fuck you anyhow for being a repeat offender" to the situation. And lets be clear here, the Pats ARE repeat offenders, both when it comes to violating the rules and covering it up after the fact. The substitution rules bending this year is just the latest example of it. But for my money, they were not the dirtiest team in the playoffs last year, or the super bowl......
In my gut, I think Bellicheck is tossing Brady under the bus and greasing the wheels for cutting him in favor of the new younger guy. Bill has balls of steel when it comes to dumping vets, but I think even he has to be careful about how he cuts bait with Brady. This situation is a tailor made excuse to do it, really. Brady has been tapering off of late. He can still torch the average to above average teams, but the younger hungrier teams have been posing issues to the Pats, which may be why he was more blatant about skirting the ball rules recently. This situation may tarnish his reputation enough to make it feasible, especially if the new guy wins all four games and Brady is rusty when he comes back. Pats fans will have to come to grips with this (like my team fans had to with Favre) and the playing field will level a bit more when their next QB does not have a supermodel wife who makes more than him allowing him to free up more cap space for the team. The next HOF QB they get they will have to pay the going rate for.
The real losers in this are the two blue collar guys who carried out orders. At the end of the day, Kraft can kick the bucket with countless trophies on his wall for SB* and Division wins in what has been until recently the softest division in football. Tom can go back to banging his supermodel wife who makes shitloads more money than he does and retire with as many rings as any QB in league history has earned. Bill can expect a place on the HOF with all of his wins* and go on being a complete introverted dick to the league and media. But those two grunt worker guys who earn a fraction of that the guys who likely gave them their marching orders are likely never to work in the league again. And they are the ones who cooperated with the investigation, if only a little.
Also, for the record, while Seattle's SB win does not deserve an asterisk, all the PED violations that got largely swept under the rug definitely taint that season leading up to it. And I think the two Stealer wins in the Rapelesburger era definitely were questionable, though those were bad officiating and not cheating. I think every other team on that graphic has untainted SB wins.