TC
Platinum Hoya (over 5000 posts)
Posts: 9,442
|
Post by TC on May 7, 2015 10:49:32 GMT -5
Again, I think they did it.
Can you explain to me why anyone would perform a regression analysis on ball pressure when the initial PSI were never logged anywhere, and the best data you have is the recollection of an official who didn't even properly mark the balls he tested?
|
|
|
Post by FrazierFanatic on May 7, 2015 11:54:30 GMT -5
We all know Tommy did it. Refusing to cooperate with the investigation - not a criminal investigation. Multiple text messages between you and equipment guys you claim not to even know. Footballs disappearing minutes before game time. Not "beyond a reasonable doubt" - but of course that is not the standard.
More interesting will be the penalties. Given what the NFL does for off-field transgressions, this violation of competition rules will require some suspension; otherwise Goodell's integrity around the League will be shot. And even without any evidence of direct involvement by Bill B. or the organization, I expect a fine or maybe loss of a pick; Sean Payton wss suspended for an entire season without any evidence of direct knowledge. But Kraft is one of the 3 owners who decides Roger's extra compensation, etc. Roger may have to earn those big bucks here.
|
|
SirSaxa
Blue & Gray (over 10,000 posts)
Posts: 15,620
|
Post by SirSaxa on May 7, 2015 12:42:58 GMT -5
If the ball pressure is so inconsequential, why do they have a rule about it? Patriots continue their long history of cheating, going back at least to when they signed Bill B away from the JETS without permission, interfering with a contract, etc. Cost them draft picks and $$. Then that whole thing about stealing signs... fines of $500K and $750K for Bill and Pats, plus loss of another draft pick. Now this. And, of course, who knows how many infractions yet to be caught? They cheat. They win, but they cheat.
|
|
DanMcQ
Moderator
Posts: 30,494
Member is Online
|
Post by DanMcQ on May 7, 2015 20:07:47 GMT -5
You would think fans of the Pats and Aaron Hernandez would be familiar with burdens of proof and the power of circumstantial evidence. I am no fan of Hernandez and my friend is his defense lawyer.
|
|
DanMcQ
Moderator
Posts: 30,494
Member is Online
|
Post by DanMcQ on May 7, 2015 20:21:39 GMT -5
The Yankees have won a ton of games between 2004 and now with one of the greatest baseball cheats of all time playing a major role. The sliding scale depends on your vantage point I guess. Meanwhile, this is making for some absolutely tremendous radio: awfulannouncing.com/the-locker/audio-chris-russo-goes-bonkers-on-tom-bradys-dad.htmlHere's an ethical analysis for you, SirSaxa: www.bdcwire.com/is-tom-brady-a-cheater-klosterman/?p1=feature_pri_hpIt will be extremely interesting to see what Commissioner Finger-in-the-Wind decides to do with this. Will he mete out "justice" based on no direct evidence implicating Brady? Will that justice exceed what he gave to a player who beat his (now) wife unconscious with surveillance video showing it then claim he didn't know anything about a video his office already had? Will it exceed what was given to another star quarterback who (allegedly of course because surprise, the victim didn't press charges) raped a drunk woman in a bar bathroom while one of his buddies stood guard at the door?
|
|
kchoya
Platinum Hoya (over 5000 posts)
Enter your message here...
Posts: 9,934
|
Post by kchoya on May 7, 2015 20:59:12 GMT -5
You would think fans of the Pats and Aaron Hernandez would be familiar with burdens of proof and the power of circumstantial evidence. I am no fan of Hernandez and my friend is his defense lawyer. Well, you should talk to you him about circumstantial evidence and "hard evidence to back the conclusion up" as you put it.
|
|
DanMcQ
Moderator
Posts: 30,494
Member is Online
|
Post by DanMcQ on May 7, 2015 21:06:09 GMT -5
|
|
SirSaxa
Blue & Gray (over 10,000 posts)
Posts: 15,620
|
Post by SirSaxa on May 7, 2015 21:19:17 GMT -5
The Yankees have won a ton of games between 2004 and now with one of the greatest baseball cheats of all time playing a major role. The sliding scale depends on your vantage point I guess. Odd example to give. Why not cite the team much closer at hand, the Red Sox with Manny and Big Papi? We can only surmise what the teams may have known about their players using PEDs. But the Pats ownership, organization, management and coaches personally participated in the examples I cited. That is the relevant vantage point - a team with a long history of cheating.
