I am a fan of sports teams from New York whose names do not end in “E-T-S.” I have little use for sports franchises from Boston. But I do have a soft spot for the Patriots because their head coach Bill Belichick led the New York Giants’ defense to two Super Bowls during the Lawrence Taylor era. I’m not much of a college football fan, but Michigan is the team I root for and that’s where Tom Brady went to college. Mostly, Belichick and Brady are so astoundingly good at what they do that I admire their skills even if I thoroughly enjoyed watching the Giants beat them in two Super Bowls. In fact, what made those Super Bowls so sweet was that the Giants beat the very best.
And the thing is, these guys do not need to cheat to be the best. They really don’t. It’s so unnecessary. Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, and Larry Bird didn’t cheat and we’d all be really disappointed and basically mystified if they had. They were so good that they gave us everything we could ask for just by being themselves.
It’s really going to put an asterisk on their entire NFL careers that they had to be disciplined, fined, stripped of draft picks, and suspended more than one time. And it’s just a shame.
I have to say, the Giants payed a heavy price for letting Belichick leave instead of giving him the head coaching job after Bill Parcells retired. For the longest time, I complained about their foolishness. But they made the right decision. I hate to say it, but they protected their sterling reputation by letting Belichick get away. And I’m glad now. I was wrong.
Am I the only one who finds that assertion by Yee one of the most laughable defenses imaginable? Yeah, sure, Tom. It’s all about the precedent.
Does anyone think for a minute that if there was anything in those texts that would have helped his defense that we wouldn’t have had the transcripts released immediately? Yeah, Tom….we’re all THAT STUPID.
What we don’t know is how much stuff they’ve done and not got caught. It’s impossible to prove either way, of course, but highly suspicious that after the 2007 videotape incident the league destroyed the evidence. WTF????
New England has had a huge home field advantage, relative to away games in the playoffs. Just huge. But this is during an era when home field advantage has all but disappeared due to the improved officiating due to replay. So why does that persist? Why is really only one team (Baltimore) even able to compete in New England during the playoffs (with a very special exception of the Jets one year)?
I don’t know, but given that these guys clearly push every boundary they can, legal or not, I have to wonder. Add to that the way they get superstar seasons out of mediocre players – who then leave New England to again become mediocre – and there obviously is more to this story. Great coaching? Perhaps.
This has to be the most ridiculous controversy to hit the news since the invention of the 24/7 news cycle.
Remember when you’re putting your asterisks on Brady and Belichicks’ careers that they’re not being punished for cheating, they’re being punished for not cooperating with the NFL’s investigation.
As to the actual effect of the cheating, Peter King (the sportswriter, not the politician) has some numbers that demonstrate what my impression of this has always been: this is much more about simple preference than it is performance.
(sorry, for some reason I couldn’t get the formatting correct for the table)
I love an issue like this because it shows just how biased people are when the issue hits close to home.
Your comment:
Peter King (the sportswriter, not the politician)
Could better be written: “Peter King (the sportswriter who is intensely in love with Boston sports teams and figures of authority)”.
Seriously, quoting Peter King as an independent authority on anything Boston is silly. The glaring problem with this analysis is that it assumes that if the transgression doesn’t measurably impact numbers on the field then it’s okay. The second problem has to do with basic stats – this assumes that the cheating has been going on at all home games since 2006 and not at away games since 2006 – there is zero evidence to support that assumption (teams still have control over their footballs on the road).
It’s all a bunch of bunk. If Brady communicated with the ball guys, the communications would be on their phones as well as his. Since the NFL has their phones, any Brady contacts would be on there. There were none in the report.
They have nothing.
I’ve been a Pats fan for over a decade and I haven’t been this angry in a long time. I’m furious at the fucked up report and the investigation that preceded it.
Brady should never have had any discipline applied and the suspension should be thrown out.
But don’t you think that Brady should have been able to feel the ball and feel that it was not inflated properly? The balls certainly would have felt different. If they did not feel different, what would be the point? So, he had to be able to tell, right? Does he not bear some responsibility?
