DanMcQ
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Post by DanMcQ on May 9, 2015 8:52:11 GMT -5
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??? Ben Roethlisberger
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DanMcQ
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Post by DanMcQ on May 9, 2015 8:59:39 GMT -5
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AvantGuardHoya
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"It was when I found out I could make mistakes that I knew I was on to something."
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Post by AvantGuardHoya on May 11, 2015 7:02:51 GMT -5
One man's perspective: "Teams throughout the NFL doctor their game balls–and make no secret of it. When Deflategate I exploded before the Super Bowl, a New York Times story noted the months of preparation that Giants equipment people put into preparing Eli Manning’s game balls.... Drastic penalties should be saved for drastic crimes not routine events on an annual basis. Pete Rose’s lifetime suspension for betting on baseball was one thing." www.forbes.com/sites/markheisler/2015/05/10/real-lesson-of-tom-brady-scandal-goodells-nfl-is-looney-tunes/
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hoyainspirit
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When life puts that voodoo on me, music is my gris-gris.
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Post by hoyainspirit on May 11, 2015 8:17:53 GMT -5
One man's perspective: "Teams throughout the NFL doctor their game balls–and make no secret of it. When Deflategate I exploded before the Super Bowl, a New York Times story noted the months of preparation that Giants equipment people put into preparing Eli Manning’s game balls.... Drastic penalties should be saved for drastic crimes not routine events on an annual basis. Pete Rose’s lifetime suspension for betting on baseball was one thing." www.forbes.com/sites/markheisler/2015/05/10/real-lesson-of-tom-brady-scandal-goodells-nfl-is-looney-tunes/Damn Patriots apologist...
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SSHoya
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Post by SSHoya on May 11, 2015 19:49:05 GMT -5
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Post by HometownHoya on May 11, 2015 21:08:57 GMT -5
Sorry if this has been mentioned but isn't there already a fine and a rule in place for equipment tampering? Such as deflating balls?
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SSHoya
Blue & Gray (over 10,000 posts)
"Forget it Jake, it's Chinatown."
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Post by SSHoya on May 12, 2015 6:36:51 GMT -5
Sorry if this has been mentioned but isn't there already a fine and a rule in place for equipment tampering? Such as deflating balls? Here you go - the fine is not limited to $25,000: NFL rules stipulate that footballs must be inflated between 12.5 and 13.5 pounds per square inch and weigh between 14 and 15 ounces. Former NFL official Jim Daopoulos, in an interview with ESPN on Monday morning, explained the process in which footballs are managed. Two hours and 15 minutes before each game, officials inspect 12 footballs from each team and put a mark on them to indicate they meet the proper requirements and are good for usage. Then those footballs are given to the ball attendant. There also is a second set of six footballs, used specifically for the kicking game, that are marked appropriately and remain in the possession of officials at all times… The NFL's game operations manual states: "Once the balls have left the locker room, no one, including players, equipment managers, ball boys, and coaches, is allowed to alter the footballs in any way. If any individual alters the footballs, or if a non-approved ball is used in the game, the person responsible and, if appropriate, the head coach or other club personnel will be subject to discipline, including but not limited to, a fine of $25,000." www.slate.com/blogs/the_spot/2015/01/19/nfl_investigates_patriots_for_deflated_game_balls_versus_colts.html
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hoyainspirit
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Post by hoyainspirit on May 12, 2015 8:09:32 GMT -5
Sorry if this has been mentioned but isn't there already a fine and a rule in place for equipment tampering? Such as deflating balls? Here you go - the fine is not limited to $25,000: NFL rules stipulate that footballs must be inflated between 12.5 and 13.5 pounds per square inch and weigh between 14 and 15 ounces. Former NFL official Jim Daopoulos, in an interview with ESPN on Monday morning, explained the process in which footballs are managed. Two hours and 15 minutes before each game, officials inspect 12 footballs from each team and put a mark on them to indicate they meet the proper requirements and are good for usage. Then those footballs are given to the ball attendant. There also is a second set of six footballs, used specifically for the kicking game, that are marked appropriately and remain in the possession of officials at all times… The NFL's game operations manual states: "Once the balls have left the locker room, no one, including players, equipment managers, ball boys, and coaches, is allowed to alter the footballs in any way. If any individual alters the footballs, or if a non-approved ball is used in the game, the person responsible and, if appropriate, the head coach or other club personnel will be subject to discipline, including but not limited to, a fine of $25,000." www.slate.com/blogs/the_spot/2015/01/19/nfl_investigates_patriots_for_deflated_game_balls_versus_colts.htmlI read that as discipline can include a $25000 fine, but may also include other disciplinary measures. The Cheatahs were fined for more than just tampering with the balls...
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Post by professorhoya on May 12, 2015 11:49:22 GMT -5
It's a fair trade for them. Win a super bowl and get a slap on the wrist 4 games suspension (that will likely be reduced to 2 on appeal). That's a trade you make every time.
A real suspension would be a death penalty like suspending Brady/Belicheck/Patriots for a year, ban them from the post season, or take away #1 draft picks. These guys are repeat offenders and are getting off easy.
The only reason they are even in the super bowl is because Belicheck and McDaniels manipulated the rules with the ineligible receiver trick against the Ravens.
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Post by aleutianhoya on May 12, 2015 12:15:04 GMT -5
It's a fair trade for them. Win a super bowl and get a slap on the wrist 4 games suspension (that will likely be reduced to 2 on appeal). That's a trade you make every time. A real suspension would be a death penalty like suspending Brady/Belicheck/Patriots for a year, ban them from the post season, or take away #1 draft picks. These guys are repeat offenders and are getting off easy. The only reason they are even in the super bowl is because Belicheck and McDaniels manipulated the rules with the ineligible receiver trick against the Ravens. Well, they did take away a first round draft pick. Aside from that, I just really hate the "repeat offender" narrative that is thrown around by everyone (not picking on professor) without any critical thinking. Yes, they were caught in "Spygate." And punished. Severely. But if one of their players were caught using PEDs (as, I think, one actually was last year!), no one would say "punish the team because this is an example of cheating and they're a repeat offender." No, you'd punish the player, suspend him, etc. This is virtually no different. Even if you credit the Wells Report 100% and believe everything it says, at most, the only responsible parties are one player, and two very low level part-time employees. Not a single person in any managerial capacity (heck, not even the "equipment manager") is implicated. Indeed, all of them were specifically vindicated. So, even on the scandal's worst day, it has nothing at all to do with organizational hubris or a "culture of cheating" or anything like that. It's just an easy -- and false -- narrative. And it's frankly embarrassing that the NFL bought into it. To be clear: I don't have any real issue with penalizing Brady (though I thought the penalty was steep for him -- other teams and players have been caught making minor adjustments to balls and got slapped on the wrist -- and he's certainly not a repeat offender). But penalizing the team for this activity is intellectually and logically lazy. Sure, OK, punish them a bit for the minor issues of witness availability (the Pats made an employee available four times, apparently, instead of the five the NFL wanted), but that would be like a 25K fine and a sixth rounder or something. And I know I'm in the minority in society on this one, but I always hate the "the guys at the top should have known, so that's why they're punished even if they didn't know" routine. It doesn't make any sense when a US President gets blamed because someone 20 layers below him in a huge bureaucracy makes a stupid decision. It doesn't really make sense when the NCAA punishes a school (or a coach) because of something some alumni gave to a player that the coach or school didn't know anything about. It didn't make sense when the Saints got punished because of what lower level folks did. And this makes even less sense than the Saints' punishment. Finally and more broadly, it's amazing to me that this commissioner still has a job. Virtually every major judgment call he's had to make he's gotten wrong. That's pretty hard to do! It's one thing to make a point of taking public opinion into account in terms of your policies -- the public (and presumably the league's sponsors) spoke on domestic violence and he had virtually no choice but to listen. But to permit public opinion to influence you here -- when most of the public (and the rest of the league) is simply sick of one team beating the pants off them for twenty years -- is gross incompetence.
