As far as NFL fans were concerned, it was about time the New England Patriots got smacked for cheating. For New England Patriots fans, this was about ‘haters’ trying to bring down this Super Bowl winning team.

On Monday April 11th, the NFL handed down a four game suspension to quarterback Tom Brady and fined the organization 1,000,000 dollars plus it took away two draft picks. This comes after the Spygate incident in 2007.

This is a classic debate in sports. How far should leagues go to remove and eradicate cheating?

In this case, some NFL fans wanted more and some wanted less. This is the issue. There are no set criteria to establish what a good punishment is and what is not.

In the last NFL year, more questionable decisions have been made than any other league in the last decade. First they had the Ray Rice debacle, where he was only suspended for two games for a vicious left hook to his now wife’s face.

Then, they put Adrian Peterson on the commissioner’s exempt list after his child abuse arrest, where there is still yet to be a punishment.

Finally, they only recently suspended now Dallas Cowboy’s player Greg Hardy after being convicted of domestic violence against his ex-girlfriend back in November. He was allowed on the commissioner’s exempt list and was paid for the entire season.

Everything in punishment and law falls under the same category. Everything has to be black and white; there is no gray area in law. When there is gray area there is no result. In sports there are lots and lots of gray areas.

There is no precedent for what the Patriots have done in the last decade. Yes they have won title after title and nearly went 19-0. At the same time, they have now been caught cheating blatantly for the second time.

At what point do we stop taking pennies away from a billion dollar business and hit them where it hurts. When do we start taking away titles? It is the biggest punishment in sports and leagues everywhere should consider it.