I admire Brady. But I think that he, as the captain, has some measure of culpability. And the equipment guy did not come up with this scheme.
So he was the only quarterback or person on either team or the refs who felt those balls? Hmm amazing how the NFL runs things. Blame it on the guy who won the game.
Bottom line for me. NO PROOF Brady did a damn thing. But .. there is a but .. if he did, is he the only one culpable?
they’re not just holding him accountable, they’re holding the team too those draft picks are a big deal
We know that Brady communicated with them quite intensively after the deflation was discovered, because of their call records. Before the fact, why would he do this in any way other than in person?
It’s not bunk, not at all, and the entire non-Pats fan world recognizes that it isn’t.
For someone that purports to be an advocate of science and scientific evidence, logic, reason, and equal justice, you seem to have a bit of a blind spot.
FOR EXAMPLE: 4 balls used by the Colts were measured at half time, by two refs using two different gauges. One ref had 4 balls at just about 12.5 PSI, and one ref had 3 of the 4 of the COLTS footballs under 12.5 psi.
Take home message? Air pressure gauges are notoriously inaccurate at the best of times… so which gauge to believe? Clearly the one that showed the Pats to be under the limit and the Colts to be above the limit, right?
And what about actual measurements from before the game? Oh, there are none?
And what about the fact that one of the officials at the game has since been summarily fired for stealing and selling those very same game balls?
And so on.
It’s a travesty in any number of ways:
And I could go on.
As to the question of importance of this tempest in a teapot… well… it’s an exploitative, violent, ultra-nationalistic homage to war played out in a venue controlled by the world’s worst capitalistic leeches… but we as a society have made it important. College programs rely on it for scholarship funds, communities rely on it for employment income and game-day income (hotels), for bond money, for any number of important economic input. Its a multi-billion dollar industry that employs and benefits a huge number of people… so it has become important even when it should not be important. So it goes.
Regardless, it seems to me that no matter who your favorite team might be, that the laws of physics and the rules of logic and reason should be more important… and the laws of physics and the rules of logic indicate that there is no statistical, valid or physical reason to doubt the simplest story: that the footballs were prepped and inflated inside and warm, and they got cold and wet and lost pressure. That it happened to both teams’ footballs. And that it had almost exactly zero impact on the game, and probably has had approximately zero impact on ANY game… a difference of 5% psi is really no difference at all.
You Patriot fans sound like a bunch of birthers analyzing Obama’s birth certificate.
Well, the league has always been out to get Goodell’s close friend, Bob Kraft. Just like Obama has always been a commie Muslim.
For a classic in butthurtia, check this out: http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nfl-shutdown-corner/tom-brady-should-retire-to-punish-roger-goodell-an
d-the-nfl-024132578.html
It’s apparently not meant to troll Brady, but you never know.
Yup.
Watching Tom Brady for a couple of minutes (not) talking about this issue and you know that he a) totally bullied these guys to deflate his balls and b) doesn’t even give a shit.
And that’s fine, in a way. He can be above it all. It’s only his reputation and a four game suspension. And he would have won the Super Bowl anyway.
Like he said, academics weren’t his strong suit.
Data is data, and the Ideal Gas Law really is the law.
Is this a community that supposedly prides itself on reason, rationality, and commitment to conclusions drawn from facts rather than from bias, or not?
When we get on our soapbox and rail about data being fabricated, twisted, taken out of context, and manipulated to support a predetermined conclusion (for example, the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq)… what examples and logic do we use?
And yet, when it comes to a game played on TV that involves our favorite or most-hated team… what happens?
When we get incensed about the legalistic twisting of words and facts used to “exonerate” a racially motivated, cold-blooded murderer… what examples and logic do we use?
And yet, a similar series of examples and events play out in a competitive, sunday-afternoon war-subsititute…. and what happens.
And if it’s all too complicated, and TL; DR and etc… then don’t comment in the first place, hypocrite.
“Ideal Gas Law really is the law.”
Apparently not, since it didn’t apply to the Colts’ balls, which (measured at the same time in the same room)had an average of 1.3 psi higher reading.
