With this deflate-gate nonsense, pretty much everyone loses

Tuesday’s announcement that Roger Goodell will uphold Tom Brady’s four-game suspension didn’t amount to a conclusion in the case. But it made one conclusion very clear: Everyone loses with this story.

Yes, you can have your jokes about lawyers, iPhones (poor Samsung) and “Free Brady” t-shirt makers getting theirs. Fine — those profiting off this circus are the insignificant minority here who win, like umbrella salesmen price gouging during a downpour.

In short, everyone loses with this story, which should have been snuffed out months ago but now has taken an afterlife of its own. Everyone involved — Brady, Goodell, the NFLPA, the rest of the NFL, the fans — we all lose.

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Even the NFL, which will see profit in the form of gonzo ratings in the season opener between the New England Patriots and Pittsburgh Steelers, lose in this deal. Their short-term gain will have serious long-term effects.

The league is now fully through the looking glass here, along with everything else that has happened the past few seasons that have exactly zero to do with football. This is the second straight season we’ve entered training camp with discipline and not drag routes on our minds. Football is starting back up (football — we love it! Right?) and everyone is weighing in on deflated balls, broken cellphones, future court cases and other nonsense.

The NFL won’t lose the hardcore fans (even the ones currently shouting “DON’T CARE!” about this mess), the fantasy players and the gamblers — they’re juiced in for life. But for a sport that has gone out of its way to open up the game to the casual viewer (with the hopes they become lifers), the extended wrath of domestic violence cases, players losing fingers in fireworks accidents and drawn-out cloak-and-dagger operations over minor violations has the stink of a sport that quickly could go rotten.

If it hasn’t already. The old any-publicity-is-good-publicity spiel is being disproven as we speak.

On Tuesday, you had to squint to find it, but the NFL had two amazing stories it could have pumped up as beacons of light in a dark time. Jen Welter became the NFL’s first-ever female coach, and Kansas City Chiefs safety Eric Berry was cleared to practice following an eight-month battle with Hodgkins’ lymphoma. A few days prior, Berry’s teammate, Jamaal Charles, spoke passionately about his involvement with Special Olympics and how he too was a participant as a child after being told he had a learning disability.

Those are outstanding stories the league could have milked for two or three days worth of cleansing coverage. Deflate-gate crushed those stories. Churned them from cream to butter. Worse yet, the NFL chose to drop this story when it did … after letting it drag on for months too long.

Make no mistake, this is no pro-Brady rant, because no matter which side you’re on in this thing, you can’t say that the squeaky-clean QB comes out looking better. From the NFL getting out in front of the destroyed cellphone story, to his Facebook-only statement that was about 300 words too long, reading as amateurish and scatterbrained, Brady too has lost in this deal.

Sure, his ardent fans only will dig their heels in deeper for TB12 after Goodell held firm, and lord knows the legion of Goodell backers is reaching Mike Huckabee-esque levels at this point. But even passionate Patriots fans with an iota of critical thought have to raise an eyebrow at how Brady approached and handled his being investigated.

It’s a clean sweep — Goodell, Brady, the league and the hamstrung, day-late-dollar-short union all lost yesterday. Goodell comes off as bitter and unyielding. Brady comes off as suspicious, and he now stands to miss a quarter of his age-38 season (his birthday is in four days — have a swell one, Tom). The NFL maintains its Death Star status, the union comes off as ankle biters, and the two sides absolutely detest and distrust one another.

Good times!

Tomorrow I’ll be in Green Bay to watch the Packers open camp. It will be a glorious day. But the drive home will remind me that the feeling will be fleeting and that the league can’t and won’t turn back from the ugliness they’ve helped permeate. Football is a wonderful sport, but the NFL sure has a way of making me forget that a shocking amount of the time.