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Post by professorhoya on May 12, 2015 12:26:51 GMT -5
It's a fair trade for them. Win a super bowl and get a slap on the wrist 4 games suspension (that will likely be reduced to 2 on appeal). That's a trade you make every time. A real suspension would be a death penalty like suspending Brady/Belicheck/Patriots for a year, ban them from the post season, or take away #1 draft picks. These guys are repeat offenders and are getting off easy. The only reason they are even in the super bowl is because Belicheck and McDaniels manipulated the rules with the ineligible receiver trick against the Ravens. Well, they did take away a first round draft pick.Aside from that, I just really hate the "repeat offender" narrative that is thrown around by everyone (not picking on professor) without any critical thinking. Yes, they were caught in "Spygate." And punished. Severely. But if one of their players were caught using PEDs (as, I think, one actually was last year!), no one would say "punish the team because this is an example of cheating and they're a repeat offender." No, you'd punish the player, suspend him, etc. This is virtually no different. Even if you credit the Wells Report 100% and believe everything it says, at most, the only responsible parties are one player, and two very low level part-time employees. Not a single person in any managerial capacity (heck, not even the "equipment manager") is implicated. Indeed, all of them were specifically vindicated. So, even on the scandal's worst day, it has nothing at all to do with organizational hubris or a "culture of cheating" or anything like that. It's just an easy -- and false -- narrative. And it's frankly embarrassing that the NFL bought into it. To be clear: I don't have any real issue with penalizing Brady (though I thought the penalty was steep for him). But penalizing the team for this activity is intellectually and logically lazy. Sure, OK, punish them a bit for the minor issues of witness availability (the Pats made an employee available four times, apparently, instead of the five the NFL wanted), but that would be like a 25K fine and a sixth rounder or something. And I know I'm in the minority in society on this one, but I always hate the "the guys at the top should have known, so that's why they're punished even if they didn't know" routine. It doesn't make any sense when a US President gets blamed because someone 20 layers below him in a huge bureaucracy makes a stupid decision. It doesn't really make sense when the NCAA punishes a school (or a coach) because of something some alumni gave to a player that the coach or school didn't know anything about. It didn't make sense when the Saints got punished because of what lower level folks did. And this makes even less sense than the Saints' punishment. Finally and more broadly, it's amazing to me that this commissioner still has a job. Virtually every major judgment call he's had to make he's gotten wrong. That's pretty hard to do! It's one thing to make a point of taking public opinion into account in terms of your policies -- the public (and presumably the league's sponsors) spoke on domestic violence and he had virtually no choice but to listen. But to permit public opinion to influence you here -- when most of the public (and the rest of the league) is simply sick of one team beating the pants off them for twenty years -- is gross incompetence. I was not aware that they are taking a 1st round draft pick away from the Patriots for deflategate.
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hoya95
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Post by hoya95 on May 12, 2015 16:34:31 GMT -5
I assume they lost the draft picks for not cooperating. And refusing to allow a follow up interview with one of the main witnesses after some bad evidence is discovered is not cooperating. I know they won't listen, but the Patriots need to pay the fine and move on:
“The Patriots provided me, in my opinion, with substantial cooperation except in one critical and crucial area: I wanted to do a second interview with Jim McNally. Jim McNally was the second Patriots person I interviewed. I wanted, after I interviewed others including Tom Brady, to do a second interview of McNally, to put other questions to him,” Wells said. Wells said he was struck by a text message in which McNally called himself “The Deflator” and wanted to ask him about that. But the Patriots refused to put him in touch with McNally for a follow-up. “I asked for a second interview, I said I would go to New Hampshire, I would interview him in the morning, afternoon night, I would do it whenever he was free. And they said not only could I not interview him, they wouldn’t even tell him of my request for an interview,” Wells said. Wells said that contrary to reports that McNally talked to him four times and only refused for a fifth interview, Wells actually only wanted to talk to McNally twice. “NFL security people talked to McNally on three occasions,” Wells said. “They talked to him on the night of the game for approximately 40 minutes, they talked to him the next morning by telephone for about 20 minutes, they talked to him in person I believe the next day for about 30 minutes. Those are three interviews. The Patriots urged me when I got to the case to start fresh, not to pay any attention to what NFL security had done. In fact they thought the people at NFL Security were biased. They applauded when I said I wanted to start fresh. And for them to later say I couldn’t have a second interview with the most important person in the case was a lack of cooperation.”
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TC
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Post by TC on May 12, 2015 20:52:31 GMT -5
They're losing the picks because Goodell knows none of the punishment is going to stick to Brady whatsoever. He's punishing the team - even though he's doing it essentially as double jeopardy for spygate - because it's the only entity he can punish and have the punishment stick.
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njhoya78
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Post by njhoya78 on May 13, 2015 11:26:51 GMT -5
The Brady suspension will be cut down to two games on appeal. Four games is excessive.
Not quite sure why the Pats also lost a 2017 fourth round draft choice. Perhaps Goodell figures that the team will also appeal, and that the fourth rounder will be given back through the appeal.
Had the Patriots and Brady cooperated and not gone on attack-mode, I doubt they would have been hit with much more than a slap-on-the-wrist fine. The team went out of their way to embarrass the league, and the commissioner, with their hubristic response to the initial accusations.
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TC
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Post by TC on May 13, 2015 13:08:06 GMT -5
Had the Patriots and Brady cooperated and not gone on attack-mode, I doubt they would have been hit with much more than a slap-on-the-wrist fine. The team went out of their way to embarrass the league, and the commissioner, with their hubristic response to the initial accusations. I think you're completely wrong. I think if the Patriots came forward and said "oh yeah, we've been leaking air out of balls for months after the refs checked them" they would have gotten something similar and maybe something even worse. I also don't think you can ground a "if they Patriots had done X argument" whatsoever because the NFL's punishment scheme is completely arbitrary and based around public outcry rather than what's specified in the rules, past history, or the scale of the actual infraction.
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DanMcQ
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Post by DanMcQ on May 14, 2015 9:13:32 GMT -5
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hoyainspirit
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Post by hoyainspirit on May 14, 2015 10:10:45 GMT -5
I think you're completely wrong. I think if the Patriots came forward and said "oh yeah, we've been leaking air out of balls for months after the refs checked them" they would have gotten something similar and maybe something even worse. I also don't think you can ground a "if they Patriots had done X argument" whatsoever because the NFL's punishment scheme is completely arbitrary and based around public outcry rather than what's specified in the rules, past history, or the scale of the actual infraction. = Cheatahs!
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TC
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Post by TC on May 14, 2015 11:22:35 GMT -5
Someone please explain how the Patriots think this is helping : wellsreportcontext.com/It has all caps sentences! They make the argument that McNally is the "deflator" because he's trying to lose weight. McNally says some pretty creepy things about Mrs. Jastremski! Whole thing reads like it was written by someone who'd argue that Obama was born in Kenya or that black helicopters are invading Texas.
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njhoya78
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Post by njhoya78 on May 14, 2015 11:34:01 GMT -5
Re Deflategate. . .
I am at the point that I would rather read fifteen more thread pages on whether Bradley Hayes should have started ahead of Joshua Smith this past season.
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TC
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Post by TC on May 14, 2015 11:58:25 GMT -5
You're in for at least four more months of this, so buckle up.
That Nobel Prize winner who contributed to the Patriots' website has to be regretting it given how everything in it is going to be laughed off after the "deflator" excuse.
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