3181 replies to this topic

[tdalton]

Cheating is cheating and that has consequences..

 

Thank you.

[seawolfnyy]

In the conditions at Gillette Stadium on Sunday night, a deflated ball would not help in throwing. A deflated ball reacts more to the elements and the wind and rain would've toyed around with it more. As it stands, if (and we don't know that the Patriots actually had anything to do with the under inflated balls just as the USC coaching staff didn't) in fact the balls were underinflated in the first half, they should have been reinflated at halftime. Ergo, in the second half when New England played better, they should have had correctly inflated balls. On top of that, under these conditions, Brady's interception came with the underinflated balls. Meaning if NE did do it, then they were actively screwing themselves. NO ADVANTAGE. That, or the referees royally and I mean royally screwed up. Additionally, NFL assistants have come out and said that this happens ALL THE TIME. This isn't an isolated case of the Patriots cheating. Everyone does it. How do we know Indianapolis didn't do it too? It's not like their management and ownership are squeaky clean. The Irsays are the biggest crooks this side of Dan Snyder. This is just another case of a team whining because they lost to a better team. Also, it's the Patriots. Sure Belicheck's credibility went out the window with Spygate (which while yes illegal, would've been totally LEGAL had the assistant just been standing in a different spot). However, that doesn't mean that the Patriots' coaches or players or whatever had anything to do with this. Or maybe they did. We'll probably never know.

[tdalton]

You can keep spinning it however you want.  The FACT remains, the Patriots broke the rules.  

 

And yes, a deflated ball does give you a MAJOR advantage.

[seawolfnyy]

It doesn't matter. Punish the Patriots. Revoke draft picks. Suspend Belichick, it doesn't matter. It still doesn't change the fact that the Colts went to New England with a terrible gameplan and got their asses handed to them. If in fact the balls were underinflated during the game (again calling the competency of the refs into question) I don't think it had any effect on the outcome. Indianapolis played very poorly against a better team. The Colts have no one to blame for that, but themselves. Although they won't. Not now, which is fine for New England. If we know anything about Belichick, Brady and the Pats, it's that they'll use this as fire and probably come out stronger in the Super Bowl for it, just to stick it to everyone else. Or this is 100% proof that Ray Lewis was right and Tom Brady's entire career is just a fluke.

[tdalton]

Nobody has stated that the Colts played well or didn't come into the game with a terrible plan or a mediocre QB or whatever else.  Nobody has said that.  They were awful.  

 

But, what you're saying is that cheating should only be condemned in certain circumstances.  The league has certain rules regarding equipment for a reason and when they're not followed, it's cheating, period.  Just because the other team was bad doesn't mean that it's OK to not follow the rules.

 

The competency of the refs should not be in question here.  They did their job and inspected the balls at the prescribed 2 hours and 15 minutes prior to the game and then returned them to the custody of the Patriots and the Colts at the appropriate time.  From there, they are unsupervised (a flaw in the NFL rulebook) on the sidelines by the officials.  

[Call Billy Bob]

I agree that cheaters should be punished, but still... you don't get your butt whipped like a junior high team just because footballs were altered.

[seawolfnyy]

I agree that cheaters should be punished, but still... you don't get your butt whipped like a junior high team just because footballs were altered.

Thank you. Also, I'm not defending cheating. NFL assistants have stated that everyone does this all the time. It's the same as everyone using steroids. Is it really an advantage if everyone is doing it? Yes, again it happened to be the Patriots who were found to be doing it and if it is true that Belichick and Brady were in on it, then they should be punished. Suspended for the Super Bowl maybe. But this doesn't also do away with what would be grossly incompetent officiating. The balls would've been reinspected at halftime after the Colts complained and reinflated if found to be under inflated. So if New England did it and still got away with it after that, then yes that is in fact some pretty piss-poor officiating. This also points out what seems to be a MAJOR flaw with how game balls are handled. I understand the teams getting to doctor the balls and get them to how the players like them. But why would they also be able to hold onto the balls during games out of sight of the officials? Shouldn't the officiating crew be handling the game balls during a game? Seems as if, again, a team was found exploiting a flaw in the rules.

[seawolfnyy]

The Official NFL Rulebook states:

 

The Referee shall be the sole judge as the whether all balls offered to play conform with these specifications: inflated to 12.5-13.5 pounds, weigh 14-15 ounces etc.

 

In the event a home team ball does not conform to specifications, or its supply is exhausted, the Referee shall secure a proper ball from the visitors and, failing that, use the best available. Any such circumstances must be reported to the commissioner.