But maybe there was an in-room microclimate…..
Can you imagine, all receivers get the advantage of “de-flated” footballs in extremely cold weather, LOL. FYI the Patriots’ employees John Jastremski and James McNally handled the footballs after referee inspection in contravention of NFL rules.
Gosh, even weather forecast will play a role … what happens as a low-pressure front comes in ahead of game time? Gauge pressure, absolute pressure … it’s all so confusing for a QB.
Tom Brady was not truthful, not credible during investigation and did not cooperate by handing over his phone.
If the advantage were meaningful, it would be born out in credible analysis of the thousands of touches those receivers get every season… and there is no statistical evidence for any such advantage.
Gauge pressure vs absolute pressure is a fundamental and basic principle required in the measurement of air pressure in a closed container… and yet, you, a supposed member of the “reality based community” find it convenient to scoff and play dumb when it suits your predetermined bias.
And yet, you’re still wrong. Because gauge pressure incorporated into calculations using reasonable estimates (because no data was recorded) indicates that the change in pressure in those footballs is well within expected tolerance.
So, you, a member of the “skeptical left,” who prides yourself on “not accepting the mainstream line” (I know this about you having read what you write and agreed with much of it for many years), a person who prides themselves on going well beyond the “accepted narrative” created and pushed by the media machinery of consensus…
Immediately goes out and swallows the media narrative on this issue hook line and sinker.
Funny how that works.
And an employee and member of a union rightfully and correctly refuses to kow-tow to the bosses’ whimsical demands to turn over private property without warrant or precedent or legal backing… because it really does set bad precedent.. and you, long-term and eloquent defender and champion of workers’ rights, immediately sign on to the bosses’ narrative.
Funny how that works.
He bitched incessantly about the inflation of the balls, to the point that they guys responsible for deflating them basically hated him.
And you’re talking about physics.
Brady is guilty. If he got not real advantage out of it, he’s stupid, too. Twice.
And you’re being blind, and being led.
You know me BooMan, you’ve known me for almost 12 years via Kos and via here.
You know who I am and what I do and how I think… and you know that if evidence is shown that something is so, and that evidence squares with physics, logic, and reason, that I will agree that this thing is, in fact, so.
Brady bitched about the inflation of footballs because that’s his job and he’s the best at it in the history of the game… like the woodcarver who bitches about the bevel angle on his chisels to the point where the sharpener hates his guts….
Where’s the evidence that the balls were deflated AFTER the refs checked them (because doing so BEFORE the refs check is legal)?
And I talk about physics because science, measurement, and data are the only ways to avoid the hearsay-based bullshit that gets twisted to the point where anyone with any agenda can say anything they want to justify doing anything they want.
You’re acting like you’ll seek out any ambiguity to exonerate Brady.
I don’t really give a shit either way, but the text messages really don’t have much ambiguity unless you’re determined to find it.
All you need to do is assume a situation in which they’re discussing something that doesn’t violate the rules.
Obviously, they can inflate the balls to any pressure they like before they give them to the refs, so they don’t need a needle without a pump for that.
No one goes to ESPN to tell them that they’ve been legally inflating balls.
No one suggests that they’d like a new pair of shoes as compensation for doing their routing job of inflating footballs.
Brady wouldn’t be quoted saying something like this “He actually brought you up and said you must have a lot of stress trying to get them done …”
It’s obvious that this is all in reference to deflating balls after the refs have measured them.
No other explanation is plausible at all.
There is an excellent scientific addition made for Weiss and his report by Exponent: “The Effect of Various Environmental and Physical Factors on the Measured Internal Pressure of NFL Footballs.”
I didn’t read that much of the report, most hilarious referee Anderson had two gauges with a deviation of 0.4 psi between them. Great professional game that football is! All in all I can agree the pressure of a ‘deflated’ football doessn’t change the outcome of any game. For the lockerroom attendants to goof off with the official game balls is stupid and should be punished to the fullest by USA standards.
