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Competitive advantage - has existed across all sports probably forever. Bending the rules? Of course I'll say the Pats do it, and to others would be useless to say other teams do it too (because you'll come back with two wrongs don't make a right, or it's just an excuse). If all other 31 teams QB's play with PSI's, which team/QB will get singled out and scrutinized more? Of course the team that wins, and no team in the history of the NFL has won more consistently over a period of time than the Patriots, so it MUST have all been done by cheating.
PSI's in a football. So Brady should be suspended for a year for cheating for such an egregious act that gave the team such an advantage over all other teams. If you believe that, then you are not a fan who understands the nuances of the game of football. In the case of the AFC Championship, and under inflated balls in that weather, it MAY be only a slight advantage to grip by Brady (his preference). For the rest of the players (receivers, running backs, other who touch the ball), who knows what their preference is? Maybe it hurts them because they like the ball with higher PSI. Point - no definable or proven advantage, other than a preference.
What distinguishes a true hater to me is barking about cheating and then throwing in the tuck rule and the ineligible player lining up as more evidence the Pats cheat. In both those instance, the calls were correct based on the NFL rule books, and were only changed afterwards because of the outcry. No one controlled the outcome of the tuck rule other than the refs making the call. The line up was genius by Belichick who understood the rule and played within its boundaries. And even SpyGate, blown up to be like Watergate. They taped on the sidelines when a memo said they shouldn't have and got caught by a revengeful Mangini and got fined appropriately. Yet, they could have taped in other places and not been fined - they were just stupid in the placement of the video person. And those who think DeflateGate is worse than BountyGate - really? PSI's in a football worse than paying players to hurt others? Really?
What the Wells report along with the Rice, Peterson, and other issues tell me is this is about the NFL and not the infractions. The NFL has let things get out of hand under their roof. The business model is flawed, period. It needs to be fixed, period. The NFL has showed such inadequacy in dealing with their business it's at times comical. And the Pats have been just stupid enough to get caught with their hands in the cookie jar while other teams pulled out their hands just in time.
So we shall see what the NFL does. Either listen to the hater fans and penalize heavily so they can make their billion dollar business look good, or admit internal failures and fix things not penalizing due to lack of true evidence, not just assumptions.
Last edited by metalmancpa; 05-08-2015 at 09:07 AM..
What distinguishes a true hater to me is barking about cheating and then throwing in the tuck rule and the ineligible player lining up as more evidence the Pats cheat...
...Either listen to the hater fans and penalize heavily so they can make their billion dollar business look good, or admit internal failures and fix things not penalizing due to lack of true evidence, not just assumptions.
I'm not totally sure if you're a "homer", Metalman, but...
What distinguishes a true homer to myself and others, is a person who never seems to see anything wrong with what their particular home team does.
A homer seems to claim that anyone who doesn't absolutely agree with everything about what their home team does is a hater. Or... a homer seems to claim that whatever their home team does is less bad than what any others' team has done.
Put another way: their home team either commits no sins, or always commits only lesser, forgivable (venial) sins. All others' teams commit mortal (very bad) sins.
Assuming the Colts are correct in their assertion that it is well known around the NFL that the Patriots ball boys will let some air out of the footballs after they've been checked by the officials, why are they the first team to bring this to the NFL's attention? If this is such a big deal to the NFL, why wouldn't they oversee the game balls all the way until kickoff to assure not advantage would be had by the Patriots?
It's also interesting that only 4 of the 12 balls used by the Colts were tested and it was noted they did not have enough time to test the other 8.
So we shall see what the NFL does. Either listen to the hater fans and penalize heavily so they can make their billion dollar business look good, or admit internal failures and fix things not penalizing due to lack of true evidence, not just assumptions.
Why can't the NFL do both? I don't see why they can't penalize AND tighten up their procedures so that this cannot happen again.
Just because a rule is loose and has cracks does not mean there should not be ramifications for those who choose to break threw those cracks.
I'm not totally sure if you're a "homer", Metalman, but...
What distinguishes a true homer to myself and others, is a person who never seems to see anything wrong with what their particular home team does.
A homer seems to claim that anyone who doesn't absolutely agree with everything about what their home team does is a hater. Or... a homer seems to claim that whatever their home team does is less bad than what any others' team has done.
Put another way: their home team either commits no sins, or always commits only lesser, forgivable (venial) sins. All others' teams commit mortal (very bad) sins.
Is that an "assumption"?
I can understand a team or a player trying to get an advantage, within the rules. I can understand why a player or a team could break the rules to do the same thing. It is a calculated risk that they don't get caught. I don't like that any team or player does that, but until they get caught and I then know what they did, I enjoy my ignorance and enjoy the game.
What I do not understand is how these "homers" as you call them can disregard their own team's, or player's, breaking of the rules. By doing so they have the same lack of integrity as the offending team or player does. You can continue to root for the home team to win, but at least ask them to do it fairly.
