On Monday morning, I was embarrassed to be a New England Patriots fan. By Thursday night, I was embarrassed to be a journalist and an American.

But honestly, we really shouldn’t be surprised it has come to this. We live in an age with millions on their own digital soap box and with lazy media checking their phones for the next feeding frenzy. It doesn’t matter what is really impacting people’s lives. All that matters is what will get eyes on the TV screen and clicks on the computer or phone. Public outrage is reserved for things that we can judge after the first 140 characters.

We still don’t know if the Patriots and/or Tom Brady cheated, but the news media was hellbent on getting its on-camera apology from Brady on Thursday — and make sure you turn your head to the left a little and look at our camera, Tom, so we can see both of your dimples.

If NFL commissioner Roger Goodell can punt this over-inflated football past, oh, Feb. 3, perhaps the hordes will have moved on to the next hot topic.

It’s not that there isn’t a story here. It’s that the story has been lost in favor of the narrative, which is that the New England Patriots and their coach Bill Belicheat are the cheatiest cheats to ever cheat a cheat. They have a history of this stuff, you know? So they must have done something wrong. And if they did something wrong, what will we tell the children?

This is such a moral crisis that the major networks sent teams of crack journalists to Foxborough on Thursday to grill Belichick and Brady. The two faces of the franchise held up pretty well in the heat. Patriots fans believe it was because they were telling the truth. A lot of other people believe it was because the coach and the quarterback know Goodell doesn’t have any evidence to link them to, gasp, footballs without the legal amount of air in them.

Look, if — and it’s a big if — Goodell collects sufficient evidence, then the offenders need to be punished. If Belichick is found to be one of them, then yeah, his penalty should be more severe because he’s already broken the rules once for a competitive advantage (even though the punishment for that was only so severe because Goodell felt the need to show his were at 12.5 psi).

That is why I was embarrassed when the report of “Deflategate” first leaked out on Monday. I thought if the Patriots broke the rules, Belichick had to have a hand in it. I still find it hard to believe a guy who knows obscure rules about eligible players knows as little about ball pressure as he claimed to know on Thursday.

But that is all speculation at this point. And that is all anyone in the media, any former or current players being asked to comment, or anyone outside of Gillette Stadium and the commissioner’s office has at this point.

Unfortunately, the man who will ultimately be the judge, jury and executioner in this matter isn’t necessarily someone we can count on to act on the facts of the case. Or even someone we can count on to gather all the facts in the case. This is the most troublesome aspect of this whole situation for Patriots fans, and it should be for all fans.

We have no idea who or what will influence Goodell’s decision. It could be his own sense of morality and justice, which have shown to be rather incongruous even long before we ever heard of Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson’s brutality. It could be Patriots owner Robert Kraft, who has been a very public ally of his through the league’s recent struggles and may decide its time to return the favor. It could be the media, which has clearly made up its mind who needs to be punished and how.

A story about the air pressure in footballs has become a full-blown crisis. Roger Goodell does not have a history of performing well in a crisis, even, or perhaps especially, manufactured ones.

Perhaps after multiple requests for surveillance video, thorough contemplation and, hey, who knows, maybe even an interview with Brady, Goodell will arrive at a fair decision. I’d rather have Judge Judy at this point. Might as well put this circus in syndication, too.

Randy Whitehouse — 621-5638

rwhitehouse@mainetoday.com

Twitter: @RAWmaterial33

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