Football fans follow what the sports media tells them. Sports media likes stories. This is a non-story turned into a story because people hate the Pats' success and there was nothing else to talk about after the SB. Plus the fact that the Patriots are labeled as cheaters based on Spygate, which any logical fan would understand was another bullshit investigation and punishment singling out the Pats for something that multiple teams did with no penalty.

You may not have said you agreed with the punishments, but you do blindly state that Brady probably cheated. There's no evidence for that and if you read the Wells report (without a conclusion in mind going in) you'd see how ridiculous those accusations are. Maybe he did maybe he didn't, but there's nothing found after 100+ days that proves it and that should be a big red flag.

Your post is just kinda shit to be honest. It has no real point. You are saying NFL fans are hypocrites but no where in your post do you address that. Why are they hypocrites? Because people were okay with Ben's punishment? I don't really understand. Lots of people were okay with Ben's punishment with little evidence, lots of people are okay with Brady's with little evidence. Are you saying Brady should be suspended for longer because Ben was? That's just saying that two wrongs make a right, and suspending Brady for longer to fit with Ben's punishment would be fair, even though both are stupid punishments.

The media spun Ben as a rapist, and Goodell played on popular opinion and punished him as such. The media is spinning Brady and the Pats as unprecedented cheaters and people are eating it up, and Goodell played on popular opinion and punished them as such. It's pretty standard. There's no real hypocrisy. The penalties are both too harsh and outside of standard protocol (penalty for tampering with a football is $25k according to the NFL rule book), but media and popular opinion mean more to Goodell than integrity and consistency.