Btw Official digital gauges ARE quite accurate up to 1%.
Dude, you’re looking at the wrong scientific facts. Try these:
Scientific facts? How are these scientific facts?
The only facts I see there are that
a) the person implicated in HELPING Brady “cheat” actually hated the guy and wanted to make the balls LESS to his liking.
b) there is no timeline on those comments at all — remember that the QB and the team are ALLOWED to set pressures prior to referee handling and approval, and ALLOWED to determine what happens to game balls prior to referee final check. Do you know for a fact that these people manipulated the footballs they talked about AFTER the refs checked and marked those footballs?
c) Conversation, banter, threat, and repartee is not “scientific fact” – scientific fact is the measurement of pressure, temperature, and change of those variables over time as environments change. Saying you’re going to do something during a chest-thumping complaint session held over text message with your pal is not the same as doing it, and is not evidence that you did do it.
You’re buying into a constructed narrative that does not square with the available facts.
There’s actually a good timeline, as they know exactly when these text messages were sent.
They guy who was helping Brady cheat:
a) showed consciousness of guilt
b) explicitly said that he expected to be compensated
c) threatened to go to ESPN and expose Brady
d) made crystal clear that he was expected to deflate the balls
e) wanted Brady to know how difficult it was to pull off
f) was pissed at Brady because he didn’t enjoy being under pressure to help him cheat or criticisms of him when he failed to meet expectations.
There isn’t any question that Brady wanted the balls deflated in violation of league rules.
Whether it mattered much is a totally separate issue.
Trolling and sour grapes? Not a good look, Booman.
Is it sour grapes when you say “I was wrong”?
Who gives a shit?!!!
All sports are crooked and all pro atheletes cheat. You can’t be the best without doing it.
Football is for cheating. It’s a bunch of roided up cheaters that beat the shit out of each other, that’s why it’s fun to watch. The fact that they get away with cheating at life (rape, beating their wife, shooting people, tearing up strip clubs) is a bonus. They get to cheat and get away with it off the field as well.
This is why atheletes are gods. They get to do everything we would all do if we knew we wouldn’t go to jail and throw it in the face of everyone else. This is why we worship them.
Cheating is fun, cheating works, cheating is good… that’s why we only allow our golden gods to do it. Losers and ugly people are not allowed that glorious life because being ugly and a loser is the greatest sin of all.
This is 100% serious, and it’s why sport is life!
I agree! That’s why I have been involved as volunteer in amateur sports all my life, just for recreation and fun, and to the highest level.
Professional sports is almost … ehh like a corporation? Just follow the leader, U.S. gov’t cheats by using the NSA for corporate espionage … and when you get caught, you punish the leaker! In the NY Times case …
○ AG Holder backed-down to subpoena Risen to reveal his source
○ Ex-CIA officer Sterling convicted in leak case sentenced to 3½ years in prison
But Brady will still be a first-ballot Hall of Famer, right?
Love it! Such a role model, owing up to a mistake and taking responsibility like … eh an adult.
“these guys do not need to cheat to be the best”
Please present your evidence. When were they not cheating?
Meh. On both the spy gate and the deflation stories it would seem the NFL didn’t monitor or control the rule very closely. And it is totally rational to try to work within the rules as they are enforced, not as they are written. You have to assume other teams will do the same.
In baseball it is illegal to steal signs but all teams try so all teams regularly change their signs.
But if you get caught you accept the penalty. The Pats got caught so they should pay. The penalty is likely more severe though because the league is embarrassed.
And I’ve been a Giants can since the Tarkenton days. I will still have the same respect and admiration for Brady and Belechik
Perhaps more to the point, why does the NFL (and even down to the HS and Pop Warner level) allow each team to have there own balls and have separate balls for kicking? Baseball and hockey don’t. The home team supplies them and the officials inspect them to ensure they meet regulations. Why? Because each QB and kicker has their preferences! They are allowed to have individual preferences! If the league is not going to properly enforce their rules it is hard to blame the teams for pushing the envelope.
As with Ray Rice the league was most concerned with covering their asses.
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