3181 replies to this topic

[tdalton]

I'm actually on the other end of that.  I wasn't planning on watching the Super Bowl, as I really can't stand either the Seahawks or the Patriots.  But, I think I'll be watching now, hoping that Seattle absolutely dismantles the Patriots.  

[Hockey Mask]

I think we're going to hear some loud boos at team introductions. Can't wait.

[seawolfnyy]

I do have to say, the Bill Nye thing was hilarious and you don´t argue with Bill....Nye. 

[The Dove]

http://espn.go.com/b...e-investigation

 

Hmm.. the Pats locker room attendant is now a person of extreme interest...   Time to go all Lt. Daniel Kaffee on him.. LOL!!

[seawolfnyy]

The False King Belichick sending another lowly man to take the fall, while he once again marches on the iron throne of the NFL?

[tdalton]

And if it turns out that this was the guy who did it, there's virtually no way that it was done without at least some kind of passive involvement from Tom Brady.  The equipment managers are there to serve the players, as we've heard countless NFL players say since this scandal broke, and everything they do is either done at the request of the players directly or is to make the lives of the players easier.  

 

But, let's for the moment give the Pats the benefit of the doubt (not that they deserve it) and say that it was an entirely rogue act by the equipment guy.  That still should result in a 1 season suspension for Bill Belichick.  Sean Payton was suspended for a season due to the fact that "ignorance is no excuse" and that he should have known what was happening within his organization.  That's the precedent that Goodell has set and it must also be applied here.  If it's not, then the rumblings from other owners who are tired of Goodell's perceived favoritism towards Robert Kraft and the New England Patriots will ring true and the NFL will have an even bigger integrity problem on their hands.

[seawolfnyy]

Eh, I've pretty accepted at this point that somebody in the Patriots' organization is guilty. Whether that be Belichick, Brady or just the equipment manager I don't really care (not that I ever did, I was just being antagonistic cuz it entertained me). I don't benefit one way or the other if the Pats win or lose. I have far more important things to worry about than a few underinflated footballs.

[Eric Stromberg]

I dunno, Dove.  I think what really took the air out the Super Bowl for me was that pathetic loss to the Colts.  I believe the Doncos sent 11 players to the Pro Bowl this year, yet we couldn't win one playoff game at home.  This is a team with serious performance issues that has consistently failed to play with heart when it was clearly the time to do so.  Our window with Manning is closing, if not closed, and I am beginning to wonder if he will ever be as much a Bronco as he was a Colt.  I was really looking forward to seeing that happen at some point.

 

But, all is not doom and gloom.  To be honest I am excited as the big game approaches.  These are two incredible football teams, so perhaps we will get the level of competition I hoped for in the last Super Bowl.  GO SEACHICKENS

[Hockey Mask]

This super bowl's rating are going to be outrageous.

[The Dove]

http://sports.yahoo....-153219622.html 

 

TWICE now this has happened this year! LMAO!! I swear this happens to one of the teams at every Super Bowl or Championship game. I remember hearing stories of how Cleveland fans found where my Broncos were staying the night before the 1987 AFC Championship game ("The Drive" game), and were honking their horns and squeeling tires all night to try and keep the Broncos players from getting any sleep....Obviously it didn't work!!

 

Right ladies and gentlemen.. after much thought and taking into account how rediculous this week has been with never-ending stories of Deflate-gate and Marshawn-fine-gate, I have my predicted score for Super Bowl XLIX... *drum roll please...*

 

Seattle Seahawks: 24  New England Patriots: 28

[Call Billy Bob]

My pick:

 

Seattle - 27, New England - 20

[seawolfnyy]

My pick: Patriots 24 Seahawks 21

[Hockey Mask]

Seahawks 35
Patriots 17

Patriot fumbles will cost them the game since they are playing with regulation footballs for the first time all year.

[Red Barchetta]

The Pats can deflate their balls, but they won't win.
Seattle wins by 3.

[tdalton]

Seattle 28, New England 20

 

Either way, I'm not going to be too upset.  Either the Seahawks win, and the Pats lose, or the Patriots win, but it's another tainted championship.

