NFL 2016

[Clams]

The deflategate report is finally released and as expected it clarifies exactly nothing. This is really unfortunate, especially for Tom Brady but also for pretty much everyone involved.

The report impugns Brady's integrity and implies he's a liar. That's gonna be a permanent stain which is fine if it's deserved, but I'm not sure the report backs up that result.

Mostly, the report will give Patriots haters plenty of ammunition and justification for calling the Pats cheaters and calling into question some remarkable achievements while leaving so much room for spin and doubt as to not satisfactorily resolve the issue to anyone's satisfaction. That uncertainty means that this subject will never die as a subject of talk radio speculation, trash talk among fans and perhaps players, and an "asterisk" when placing the Pats, Bellichick and Brady in historical context. I'm already tired of hearing it and it hasn't even started. I'd call that a pretty bad outcome and a waste of a huge amount of the NFL's dough. I'd have to read the whole report to credibly criticize Wells and his team and I doubt I'm going to do that, but based on what I've read, I wouldn't hire them.

It's just a shame because even if the Patriots did exactly what they're accused of and they did it knowingly, it didn't have a damn bit of influence on the outcome*. So then one is left w/ "well if they did that imagine what else they've done but weren't caught." The net result will be the tarnishing of the Patriots' legacy out of all proportion to what they actually did. Very sad.

*As I've said before, that doesn't excuse the act and it should be punished. It's the disproportionate impact that I'm addressing here.

That's quite a homer's spin, Bubba.

[tinnitus photography]

Now accepting non-homer contributions

[Clams]

Now accepting non-homer contributions

Okay I'll bite...

The deflategate report is finally released and as expected it clarifies exactly nothing.

Clarifies nothing? It clarifies everthing! Brady wanted the balls deflated and he used those two employees to do it. Once caught, he called them about it, he texted them about it and he met with them about it. Then he looked straight into all those cameras and lied to the entire country about it.

The report impugns Brady's integrity and implies he's a liar. That's gonna be a permanent stain which is fine if it's deserved, but I'm not sure the report backs up that result.

Brady lied, so therefore he is a liar. There's nothing implied about it. And btw, he's now a cheater as well. So IMO he has no integrity when it comes to playing the game, cheating, etc.

Mostly, the report will give Patriots haters plenty of ammunition and justification for calling the Pats cheaters and calling into question some remarkable achievements while leaving so much room for spin and doubt as to not satisfactorily resolve the issue to anyone's satisfaction. That uncertainty means that this subject will never die as a subject of talk radio speculation, trash talk among fans and perhaps players, and an "asterisk" when placing the Pats, Bellichick and Brady in historical context.

The Pats are cheaters and that's now been proven more than once. Who know's how many other things they've done that they've gotten away with. Yes they have some "remarkable achievements" but who knows whether they'd have achieved them had they played by the rules. See, when you are proven to be a cheater and a liar, you lose all credibility and everything can be questioned.

It's just a shame because even if the Patriots did exactly what they're accused of and they did it knowingly, it didn't have a damn bit of influence on the outcome*.

Maybe. Maybe not.


Goodell should suspend Brady for 8 games next year.

[beantownbubba]

I really don't want to argue about this because it's a no win situation for me. I have no doubt that I have a bias on this one but I hate being called a homer so let me just say that to me "probably" is not definitely and like i said, I didn't read the whole report, just excerpts and multiple reports on the report, but i didn't see anything about Wells actually saying Brady lied or even just laying it out there (e.g. this is what happened, this is what brady said happened, they're not the same). Everything that I've read is hedged. The reason why I said that I think Brady's reputation is impugned is that he did not turn over his phone and emails. That's a fact. Given his flat out denials that seems awfully inconsistent and suspicious and imho reduces his stature. It's not unfair to get from there to "he probably lied." But probably is not actually and I think the difference matters. Even with respect to knowing the clubhouse guy, which Brady said he doesn't, the report only said that it is likely that Brady does (or maybe it was that he probably does, i forget). If that simple point cannot be expressed in short declarative sentences, something's wrong. Too many holes, too many flaws, too much waffling, too much room for argument.

