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The New England Patriots probably cheated in their AFC Championship win over the Indianapolis Colts. Eleven of 12 game balls, approved by referee Walt Anderson two hours and 15 minutes before kickoff, per ESPN's Chris Mortensen, were deflated sometime before their usage in the 41-7 romp.

There are two explanations I can come up with for this:

1) A seismic activity explainable only by someone with the intelligence level of Neil deGrasse Tyson or Stephen Hawking deflated the balls unbeknownst to anyone in the Patriots organization. Cuz, you know, global warming or something.

2) Someone knowingly deflating the balls to give the Patriots an advantage.

I'll allow you to draw your own conclusions on that one. As will I allow you to continue the mind-numbingly inane and increasingly hot-takey debate about what a proper punishment would be, assuming the NFL doesn't hire Tyson to investigate how air-sucking particles got into 11 of those 12 footballs.

By now, everyone's made his mind up on the topic. There are a few general camps, none of which is particularly rational. Some believe the Patriots are habituated cheaters and deserve to be punished with force that would literally be unprecedented. Count Gregg Doyel of the Indianapolis Star and Chris Chase of USA Today, who believe the Patriots should be banned from the Super Bowl, in said camp.

Then there's the subsect of folks who think this is no big deal. That it's a borderline witch hunt rooted in jealousies about the Patriots' continued success. They'll point to Aaron Rodgers admitting he likes to over-inflate balls, Eli Manning's longstanding admission of doctoring footballs and other instances and wonder what's the big deal.

Most of these people are from Massachusetts and have "#Sox. #Pats. #Bruins. #Celts. #DunkinDonuts" or some variation in their Twitter bios.

Then there's the rest of us, hanging out on Twitter waiting for every last #hottake to drop so it can be mocked and ridiculed. As if it's not at least kind of a big deal that an organization with a history of skirting NFL rules did so in one of the league's three biggest games.

Result aside—the Patriots would have beaten the Colts if their footballs were made of concrete—this is a controversy worth about half as much coverage as it's getting. Which in today's society means it's a pretty big deal. "Deflategate" and "Spygate" are forever on the historical legacies of Bill Belichick and Tom Brady. The controversies will be reasonably high on the list of things we discuss when their careers are over.

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Belichick is the greatest coach of his generation, closing in on the all-time Mount Rushmore. Brady's already a Rushmore candidate at quarterback. These are two men with otherwise unimpeachable resumes who are now twice linked to cheating scandals.

And that's a bummer. The whole situation is a bummer. The near-constant discussion, the hand-wringing about potential punishments, the eventual dissatisfaction with whatever punishment the league office decides to hand down. All of it stinks. Roger Goodell again finds himself consumed with a scandal that threatens the "integrity" of the game, which both makes me want to take a cinder block to my skull and makes me disappointed about how awesome the buildup to this game should have been.

After an absolute nightmare of a regular season, Goodell got what on paper looks like an Ali-Frazier I-level bout. The Seahawks and Patriots are the two best teams in football. Given the injuries to Aaron Rodgers and Peyton Manning late in the season, I don't think it's particularly close.

Football Outsiders had Denver and Green Bay separating No. 1 Seattle and No. 4 New England at the end of the regular season, but those numbers didn't account for the aforementioned injuries. Pro Football Reference's Simple Rating System had the Patriots first and Seahawks third. However you want to slice it, the game is shaping up as a matchup between the two no-doubt-about-it alpha dogs of their respective conferences.

The Patriots have their best all-around team since the 18-1 bunch in 2007. Josh McDaniels has implemented an offense that can run almost any style. The Patriots can break out a Chip Kelly-esque warp-speed spread and then pound you to death with six offensive linemen in the same game. Their downfield throwing options are nonexistent, but that's just fine for Brady, whose downfield accuracy has not-so-quietly been abysmal for a few years now.

Darrelle Revis, Brandon Browner and Kyle Arrington are providing the most stability New England's had in the secondary since the Ty Law era. A good deal of the Patriots' leap to 11th in defensive DVOA this season after more than a half-decade of below-average play can be attributed to Revis' arrival. Praised at the time as a smart rental, Revis is the low-key MVP of turning New England into a Super Bowl team.

The Seahawks are the most complete team in football. Exempting wide receiver, it's hard to find a better-constructed roster in the Super Bowl era. You know, other than last year's Seahawks team.

Russell Wilson is (probably) a future Hall of Famer derided far too often for being a game manager. If you don't think Marshawn Lynch is about that action, you can hol...Marshawn Lynch is very good at football. Richard Sherman, Earl Thomas and Kam Chancellor being in the same secondary is so unfair it seems like something a seven-year-old would do to cheat in Madden. Bobby Wagner, Bruce Irvin, Michael Bennett, Russell Okung—the list can just keep going.

This is the type of matchup network executives, the commissioner's office and fans can all agree is great for the sport. WhatIfSports ran 1,001 simulations of Super Bowl XLIX and came away with, on average, a two-point separation in favor of the Seahawks.

What's more, one could argue this is the last, best chance for both teams to hoist the Lombardi Trophy with their current core. New England's reasoning is rather self-explanatory. Brady is 37. Revis will become a free agent this offseason. Rob Gronkowski made it through a whole season healthy for the first time in forever-and-a-half. The Pats are still relying on Julian Edelman and a bunch of castoffs at wide receiver. Their offensive line is shaky at best.

While the Seahawks have more talent and are a generally young team, having a whole bunch of good, young players eventually means paying them. With contracts already in place for Sherman and Thomas and a massive extension coming for Wilson during the offseason, the depth Pete Carroll and Co. have enjoyed the last couple seasons is about to go bye-bye. Seattle already watched Walter Thurmond, Golden Tate, Browner and others leave in free agency last offseason.

Simple cap logic has the Seahawks going from the deepest team in football to a top-heavy, star-laden bunch in no time. The Seahawks and Patriots both need this game because they have no idea when—or if—they'll be back. Seattle wants its defensive core to go down among the greatest of all time before it's broken up. Belichick and Brady want to finally get that elusive fourth Super Bowl in their third try.

All that hype, all the "one last time" feel-good narratives that would have followed Belichick and Brady around, all the talk about Wilson's status among the best quarterbacks in football is gone. Here we are talking about pounds per square inch and ball deflation. A cheating scandal has tainted one of the few good things about this NFL season and threatens to hang a cloud over the sport's biggest day.

Given the way we started this season, it's only fitting we end this way. Football's a flat circle, man. (Especially when the Patriots are playing.)

Follow Tyler Conway (@tylerconway22) on Twitter