 

 

Also, a couple of really good editorials about the hypocrisy and incompetence of the NFL and/or Roger Goodell:

 

Darnell Dockett: The NFL's dirty laundry

 

Roger Goodell, start respecting women

 

Roger Goodell held to a lower standard

 

If anyone saw Goodell's "State of the NFL" address the other day, it's just more evidence of why this arrogant blowhard needs to be fired.  His absolute disrespect of CNN's Rachel Nichols (one of the finest sports reporters out there) just showed what an arrogant and classless piece of work this "man" is.  Once again, the call must be made to the NFL owners.  There is only one way that they can save the integrity of the NFL.  They MUST FIRE ROGER GOODELL.

[seawolfnyy]

Seattle 28, New England 20

 

Either way, I'm not going to be too upset.  Either the Seahawks win, and the Pats lose, or the Patriots win, but it's another tainted championship.

 

 

Also, a couple of really good editorials about the hypocrisy and incompetence of the NFL and/or Roger Goodell:

 

Darnell Dockett: The NFL's dirty laundry

 

Roger Goodell, start respecting women

 

Roger Goodell held to a lower standard

 

If anyone saw Goodell's "State of the NFL" address the other day, it's just more evidence of why this arrogant blowhard needs to be fired.  His absolute disrespect of CNN's Rachel Nichols (one of the finest sports reporters out there) just showed what an arrogant and classless piece of work this "man" is.  Once again, the call must be made to the NFL owners.  There is only one way that they can save the integrity of the NFL.  They MUST FIRE ROGER GOODELL.

I agree 100% that Goodell needs to be fired. He's destroyed what the NFL was and made it nothing more than a laughing stock. Defense is a thing of the past, just look at the 2011 season. The Ray Rice fiasco is a travesty that Enron would be embarrassed about. PEDs in the NFL? Does anyone even care? Concussions? Please, the NFL only cares about making money. It's never been about player safety.

 

Having said that, I'm going to once again comment on Deflate-gate.

1: Can we please, for the sake of everything, stop adding 'Gate' to the end of every wannabe scandal?! I'm sure 90% of the population watching the NFL (or anything that gets 'Gate' attached to it, do not even know why. Spygate, Deflategate, Bountygate....none of them even come close to what Richard Nixon's campaign did in 1972. So just stop, for ***k's sake.

2: If it was any team other than the Patriots, would this underinflation controversy amounted to anything?....NO. Because of the thing in 2007 (I refuse to use anything that mentions the word 'Gate'), anything NE does, comes under much more scrutiny. Does anyone realize that, since Pete Carroll took over as HC of SEA, they have led the league in positive PED testing? Basically, they cheat MORE than the Patriots, but NE is the only team that would have a "tainted" championship? Come on, man.

3: Lastly, it doesn't matter. EVERYONE, I repeat, EVERYONE CHEATS. Don't believe me? Just read this handy guide to EVERY NFL TEAM CHEATING.

http://sports.yahoo....-135901897.html

Why does Aaron Rodgers NOT receive criticism for over-inflating his footballs? Why does Seattle get away with all it's positive PED tests? How about the Colts pumping artificial crowd noise into it's loudspeakers? The Jets DOING THE EXACT SAME ***KING THING THEY CALLED THE PATS OUT FOR DOING ONE YEAR EARLIER!!!!??!?!?! The 49ers and the Cowboys for their salary-cap violations during their Super Bowl years? The Panthers heating balls on the sidelines and for their PED use prior to Super Bowl XXXVIII? And that's just the start. Point is, people need to get over it.

[The Dove]

John Lynch...snubbed..Terrell Davis...snubbed (AGAIN!!).. The HOF 2015 voters make me very sad! Oh well, someday perhaps..

[tdalton]

I agree about the "Gate" issue.  That's a suffix that needs to go.

 

As for the Jets "infraction", they didn't film signals being sent in from the sideline, which is what the Patriots were caught doing.  They had requested to film the game from both endzones, rather than just out of one end zone, and had gotten permission to do so by most of the teams that they played against on the road, including the Patriots during a previous game during Mangini's tenure.  They were "caught" when the Patriots decided to rescind that permission at the next game at Foxboro.