 

According to this, if the Patriots did manage to get away with this all game, then that is some pretty incompetent officiating on the part of the Referee.

[tdalton]

Looks like the Pats may have done this before (not that there was much doubt):

 

Report: Colts told NFL of inflation concerns after November game vs. Patriots

 

 

And some good insight on the scandal from the former VP of Officiating:

Former VP of Officiaing Mike Pereira on the scandal

Edited by tdalton, 21 January 2015 - 11:20 PM.

[Hockey Mask]

Here is what we know...

11 of 12 the balls the Patriots were watching were under inflated. None of the balls the Colts had control of were. This seems to eliminate "natural causes".

The balls were all properly inflated 5 minutes before the game.

This was not the only game that the Patriots have done this.

Forget Brady and a throwing advantage it is easier to hold onto the ball when it is under inflated.

The three running backs for the Patriots have a total of zero fumbles this year.

Under inflating did not have an impact on the final outcome of the AFC championship but if it was done throughout the year did it have an impact once. If it did then the Patriots prob would not have been playing at home for the game.

There has to be ramifications for blatantly flipping off the league.

Edited by 00Hockey Mask, 21 January 2015 - 11:58 PM.

[tdalton]

Under inflating did not have an impact on the final outcome of the AFC championship but if it was done throughout the year did it have an impact once. If it did then the Patriots prob would not have been playing at home for the game.

There has to be ramifications for blatantly flipping off the league.

 

That's the real point of all of this.  The Colts already turned their suspicions over to the league regarding this issue during their regular season game with the Pats, as their equipment managers concluded that a Pats ball that they got a hold of was under-inflated.  

 

Looking at the Pats' schedule for this past season, there were several close games in which this could have made a big difference:

 

Week 3: 7-point victory over Oakland

Week 6: 15-point victory over Buffalo

Week 7: 2-point victory over the Jets

Week 14: 9-point victory over San Diego

Week 16: 1-point victory over the Jets

 

Those are just the 2-possession or less victories they had, which had they all gone the other way, puts their record down to 7-9 on the season, or possibly 8-8 as they wouldn't have rested their starters in the finale against Buffalo.  This could have also had an effect in some of their bigger wins as well, between the running backs being able to hold onto the ball more easily and Brady being able to throw it more easily and the receivers being able to catch the ball more easily.  

 

That's not saying that they lose all of those games (of course they don't), but if they cheated in any one of those games and it had an effect, then the complexion of the playoffs is changed as they only achieved home field advantage through a tiebreaker with the Broncos.

[tdalton]

EDIT:  Sorry, didn't mean to double-post.  Browser got hung up and I hit the wrong button.
 
Former NFL QB Mark Brunell and RB Jerome Bettis explain how an under-inflated football gives a big advantage to quarterbacks, running backs, and wide receivers as opposed to a properly-inflated football:
 

 
 
And a quote from former Washington and Houston General Manager Charlie Casserly as reported in the Washington Post:
 

“A deflated football is an advantage for a quarterback to throw and a receiver to catch in the conditions they played in Sunday,” said former Washington Redskins general manager Charley Casserly, who once sat on the NFL’s rule-making Competition Committee. “Regardless of that, if the ball is deflated below what it’s supposed to be, that’s a huge issue. If one team has deflated balls playing at any point, especially in bad weather, that’s a huge advantage. And the Patriots should be punished.”

Edited by tdalton, 22 January 2015 - 05:46 AM.

[Tarl_Cabot]

EDIT:  Sorry, didn't mean to double-post.  Browser got hung up and I hit the wrong button.
 
Former NFL QB Mark Brunell and RB Jerome Bettis explain how an under-inflated football gives a big advantage to quarterbacks, running backs, and wide receivers as opposed to a properly-inflated football:
 

 
 
And a quote from former Washington and Houston General Manager Charlie Casserly as reported in the Washington Post:
 

“A deflated football is an advantage for a quarterback to throw and a receiver to catch in the conditions they played in Sunday,” said former Washington Redskins general manager Charley Casserly, who once sat on the NFL’s rule-making Competition Committee. “Regardless of that, if the ball is deflated below what it’s supposed to be, that’s a huge issue. If one team has deflated balls playing at any point, especially in bad weather, that’s a huge advantage. And the Patriots should be punished.”

 

 Ouch.

[seawolfnyy]

Adam Shefter reports that the NFL is having difficulties finding any evidence that the Patriots knowingly deflated their footballs during the AFC Championship Game.

