Fred Toucher: ‘Deflategate’ may be ‘worst period of sports talk radio’

Fred Toucher got surprisingly animated Thursday about a relatively ancient topic: “Deflategate.”

That scandal, one of the strangest in NFL history, made headlines and fueled sports talk radio debates in 2015. Tom Brady ultimately served a four-game suspension in 2016 and the New England Patriots were fined and lost draft selections after an investigation found the team deflated footballs during the 2014 AFC Championship Game.

On Thursday’s Toucher & Hardy show on Boston’s 98.5 The Sports Hub, Toucher said he hated talking about Deflategate at the time. But he recently revisited that event and the media circus surrounding it in an interview with Justin Sayles of The Ringer.

“I had hit the rage because that was the worst period of sports talk radio maybe in the history of sports talk radio,” Toucher said, via Barrett Sports Media. “Well, first of all, the feigning interest in it or feigning passion in it by people was incredibly aggravating. People that I knew didn’t care about it — I hated it.”

What did Toucher hate about Deflategate? Actually, what didn’t he hate about it? He continued to share his grievances.

“This is the worst part about being a sports fan is like when you go, ‘Oh, I’m being played,'” Toucher said. “These guys are all making billions of dollars – billions, billions of dollars. What does [Roger] Goodell get paid a year? $50 million? $50 million a year, and you know [Robert] Kraft is billions on billions upon billions of dollars, and we’re all sitting here arguing about the ideal gas law and b******* about legal documents while those two guys are just sitting back making money and laughing at everyone.”

Toucher went on, venting about Kraft’s possible motives surrounding the controversy. Co-host Rob Poole finally had heard enough.

“I don’t want to talk about Deflategate anymore,” Poole said. “I don’t want to talk about how we don’t want to talk about Deflategate. Thank you.”