|
|
hoopsmccan
Golden Hoya (over 1000 posts)
Posts: 1,419
|
Post by hoopsmccan on May 7, 2015 21:24:14 GMT -5
The Yankees have won a ton of games between 2004 and now with one of the greatest baseball cheats of all time playing a major role. The sliding scale depends on your vantage point I guess. Meanwhile, this is making for some absolutely tremendous radio: awfulannouncing.com/the-locker/audio-chris-russo-goes-bonkers-on-tom-bradys-dad.htmlHere's an ethical analysis for you, SirSaxa: www.bdcwire.com/is-tom-brady-a-cheater-klosterman/?p1=feature_pri_hpIt will be extremely interesting to see what Commissioner Finger-in-the-Wind decides to do with this. Will he mete out "justice" based on no direct evidence implicating Brady? Will that justice exceed what he gave to a player who beat his (now) wife unconscious with surveillance video showing it then claim he didn't know anything about a video his office already had? Will it exceed what was given to another star quarterback who (allegedly of course because surprise, the victim didn't press charges) raped a drunk woman in a bar bathroom while one of his buddies stood guard at the door? I would put more weight in an ethics lesson from Richard M. Coleman than Klosterman. And ARod was suspended, are suggesting the same for Brady? hm
|
|
DanMcQ
Moderator
Posts: 30,494
Member is Online
|
Post by DanMcQ on May 7, 2015 21:29:17 GMT -5
The Yankees have won a ton of games between 2004 and now with one of the greatest baseball cheats of all time playing a major role. The sliding scale depends on your vantage point I guess. Odd example to give. Why not cite the team much closer at hand, the Red Sox with Manny and Big Papi? We can only surmise what the teams may have known about their players using PEDs. But the Pats ownership, organization, management and coaches personally participated in the examples I cited. That is the relevant vantage point - a team with a long history of cheating. Blah blah blah. Show me one Patriots championship that has been accomplished by any of what you bleat about. Pats envy is hilarious. By the way, the Jets were fined for tampering with Revis this year which, if you read the rules to the letter of the law, their owner did. Personally, I think that fine was silly. The greatest receiver of all time admitted to cheating himself. www.cbssports.com/nfl/eye-on-football/25061154/jerry-rice-admitted-to-cheating-just-days-before-calling-pats-cheaters Should we strip him of his championships and suspend him too? I think not.
|
|
DanMcQ
Moderator
Posts: 30,494
Member is Online
|
Post by DanMcQ on May 7, 2015 21:34:46 GMT -5
The Yankees have won a ton of games between 2004 and now with one of the greatest baseball cheats of all time playing a major role. The sliding scale depends on your vantage point I guess. Meanwhile, this is making for some absolutely tremendous radio: awfulannouncing.com/the-locker/audio-chris-russo-goes-bonkers-on-tom-bradys-dad.htmlHere's an ethical analysis for you, SirSaxa: www.bdcwire.com/is-tom-brady-a-cheater-klosterman/?p1=feature_pri_hpIt will be extremely interesting to see what Commissioner Finger-in-the-Wind decides to do with this. Will he mete out "justice" based on no direct evidence implicating Brady? Will that justice exceed what he gave to a player who beat his (now) wife unconscious with surveillance video showing it then claim he didn't know anything about a video his office already had? Will it exceed what was given to another star quarterback who (allegedly of course because surprise, the victim didn't press charges) raped a drunk woman in a bar bathroom while one of his buddies stood guard at the door? I would put more weight in an ethics lesson from Richard M. Coleman than Klosterman. And ARod was suspended, are suggesting the same for Brady? hm Well played - wonder how many know who RMC is... I haven't heard Brady say anything more than he asked for the balls to be at 12.5 PSI. You can't find anything more than that in the Wells Report. I suspect we'll hear more from Brady at some point. Not up to me to pass judgment other than to say I think there are so many holes in this report it's hard to believe any 'justice' meted out will be based on much more than a response to perceived public opinion as sensed by the league office. Whatever happened it not anywhere near running a bounty program to injure opposing players, for instance, and it's nowhere near the level of the mishandled domestic violence cases bungled by the league this year.