[Bill in CT]

http://nesn.com/2015/02/jerry-rices-sti ... hypocrite/

[Bill in CT]

"Aaron Rodgers Likes To Tamper With Footballs, Too"

http://deadspin.com/aaron-rodgers-likes ... 1680676328

[Bill in CT]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ch ... /22135147/

[beantownbubba]

This is from the 538 website (see my comments in the books thread about The Signal and the Noise):

benc (Ben Casselman, chief economics writer): I am an unapologetic Pats fan, and would name my firstborn Brady if my wife would allow it. But one question I had was how clear it is that Brady wanted the balls UNDER 12.5 psi vs. as close to the minimum as possible. He seems to have complained about the balls in the Jets game, but those seem to have been inflated well over 12.5.

neil_paine: @benc – Right, they did complain the balls were at 16 one game.

benm: Agreed the evidence about Brady (at least from 30 minutes of dissecting it) seems a little more thin than evidence against McNally and Jastremski. [Jim McNally is the Officials Locker Room attendant for the Patriots, and John Jastremski is an equipment assistant for the team.]

The overall tenor of the post is that the Pats did it, but this is the kind of thing I'm talking about; Still plenty of uncertainty, doubt, questions about methodology, etc.

[Clams]

IMO there's only uncertainty if you're looking for it. A reasonably objective person would conclude that Brady is guilty.

And while this probably hurts my argument, I'll throw it in there anyway. When was the last time a professional athlete was found not guilty after being accused of cheating and professing his innocence? Has that ever happened? They're always guilty. Someone else will play the part of him. It's Tom's turn.

[Bill in CT]

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2015/05/07/ ... flategate/

[Zip City]

No way he gets 8 games.

[Bill in CT]

Note the article I linked to a few posts upthread. Aaron Rodgers likes to over inflate the footballs. Why is that less of an offense than under inflating the footballs?

[Tequila Cowboy]

No way he gets 8 games.

I'm guessing 3, 4 tops.-

[Zip City]

No way he gets 8 games.

I'm guessing 3, 4 tops.-

Punching your wife in the face only get you 2, so....

[tinnitus photography]

I'll take my Pats hat off and agree that it doesn't look good from what I've read, and that it's pretty likely there were shenanigans going on. But the calls for multi game suspensions? C'mon. Let's try to take it in stride against the other transgressions that have occurred.

http://yourteamcheats.com

[beantownbubba]

A multiple game suspension for Brady? That's crazy. That's when I just start laughing and understand that this whole thing has nothing to do w/ footballs or the "crime" and everything to do w/ the hate for the Patriots organization generally and Belichick & Brady specifically. A decent sized fine is probably what's appropriate but it will probably be a fine plus a game. So be it. But aren't the Pats opening next season in some big marquee game? The league's not going to want to pull Brady from that so that's an interesting call in itself. Any more than 1 game is completely unjustifiable by historical standards.

[tinnitus photography]

Goodell should suspend Brady for 8 games next year.

TMZ could run footage of Brady forcibly sodomizing Goodell's wife and he wouldn't get that.

[Tequila Cowboy]

No way he gets 8 games.

I'm guessing 3, 4 tops.-

Punching your wife in the face only get you 2, so....

There's so much more going on here though on a social level in the NFL world. There should be zero suspension but the optics will demand more. This is about making Goodell hurt his budy Kraft to show he will. The NFL is a shitshow.

[sg207]

Any more than a 1 game suspension for Brady would be ridiculous, and I'm not sure that even 1 game is suitable. People try to bend the rules all the time. He got busted, he certainly knew something was going on, so I'm fine with branding him as a liar, but 8 games? We don't even know if he was asking them to drop the PSI below the acceptable level, or just to that level.

And I'm firmly in the camp that has never been a Brady fan.

