Firstly, let's start with the state of the narrative in /r/nfl.
I went to the stickied deflategate post on /r/nfl and started reading the comments sorted by "Best." Which is reddit's suggested sort-mode. There is literally not one comment that is critical of Tom Brady or the Patriots, seen here:
https://i.imgur.com/LPf2ENh.png
and here:
https://i.imgur.com/E3d6dSG.png
I'm literally just going down and finding every parent comment (with a lot of upvotes) that has the most comments and I can't find anything negative about Brady or the Patriots. Not one. Here's some more upvoted narrative:
https://i.imgur.com/S2qpy8B.png
Upvoted comments are jokes and/or pro-Brady.
Secondly, let's talk about the state of the narrative in /r/colts subreddit and a lot of other subreddits as well.
/r/colts has a stickied megathread that, if sorted by best, has critical things, BUT... It's only one or two things and the most upvoted comment is about letting all this go (which is their right of course, but not my point). Here is a preview of the narrative on /r/colts subreddit (sorted by best):
https://i.imgur.com/JjZg9eE.png
And another:
https://i.imgur.com/PQY0apJ.png
On to my point
I have even caught /r/nfl mods who happen to be Patriots fans seeking out comments that call out the vote brigading and banning the people who post them. Here are many examples (these comments are in the main /r/nfl deflate thread, sorted by controversial):
https://i.imgur.com/PdHZesA.png
https://i.imgur.com/RohaCaD.png
https://i.imgur.com/feWH3xU.png
Here is /r/colts megathread sorted by controversial:
https://i.imgur.com/plDBJr5.png
Even the upvoted comments that criticize the Pats show up on controversial because so many Pats fans came here and downvoted it.
The /r/patriots mod and /r/nfl mod who warned a user about fanbase attacks not being tolerated:
