ESPN’s Skip Bayless: ‘Tom Brady Was Lying’

On ESPN2’s “First Take” on Friday, in a debate with his co-host Stephen A. Smith, Skip Bayless called into question the integrity of New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady on the heels of his press conference on Thursday addressing the so-called “Deflategate” scandal.

Partial transcript as follows:

SMITH: If indeed it has happened, I believe it is something that has been going on for a long period of time. I don’t believe it happened for just one game. If it is one game I’m absolving Bill Belichick from that. You can’t understand that?

BAYLESS: Here’s what you can’t understand. The context here is that the Colts were suspicious of the game balls New England brought to Indianapolis.

SMITH: I heard that.

BAYLESS: That’s where that came from. So obviously, if they would do it at Indianapolis, they might have done it against the Jets, then the Dolphins. You would think that they would be serial deflators because if it worked once, why wouldn’t it work again?

SMITH: Then my question to you Skip Bayless would be this — how does Tom Brady get absolved? Because if Bill Belichick did it, who would he be doing it for and how would Tom Brady not know? How would he not know?

BAYLESS: He definitely would know. I’ll go this far — if you want to use the word lying, Tom Brady was lying. I used dodging the truth. He was lying yesterday. He was so uncomfortable.

SMITH: He did look uncomfortable.

BAYLESS: Real quick, I got to give him credit for this that I’m not going to give Belichick in his media session — Tom Brady immediately opened it up to questions. He took 35-minutes worth. Come one, come all – ask me anything. We got to give him some praise for that because we always talk about how people dodge questions in press conferences, they don’t take questions. So, you have got to back off and say, “Hey, he at least stood up there for 35 minutes.”

SMITH: Wait a minute. I don’t have to back off of anybody because I’m not the one going ballistic saying the moral integrity of the game – we got to do all this. I’m concerned about the Super Bowl being compromised. Me personally, I wish this would go away until after the Super Bowl.

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