[seawolfnyy]

Tom Brady to give a press conference at 3:45. It's expected that he will talk about the deflated footballs. Belichick has already stated to have had no prior knowledge about the under inflated balls, but Brady told teammates behind closed doors that he prefers the balls a "certain way." Allegedgly, the Patriots' ball boy has stated they present the balls to the officials a specific way and have had a few disallowed previously, but expect that the balls to pass inspection.

[tdalton]

As for Schefter's report, I don't doubt it.  The NFL wants to protect their Super Bowl, which would become a laughing stock if there was the conclusion from an official investigation that the Patriots cheated.  Either we'll get that conclusion after the Super Bowl or the NFL will do what it's so famous for doing and sweep it under the rug.  

 

Roger Goodell's credibility, be it when we're solely talking about the Patriots or whether it's just in general, has been gone for quite some time.  His handling of SpyGate was atrocious (destroying the evidence, really?), as was the non-handling of the Pats' filming of the Rams' walkthrough the night before the 2002 Super Bowl in New Orleans.  He has zero credibility, so there's always going to be doubt no matter what he says to the media.  

 

One thing is fairly attention-grabbing, though, which I came across earlier today.  Someone did a statistical breakdown of the Patriots fumbling statistics as compared to the rest of the league.  It's rather telling.

 

They swept Ray Rice punching his fiance in the face under the rug and they swept Spygate under the rug as well, now they're prepping to sweep this under the rug.

 

My issue in all of this really isn't with the New England Patriots or, more specifically, Bill Belichick.  We know that they're cheaters because they've been caught before.  My issue is with Goodell, who has made this league a laughing stock during his tenure.  First, by allowing the cheating to occur under his watch, which goes to the integrity of the game, but instead focusing on fining people absurd amounts of money for not having their socks pulled up to the exact length required or by himself threatening to harm the integrity of the NFC Championship Game by threatening to eject Marshawn Lynch from the game if he went to the sidelines wearing the wrong cleats.  That's my real issue.  Goodell has done more harm to this game than anyone else in the history of the NFL, and the NFL owners MUST FIRE HIM.  The absolutely must.  The tide is turning against the NFL.  People don't trust it anymore.  They can't stand to see cheating, wife-beating, and drug use tolerated while other absurdly minor things in comparison are prosecuted beyond the fullest extents of the so-called "law".  It's disgusting and Goodell must be fired for the disgrace he's brought to the National Football League.

 

All the evidence that you need regarding the NFL's incompetence can be found in the Brady press conference.  Apparently he said that nobody from the league has talked to him about this.  How in the world is that possible?  There are two people that absolutely needed to be talked to in this investigation above all others: Belichick, Walt Anderson, and Tom Brady.  They spoke to Anderson to confirm the balls were tested properly before the game and to get whatever other information they had, but they haven't talked to Tom Brady?  That's just either incompetence.

[seawolfnyy]

I pretty much agree with everything you said there, tdalton. Goodell has done nothing but harm the league since he took over for Paul Tagliabue. The punishment for Spygate was little more than a slap on the wrist. Which, until people complained, was the same punishment for Ray Rice beating his fiancé. He's changed the rules so much under the guise of "player safety" that passing records get rewritten every year. He's continually tried to increase the season to 18 games, pushed for an entire season's worth of Thursday night games and increase the number of London games, when people in the UK DON'T EVEN CARE! So we all know he doesn't really care about player safety. It's pretty much expected at this point that New England, if they did in fact knowingly do this, is going to get away with it. Brady pretty much confirmed what I said before, if the balls were underinflated it happened before the game and Walt Anderson grossly botched this. As it stands, the NFL's investigation has been ridiculous and I think we all know nothing is going to come of this. If it were any other team, but the Patriots, it would've died out already. Does anyone even remember that Carolina was caught on camera illegally using heaters on the sidelines to warm their balls when they played in Minnesota this year? All that came of that was a warning sent to all teams not to do it. Nothing happened there and nothing will happen here.

[tdalton]

I agree on the London thing.  That's just stupidity in its highest form.  Now they're actually going to be playing division games there next year.  The Jets and Dolphins will play a division game there next year, which will air at 9:30 in the morning in the United States.  That's not at all an issue of integrity when the Bills and Patriots don't have to play a division game on the other side of the world.

 

As for Brady, he confirmed nothing today.  I think Mark Brunnell summed it up best:

http://youtu.be/2fajDW-B970?t=20s

 

If I were Walt Anderson, I'd be putting a lawyer on retainer, because the Patriots are gearing up to come after either him or the ball boy, and the NFL, which apparently has done nothing to investigate this so far, is going to accept that explanation even though it will be obvious to everybody outside of New England that it's a load of BS.