|
|
SirSaxa
Blue & Gray (over 10,000 posts)
Posts: 15,620
|
Post by SirSaxa on May 7, 2015 21:35:09 GMT -5
Hmmm.... let's see. Oh right. That would be all the ones credited to HC Bill Belichick.
|
|
DanMcQ
Moderator
Posts: 30,494
Member is Online
|
Post by DanMcQ on May 7, 2015 21:36:34 GMT -5
Show me one Patriots championship that has been accomplished by any of what you bleat about. Hmmm.... let's see. Oh right. That would be all the ones credited to HC Bill Belichick. Your precious Wells Report exonerated Mr. Belichick. Nice try. Next.
|
|
DanMcQ
Moderator
Posts: 30,494
Member is Online
|
Post by DanMcQ on May 7, 2015 21:45:25 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by aleutianhoya on May 8, 2015 7:55:11 GMT -5
Disclosure: I'm not a Patriots fan.
Let's start with this: There is no evidence that any team management or high-level personnel knew anything at all about this issue. Indeed, the report reaches precisely the opposite conclusion. So, the only people potentially implicated are Brady and two low-level guys. For what it's worth, to me, this conclusion doesn't strain credulity in the least. But even if you think it does, that's what the evidence shows.
Given that, this ought to be (at most) treated just like a batter corking his bat or a pitcher applying a foreign substance, or a football lineman greasing his uniform, or a receiver applying stick-em to his gloves. It's a player breaking the rules. If caught, that player is punished. But there's never been any situation in which the team (or coach or management) gets punished in the above-referenced situations. Sure, fire the low-level guys. But to punish the team (or coach) in any way is laughable based on the report's findings.
As to Brady, it certainly appears that he had discussions with the equipment guys about air pressure in footballs. You'd expect a quarterback to have such conversations. It is also possible that he directly instructed these guys to take some air out of balls. But given that the report indicates that some balls he played with were inflated way, way above the legal limit (naturally ticking him off), it may simply be that he instructed these guys to "make sure that doesn't happen again" or to keep the balls as low as possible. We don't know, but my strong assumption is that he didn't sit down with a white board and tell these guys exactly what to do or how to do it. The questions are simply: did he tell them to take air out of the ball if necessary (probably yes), and did he tell them to lower the balls below the legal limit (it's impossible to know). Answering the first question makes him a rule breaker, it's true, but if the answer to the second question isn't also yes, it's a violation without much meat. Heck, I'd argue that a basketball player flopping to draw a foul impacts the integrity of the game more than that. Is it worse than a quarterback telling his team in the huddle "we need a first down here -- linemen don't be afraid to subtly hold -- and receivers, don't be afraid to push off?"
And that brings us to any "taint" or "legacy" problems. The Pats were caught "cheating" once -- more than a decade ago. And any closer look at "spygate" reveals that the facts are far less egregious than the common perception (they taped signals that were being given at a PRACTICE OPEN TO THE PUBLIC). They didn't sneak in to someone's facility. They simply taped what they otherwise were allowed to observe and were free to take notes on (and which literally every team does observe). But even if you wrongly think that's a big deal -- that's it! That's the only issue the team has had. This "culture of cheating" thing is just plain wrong. It's the worse kind of sensationalized laziness perpetuated by sports radio. This present issue didn't involve the coach or the team at all -- it involved one player.
The bottom line is that this is the most successful franchise in American professional sports over the past twenty years, participating in America's most popular sport. They come under much more scrutiny because of that than does any other team. The most popular player on the most successful team in the most popular sport got caught breaking a minor rule -- many players in the Halls of Fame of various sports got caught doing far worse (and were actually celebrated -- see Gaylord Perry -- for it), many more no doubt cheated and never got caught, and countless lesser profile players do things like this or far worse and no one cares. Does that excuse it? No, it doesn't. But context is important nevertheless, when judging it.