[Zip City]

This is the equivalent of George Brett putting too much pine tar on the bat

[Tequila Cowboy]

This is the equivalent of George Brett putting too much pine tar on the bat

Except that George Brett didn't play for the most hated team in the country and the commissioner wasn't considered to be a racist mastermind in cahoots with said team and their billionaire owner. In a perfect world this would be a footnote, maybe a small fine and everyone moves on but in this NFL where the commissioner is so disliked that the league just gave up its tax exempt status pretty much just so people will no longer know how much money he makes, it's going to be a lot more than that. It's fucked up and it's silly and in my cynical mind it's all designed to make that opening game so intriguing that every NFL fan will feel it's their duty to watch Jimmy Garropolo open the NFL season against Pittsburgh and all the nauseating "heir apparent" talk that will bring. All of course setting up the "redemption of Tom Brady" storyline that will come right after the suspension. Don't try to apply logic or common sense to this, it's the NFL.

[Markalanbishop]

This is from the 538 website (see my comments in the books thread about The Signal and the Noise):

benc (Ben Casselman, chief economics writer): I am an unapologetic Pats fan, and would name my firstborn Brady if my wife would allow it. But one question I had was how clear it is that Brady wanted the balls UNDER 12.5 psi vs. as close to the minimum as possible. He seems to have complained about the balls in the Jets game, but those seem to have been inflated well over 12.5.

neil_paine: @benc – Right, they did complain the balls were at 16 one game.

benm: Agreed the evidence about Brady (at least from 30 minutes of dissecting it) seems a little more thin than evidence against McNally and Jastremski. [Jim McNally is the Officials Locker Room attendant for the Patriots, and John Jastremski is an equipment assistant for the team.]

The overall tenor of the post is that the Pats did it, but this is the kind of thing I'm talking about; Still plenty of uncertainty, doubt, questions about methodology, etc.

The story ends with the quote "Behind every great fortune is a great crime." To be fair, the only uncertainty and doubt is how long the Patriots have been cheating--see the reworked analysis of the data related to the Pats' statistically unexplainable low fumble rate.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/five ... te-report/

And this from Charles Pierce: http://grantland.com/the-triangle/burn- ... arterback/

All of that said, I agree with Zip and everyone who is saying this is an overblown scandal but I also admit to more than a little schadenfreude. Unfortunately for the Pats Goodell is probably going to have to suspend Brady for at least one game to protect the brand. What a joke the NFL has become.

[Tequila Cowboy]

What a joke the NFL has become.

All these words and this is it in a nutshell.

[Clams]

Brady suspended for 4 games. I wasn't so far off after all.

[Tequila Cowboy]

Brady suspended for 4 games. I wasn't so far off after all.

I understand why the NFL did this but c'mon now. What a fucked up organization.

[Iowan]

I'm legitimately stunned he got any kind of suspension.

[beantownbubba]

And so the Jimmy Garoppolo era begins.

Plus a first round draft choice!

So the teams in the league have decided that they can't beat the Pats on the field so they have to change the playing field. What else do u need to know about a bunch of rich crybabies? This punishment exceeds that given to admitted wife beaters and is the same as that given to a convicted felon. Makes sense to me

[Zip City]

But what will it be after the appeal?

[Tequila Cowboy]

And so the Jimmy Garoppolo era begins.

Plus a first round draft choice!

So the teams in the league have decided that they can't beat the Pats on the field so they have to change the playing field. What else do u need to know about a bunch of rich crybabies? This punishment exceeds that given to admitted wife beaters and is the same as that given to a convicted felon. Makes sense to me

I knew it was coming. It was completely obvious it was coming. That doesn't make it any less stupid. Beat the shit out of your wife OK, a little rape a little murder OK but DAMMIT YOU MUST NOT ALTER YOUR BALLS. The NFL, officially the dumbest league in sports.

[Zip City]

More like Roger Goodell is the most "in over his head " commissioner