I am talking about preponderance of evidence here, just as though there were facts or admissions. Concealment of facts should not be disregarded either.
I find it really interesting that no one realizes that if Brady did decide to cheat by intentionally deflating 11 footballs, how in the hell was he going to implement this plan with all the NFL referees handling the balls 50-60 times during the 1st half of the game? Did he just assume that NOT 1 SINGLE NFL OFFICIAL REFEREE would notice? I mean, that would have to be factored in while planning this cheating scheme...right? But whenever the refs roles in this are brought up, it is immediatly dismissed as a non issue. Why? If a referee who is touching the football prior to every snap. and handed to the ref after EVERY play doesnt even once notice extremely deflated footballs..how is it that Tom Brady intentionally cheated? If a ref placesthe ball on the field, doesnt it mean that he CERTIFIES the ball as bieng within regulation? Since when is it up to the players to determine that?
Brady should be horsewhipped through the streets, and then tarred and feathered, and then drawn and quartered ....good lord people are ridiculous, some of the things I have heard people say over the last few days are beyond ludicrous.
As for the Wells Report. Right off the bat, the report states in a bunch of lawyer speak that Ted Wells thinks this was done on purpose and that Tom Brady was a part of it. 200 some odd pages later, Wells admits that he has no hard evidence to support this. So why would Ted Wells implicate Tom Brady? Look at it this way, the NFL is one of Ted Wells biggest clients. The NFL just paid Ted Wells an insane amount of money to conduct this investigation, which took over 3 months. If Ted Wells says that Brady is not guilty, the NFL looks pretty darn stupid for paying this guy by the hour to investigate this, don't they? Why would you write a report that casts one of your biggest clients in a negative light? This is just bad business.
This is pretty obvious at various points throughout the report. For example, Wells glosses over the fact that at halftime, only 4 Colts balls were checked and 3 of these had also lost air pressure. Why were only 4 balls checked? Because it was deemed that they did not have enough time....either the rules are a priority...or they are not. After all, as Roger Goodell would say "This is the integrity of the game" for God's sake.
The biggest issues Ted Wells seems to have are 1. Tom Brady not giving up his phone. 2. Tom Brady claiming to not know the name of Jim McNally the locker room attendant, 3. The fast that the Patriots declined to let him interview McNally. Let's address these one by one.
1. Tom Brady is a very high profile person that likes his privacy, and has a very high profile wife. He and his wife spend a lot of time apart, due to their jobs. Is it implausible that perhaps he has some naught pics of Gisele on his phine that he did not want Ted Wells ogling at? Or worse, getting leaked to TMZ?
2. Tedy Bruschi was on ESPN today. He stated that he knew McNally, but knew him by the nickname "Bird", he did not know his real name. People need to understand that these teams employ hundreds of people, in addition to having over 60 players on their rosters. If you work at a workplace of over 200 or 300...do you know the name of every single person there?
3. What Mr. Wells leaves out of his report while stating that the Patriots refused a follow up interview with McNAlly, is that he had already interviewed McNally 4 times. In addition, McNally has a full time job with another employer. If he can't get the answers he needs in 4 tries, maybe he is not the amazing investigator he thinks he is.
When Brady is suspended(and he will be), expect a very swift appeal to be filed, and expect possible litigation to happen for his name being slandered and dragged through the dirt with 0 evidence. If nothing else, he is obligated to appeal as a member of the players union, if he accept punishment as a prominent player, for a crime that there is no proff he committed, he sets a bad precedent for his fellow players.
3. What Mr. Wells leaves out of his report while stating that the Patriots refused a follow up interview with McNAlly, is that he had already interviewed McNally 4 times. In addition, McNally has a full time job with another employer. If he can't get the answers he needs in 4 tries, maybe he is not the amazing investigator he thinks he is.
Wrong.
The report says he was interviewed once and then was not allowed to be interviewed again.
Sixty-six people were interviewed by investigators. McNally was interviewed once. The Patriots refused to make him available for a follow-up. Jastremski was interviewed along with 15 others associated with the Patriots.
Patriots counsel rejected second interview with McNally despite five written requests to do so.
Kraft claims he was interviewed four times.
Regardless, Kraft claimed there would be COMPLETE COOPERATION on the part of the Patriots.
Refusing to allow an employee to give a follow-up interview is not complete cooperation. Refusing to turn over RELEVANT text messages (nothing personal, only texts pertaining to the investigation) is not complete cooperation.
It's not up to the Patriots to determine how many interviews are needed, it's up to the investigators.
Remember when Bob Kraft demanded an apology from the league?
Ok. Maybe Tom Brady lied like a rug, but Lance Armstrong lied like wall-to-wall carpeting.. at the convention center!
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