 

As for the Seahawks, yes their players have cheated by using PEDs.  They've also been punished for that, so that's a moot point.  Regarding Rodgers, he's never been caught cheating with regards to air pressure.  He said that he likes the ball over-inflated, but there's no evidence that he's on the sideline with an air pump getting the footballs over 13.5 psi during the games after the referees have already confirmed the footballs to be between 12.5 and 13.5 psi.

[Hockey Mask]

Was it ever proven that the colts pumped in crowd noise. I don't think so.

[tdalton]

Was it ever proven that the colts pumped in crowd noise. I don't think so.

 

No, it's never been proven. 

 

In fact, in one of the cases, when Jonathan Kraft complained to the league about the Colts, the NFL investigated and found the accusation to be false:

 

NFL says Colts did not amplify crowd noise in loss to Patriots

 

 

And the supposed "infraction" by the Jets against the Patriots:

http://sports.espn.g...tory?id=3151217

Jets were filming from both endzones, with permission from the Pats, and the cameraman was then removed after the Patriots changed their minds in the middle of the game.  Jets, under Mangini, granted permission to every team that asked to do the same thing at Giants Stadium for Jets home games, and they were usually granted permission if it was physically possible.

Edited by tdalton, 01 February 2015 - 08:29 AM.

[seawolfnyy]

Yes, it's true that the Seahawks have been punished for their PED use. However, why are they NOT labelled cheaters, while the Patriots are? That's my point. If it were any other team than New England, this controversey wouldn't have amounted to anything. As it is, it's pretty much died off already. As for the Colts, who knows with that? We all know Goodell has a terrible track record of covering up everything, so for all we know the Colts did do it and he covered it up. There were also the rumors that the Colts turned the A/C off in that game too, to tire out the Patriots' players. Again, my point is that EVERYONE CHEATS and a lot of them GET CAUGHT CHEATING. But it's only the Patriots that are labelled cheaters. I guess there needs to be someone to hate.

 

[Hockey Mask]

You can't just shrug off the Colts piped in music claim and still use it as an example. There was nothing to it.

Which kind of validates why the Patriots ARE in the crosshairs. Something happened to the balls. That is a fact. The Patriots have cheated before. That is a fact.

It would be a "shame on us" moment if eyebrows aren't raised when the ball situation was found out.

Edited by 00Hockey Mask, 01 February 2015 - 03:52 PM.

[seawolfnyy]

And what about the Seahawks' PED tests? Doesn't that make them cheaters? Because they're cheating. So why are only the Patriots labelled as such?

[tdalton]

Well, I'd have to disagree.  Honestly, I think that had it been any team OTHER than New England, they probably would have been disqualified from the Super Bowl.  Robert Kraft, according to many within the NFL HQ, is known as the "assistant commissioner".  He wields just about as much power as Goodell does.  I guarantee had the Jets or Raiders done this, they woud have already been punished and removed from the Super Bowl.  Goodell isn't interested in having a fair league that is built on "integrity" (his word of choice on Friday).  He's interested in protecting the small number of owners that he's tight with and the rest of them have seemingly grown tired of his favoritism towards certain clubs. 

 

I think that the Patriots would possibly get more of a benefit of the doubt had Goodell not destroyed the SpyGate tapes back in 2007.  If it really wasn't any big deal what they did, as just about every Pats fans claims, then the tapes would have vindicated them.  But, it's extremely reasonable to conclude that, if Goodell felt compelled to destroy the evidence, that what was on the tapes could have severely compromised the "integrity" of the NFL.  Those tapes should have been made public, just as the names of the cheaters who are caught using PEDs are made public.  However, the specter of Goodell's disturbingly close relationship with Robert Kraft hangs over that whole affair, leading to very reasonable people being able to make the conclusion that there's a MASSIVE conflict of interest on Goodell's part, which makes the destruction of the evidence, rightly or wrongly, look extremely suspicious. 

 

And, before I'm accused again of giving the Seahawks a pass, I have LONG considered them cheaters.  That's why I despise their organization so much.  They have that kind of culture in their organization and I've never been a fan of them.  Can't stand them.  But I also don't think that their cheating is anywhere near as rampant as what has been going on in New England under Belichick.  The deflated footballs which, despite what Pats fans want to say, provide a MAJOR advantage to the quarterbacks (easier to throw), running backs (easier to hold on to), and receivers (easier to catch), have almost certainly not been an event isolated to the 2015 AFC Championship Game, and have most likely been somethig the Patriots have been doing ever since Tom Brady convinced the league to allow QBs to prepare their own game balls each week.  Their fumbling statistics have been leaps and bounds ahead of everybody else's since then, and the two games in which Brady has played since then in which the QB was not allowed to prepare their own footballs, he did not play nearly as well (the two Super Bowls vs. New York).