Edited by tdalton, 22 January 2015 - 10:56 PM.

[seawolfnyy]

I saw that. Why the hell would you have a 9:30 am start time? That's just ridiculous. Also, why is it that there is a greater push for a team in London than in Toronto where they actually already play American Football? That makes no sense to me. I remember, that years ago, they even used to have a game in Mexico too. Both would make far more sense than London. As for Brady, I agree that he gave a contradictory statement. Strange as it is to say, I believe Belichick more than Brady in this scenario. The head coach has literally ZERO interaction with the balls, whereas the QB (obviously) far more. Either way, I'm pretty sure this may be some of the last we hear about it until at least after the Super Bowl.

[tdalton]

Well, in fairness, the local start time in London would be 2:30 in the afternoon, but that still puts both the Jets and Dolphins at a huge disadvantage.  Plus, it's a Dolphins' "home" game, so their fans are getting the shaft by only getting seven games at whatever Dolphins Stadium will be called next year.

 

I don't see why they don't go back to Mexico City for a game.  That was a pretty fun atmosphere down there when they had the Cardinals play a game there a few years ago.  Can't remember who they played, it was another bad team, I want to say either Oakland or San Francisco (pre-Harbaugh), but it was a great atmosphere.  If you're going to play international games that are division games, then I'd say they should be in either Toronto or Mexico City.  I would imagine a Jets/Pats game in Mexico City would have quite a fun atmosphere to it, and the fans down there would be treated to a great, heated rivalry as opposed to two bad teams playing bad football.

[seawolfnyy]

Yea, Jets/Pats would be a good one or Bears/Packers if you want to showcase 2 of the league's historic teams. Unless I'm mistaken, the Bills already play a game in Toronto every year. It seems logical that Toronto should eventually get an NFL franchise. On the other hand, Mexico City is a large market and you'd  think the NFL would want to expand there. Unless they don't see it as economically viable. It's actually pretty odd that there hasn't been an effort in Major League Baseball to expand south of the border. Granted, baseball is like the only Central American country that baseball isn't the most popular sport, but still. MLB has a huge Latino influence and it is only logical that there would be a team in Latin America.

[The Dove]

Very nice of Belichick to throw Tom Brady under the bus yesterday during his press conference..I am just stunned at how that came off. Right now I'm more interested on focusing on Marshawn-gate and seeing whether this clown does a repeat of his Media Day antics from last year, this time around..

[Hockey Mask]

Very nice of Belichick to throw Tom Brady under the bus yesterday during his press conference..I am just stunned at how that came off. Right now I'm more interested on focusing on Marshawn-gate and seeing whether this clown does a repeat of his Media Day antics from last year, this time around..

I'm kind of torn on him. If the guy has a problem speaking in public or even with others than he shouldn't be forced to. In a league full of egos he isn't typical. Something is definately off.

[tdalton]

Very nice of Belichick to throw Tom Brady under the bus yesterday during his press conference..I am just stunned at how that came off. Right now I'm more interested on focusing on Marshawn-gate and seeing whether this clown does a repeat of his Media Day antics from last year, this time around..

 

I was surprised by it too at first, but then the realization that everything the Patriots do (especially with four days to prepare for it) is so meticulously calculated that nothing is done accidentally began to set in.  

 

Still, that doesn't explain the disastrous Tom Brady press conference in which he managed to come off as less convincing than a proven cheater.  Brady contradicted himself so many times that it's clear that he was being less than truthful, at best.  

 

And did anybody else find the irony of both Belichick and Brady doing their press conference in front of a backdrop advertising Gilette's "Flexball".  That was hilarious.

[seawolfnyy]

Bill Belichick seems to have given the best explanation of anybody about how/why the Patriots' balls ended up being slightly underinflated during the game. It is a fact that air temperature can affect the air pressure. It's like how a car tire can fluctuate by as much as 5 psi between warm and cold temperatures. Obviously, a football does not carry the same kind of load as a car tire, but the same principles can be applied. It is completely within reason to believe that a ball could fluctuate by as much as 1.5 psi between warm and cold temperatures.

[tdalton]

Bill Belichick's "theory" doesn't hold water.  Yes, air pressure can be affected by weather.  But, if that were the case in this situation, then the Colts' footballs would have been found to be deflated.  All 12 of their footballs that were tested at halftime were found to be legal.  At least 11 of the Pats' 12 footballs (some sources say all 12) were deflated well below the legal minimum.

