to protect the spirit of the game, the NFL has strict rules governing team communication during a game.
Current technology provides ridiculous scenarios for filtering messages to the sideline...
fans could call a hotline and give all sorts of information, for starters.
The idea is to make is as close to the 1940's as possible, practically. (kinda...)
Two organizations that have been busted in recent years as gross transgressors to this spirit of the game and the rules that protect it were...
1) The New England Patriots... their spygate was just sickening & widespread, I believe. Very widespread. What the NFL punished for was very minute, and for possibly many reasons (least of all, League image) (like the NBA did with referee Denehey [sp?])
2) The New Orleans Saints.... their front office brass had bugs planted in the visiting team areas of the SuperDome to record any information they could use for their advantage in the game. The NFL investigated and found this several years back.
What the Browns Ray Farmer did is, comparatively, much less than this... so much so, it's uncomparable.... like a kid that wouldn't let his friend ride his plastic horse on springs (as I once did at 6 yrs old) compared to what the Enron brass did to ruin countless degrees of quality of thousands, maybe millions of lives.
Effectively, what Ray Farmer actually did was less than deflating game balls in effect to the nature of competition. But because it falls under this realm of potentially great consequence to the game, the punishment [theoretically] should be harder than that of deflating game balls or using underinflated game balls.
Whatever the punishment for Ray Farmer's faux pas <fo' paw> what I know is that it better be A HELL of a lot less than the pussy whip the NFL gave to New England and New Orleans, respectively.
A HEEEEEEELLL OF A LOT LESS.