It reads here: No big deal. A guy tried to find a bit of an edge and maybe (maybe) went slightly over the line trying to find it.
|
|
njhoya78
Platinum Hoya (over 5000 posts)
Posts: 7,769
|
Post by njhoya78 on May 8, 2015 10:49:02 GMT -5
|
|
SirSaxa
Blue & Gray (over 10,000 posts)
Posts: 15,620
|
Post by SirSaxa on May 8, 2015 11:21:03 GMT -5
Hmmm.... let's see. Oh right. That would be all the ones credited to HC Bill Belichick. Your precious Wells Report exonerated Mr. Belichick. Nice try. Next. I guess if you completely ignore what I wrote, you can come to any conclusion you like and add some snark for good measure. Well done Mr. Moderator. You posted: Show me one Patriots championship that has been accomplished by any of what you bleat about. What I wrote was the Patriots are habitual cheaters who believe they are above the rules the rest of the league must follow. There are years of examples. One example was "Spygate" and it cost them $750K and a first round pick. The league did not think that was an insignificant infraction and the Patriots did not dispute the facts nor the penalties The cheating episode I had cited that clearly and precisely answers your question was the signing of Bill Belichick as Head Coach of the Patriots while he was under contract to the NY Jets as their HC. The Pats did not have permission even to talk to Bill, but that never stops Kraft. Contracts? Rules? Laws? No problem. He and the Pats just ignore them. The NFL sent the Pats first round draft pick to the Jets as compensation, but Bill B never should have been the Pats coach in the first place. If they hadn't cheated, none of the Pat's Belichick Superbowls would have occurred. Seems pretty clear to me that was the accurate response to your demand to "show me", not your drivel about "precious" and "exoneration". Finally, citing the Jets getting fined $100K for "tampering" re: Revis as some kind of moral equivalence? Jets owner Woody Johnson was asked at a press conference if he would have liked to have had Revis back, he spontaneously responded "yes". Shortly after the press conference was over, he was made aware of the mistake and called Kraft to apologize. Was he wrong? Yes. He realized his mistake and apologized, then was fined anyway. Meanhwhile Kraft is going all Alan Dershowitz about the Wells report when it is perfectly obvious Brady and the attendants intentionally deflated the balls. And Patriot fans just can't bring themselves to acknowledge the truth.
|
|
ksf42001
Silver Hoya (over 500 posts)
Posts: 901
|
Post by ksf42001 on May 8, 2015 12:15:49 GMT -5
My wife is a huge Patriots fan (I'm a cowboys fan, so I can't really hold it against her), and she's more upset that the Pats are cheating in such inconsequential ways. My thought was the the Pats are simply playing the long game and assuming minor advantages will have an effect over time. Remember this is the team that only signs left-footed punters because it might lead to an extra muffed catch once or twice a season. Having a deflated ball for Brady probably has a higher level advantage, but still probably only 1 additional completion a game at most. At the same time though, 1 additional completion a game could lead to an extra win every year or so. Since the penalty for getting caught is only a fine or a lower level draft pick, that seems worth an extra 0.5 wins per year until you get caught.
|
|
hoyainspirit
Platinum Hoya (over 5000 posts)
When life puts that voodoo on me, music is my gris-gris.
Posts: 8,392
|
Post by hoyainspirit on May 8, 2015 14:19:40 GMT -5
The Pats, like most teams, play the gray really hard. Their history and culture, though, is to sometimes step over the line, as evidenced by the fact that they've been caught. Cheatahs!
|
|
hoyarooter
Blue & Gray (over 10,000 posts)
Posts: 10,197
|
Post by hoyarooter on May 8, 2015 20:47:47 GMT -5
I would put more weight in an ethics lesson from Richard M. Coleman than Klosterman. And ARod was suspended, are suggesting the same for Brady? hm Well played - wonder how many know who RMC is... I haven't heard Brady say anything more than he asked for the balls to be at 12.5 PSI. You can't find anything more than that in the Wells Report. I suspect we'll hear more from Brady at some point. Not up to me to pass judgment other than to say I think there are so many holes in this report it's hard to believe any 'justice' meted out will be based on much more than a response to perceived public opinion as sensed by the league office. Whatever happened it not anywhere near running a bounty program to injure opposing players, for instance, and it's nowhere near the level of the mishandled domestic violence cases bungled by the league this year. Well I certainly do - he interviewed me for Georgetown in 1968, and became a life long friend of my family. My parents used to have him over for dinner. He loved my mother's cheese cake (smart man). Dan, who is the quarterback to whom you are referring???
|
|