 

It's clear that someone tampered with the footballs between the time that the officials checked them 2 hours and 15 minutes before the game and halftime.  There's no way that there was a big enough (if any) difference in temperature between the Colts and Pats' sidelines during the game that could cause the temperature issue to be the explanation.  

 

What I want to know is why the game was allowed to continue after halftime.  The footballs were checked because the league was suspicious due to prior claims of impropriety on the part of the Patriots and then they were caught at halftime.  Roger Goodell, who was in attendance, should have suspended the game right then and there, as there was no way to claim that it hadn't affected the game at that point because it was only a 10-point difference in score at the half.  

[seawolfnyy]

This is a valid argument, absolutely. However, Belichick stated that 1-1.5 lbs of pressure were lost between the controlled environment and the game temperature. Belichick stated that the Pats' balls were inflated to the league minimum of 12.5 lbs, but were found to be roughly 11.5 at halftime, whereas the Colts' balls met league requirements. The easiest way to rationalize this is to say that it's possible the Colts' balls lost air, but that they were inflated to 13.5 lbs, the league maximum. In this case, if they were to lose 1 lb, like the Patriots' balls, they would still come out at 12.5 lbs and meet the league's requirements. The truth is that we're probably never going to know for sure whether the Pats cheated or not. As I've said before, unless a member of the Patriots' staff was caught on camera either doing this/and or authorizing this, there is really nothing the league can do. If the Patriots did cheat, then they exploited a flaw in the league's rules that the league really can't do anything about. If they didn't, then they were the victims of unfortunate circumstance. Either way, I don't think we'll ever really know.

[tdalton]

The problem with Belichick's argument is that 11 of the Patriots' 12 footballs lost 2psi, not the 1-1.5psi that he's trying to claim that they lost.  This is a number that has been widely reported, including by The Boston Globe.

 

If the Pats' footballs lost 2psi due to the weather then it would stand to reason that at least some of the Colts' footballs could come in under the legal requirement, which has only a window of 1psi (12.5-13.5 psi).

 

The other problems with Belichick's argument are that he can't really come out and claim to now be an expert on how the footballs are cared for, how the process works, etc. when he claimed to be absolutely clueless about it just a day before.  He didn't know how the process worked, so he can't now come out and say that they followed the rules because, quite frankly, he doesn't know, and has already claimed as such.  Somewhere in this process, someone is being less than truthful, and that's where the organization loses any benefit of the doubt.  If he knew everything was on the up and up, he would have said so on Thursday when he had his first press conference, rather than going on and on about how he didn't know anything.  We're supposed to expect that now, 48 hours later, he now knows everything about what happened and can definitively state that they followed all of the rules when he previously had no idea about any of it.  

 

There's no consistency to anything the Patriots have to say and it's clear that somebody knew something.  If this was a singular incident, then the league wouldn't have already been on the lookout for this when the game started, but it seems to have happened before this season, in the team's previous game against the Colts, which was played indoors where the weather was not a factor in any loss of psi.

 

Then there's the fact that Belichick himself does not get the benefit of the doubt.  It's already been proven once that he's a cheater, so he no longer gets the benefit of the doubt.  He also does not get to hide behind an argument of ignorance of the rules in terms of how the footballs are checked by the league, what the requirements are, etc. like he did on Thursday.  The precedent is already set that "ignorance is no excuse", which is why Sean Payton was suspended by the league for an entire season.

Edited by tdalton, 25 January 2015 - 06:16 AM.

[Professor Pi]

It's pretty clear, especially if you've seen the stat article "Ballghazi" that tdalton referenced, that the Patriots have done something that affects their footballs.  We all know Belichick exploits every competitive advantage he can find, and more than once it's been in disrespect, if not defiance, of the rules.  His press conference yesterday was characterized as scientific nonsense by Bill Nye.  The irony is, and I'll give this to any Pats fan, they would have won anyway.

 

Goodell should show some (insert obvious pun here) and apply an NCAA type punishment--no playoffs or post season next year regardless of record.  Unlike Bountygate, no players were hurt or intended to be, and this isn't an issue of PED's or substance abuse.  So the punishment should be different, but still a deterrent.  It's clear that fines won't work.  Suspensions are in order.

 

The Patriots have launched themselves forever into the baseball steroid-Barry Bonds-Lance Armstrong-USC football pantheon of asterisk'd achievements.

Edited by Professor Pi, 25 January 2015 - 05:49 PM.

[The Dove]

Have to admit that Deflate-Gate has really taken the air out of my excitement for Super Bowl XLIX...Yes, the pun is intended! Lol...