So to you, if a person fails at the activity in which they were cheating...the failure is punishment enough?
It's scary to think you actually believe that is sound logic. The reality is that in that scenario, there IS no penalty...only an outcome. This is the reason why many professors and teachers will give out multiple versions of tests...if you aren't caught cheating, you still fail, and if you ARE caught cheating, you fail and you face the consequences of cheating. It's all about consequences...whether you find success or not is not a consequence of cheating, that is a result of not being prepared. You're essentially saying it's not fair to the team to be punished beyond the initial failure or lack of success...you are plainly stating that cheating should not be punished in this scenario, and that makes no sense.
What has the NFL tried to brush off? I may not agree with the extent of their punishments, but I don't remember ANYTHING they tried to simply "brush off".
You also missed the point of my "ticket" analogy...had nothing to do with NOT paying the citations, it had to do with simply ignoring the broken law by paying an inconsequential citation and learning nothing from it. I hate continuing to have to use analogies but it seems this is just flying over your head...but if you have a child, and the child was told not to go into the cookie jar but does it anyways...they are breaking the rules whether they get a cookie or not...by your logic, if they don't get a cookie out of the jar, but are caught in the act, they shouldn't be punished for ignoring the rules, because they didn't get a cookie.
I don't understand how this is a proper result to you.