 

Why are the Pats considered cheaters?  For one, they've been caught twice now having cheated in a way that significantly alters the competitive balance of the game.  They were found to have cheated in the SpyGate incident and it's clear that someone in this instance tampered with the footballs between the time the officials released them to the Patriots and halftime.  They've also been accused of many, many other things that continue to keep the issue hanging over their heads, be it interfering with opposing teams' communications at Gillette Stadium, to taping other teams' walkthroughs prior to the Super Bowl, to swiping playbooks out of opposing locker rooms at Gillette Stadium, to even bugging the opposing locker room at Gillette Stadium.  THAT's why they're considered cheaters by the larger populace as opposed to other teams, because there's always something hanging over them when it comes to their "integrity" (to borrow Goodell's new word of the moment).

Edited by tdalton, 01 February 2015 - 07:42 PM.

[dtuba]

Well, we're 2 hours away from what I hope will be an epic matchup. May the best team win.

 

(Seeeeeaa-hawks!)

[tdalton]

Has Darrell Bevell been fired yet?

 

Seriously, that was the WORST play call in the history of the NFL. 

[seawolfnyy]

One of the greatest Super Bowls ever. However, a very classless ending by Seattle. Go Patriots!

[tdalton]

One of the greatest Super Bowls ever.

 

I don't know about that.  A very good game, absolutely.  But, I think we've had better, more exciting games in the past. 

 

I think what's going to keep Super Bowl XLIX from being one of the all-time great games is the way that stupid playcall at the end mars what had been an exciting 4th quarter.  The other great Super Bowls, even the ones that haven't gone the way I'd like them to go, at least had some kind of a fitting or satisfactory ending.  THAT playcall is, no hyperbole here whatsoever, the worst and dumbest playcall in the long history of the NFL, and it ruins the end of the game a bit.  Even if they had run Lynch 2 or 3 times and not gotten the TD, that would have been a satisfactory and fitting end to the game.

[seawolfnyy]

It's definitely near the top of best ever, but I agree maybe not THE best. That might still be Super Bowl XXXII (as much as it pains me to admit). I do agree that was a horrendous call at the end. There's no guarantee Lynch would have scored, but you had 1 timeout and one of the greatest power backs of all-time. There's no way you don't try at least 1 run....from the 1 yard line. If you are going to lose a game, at least lose it with your best. As it stands, NE nearly had another nightmare ending (the Kearse catch), but survived on the second 1 yard short in Super Bowl history (Super Bowl XXXIV). Again though, the ending was I think more marred by the fights started by the Seahawks players. It once again demonstrates how this is one of (if not the most) classless organizations in the NFL.

[tdalton]

Yeah, XXXIII was pretty darn good.  Probably the best one I've witnessed in my life, especially since I was a big Elway fan at that point, before he and the Broncos tore my heart out the next year by coming back in the second half to keep the Jets from Super Bowl XXXIII.

 

This one was a great game, but I'd put several of the recent Super Bowls ahead of it.  I'd put Super Bowl XLII (the first Giants v Patriots), Super Bowl XLIII (Cards v Steelers), Super Bowl XXXVI (Rams v Patriots), and Super Bowl XVIII (Patriots v Panthers) ahead of it. 

 

I do think that Super Bowl XLIX would be at or near the top had Darell Bevell not made that play call, even if the Seahawks still lost the game.  For me, the stupidity of it is just so over-the-top that it knocks down the quality of the entire game just a little bit.  Like I said, they run the ball three times (or bootleg if they had to throw), and they didn't get it in, then I think the entire game looks a lot different and it's right up there with some of the all-time great Super Bowls.  But to have it come down to one team's coach sabotaging the great play of his team like that, that tarnishes it quite a bit for me. 

 

I'd have felt the same way had the tables been turned and the Seahawks won because of some stupid play call by Belichick at the 1 yard line.