#DeflateGate (Court of Appeals Reinstates Suspension)

[Rondo2287]

[quote author=Vermont Green link=topic=75779.msg1941447#msg1941447
I said it back in January; if this involved the Jacksonville Jaguars, none of this happens and a 25K fine or something pretty much flies under the radar.

If this involved the Jacksonville Jaguars, it would never have been a thing because they wouldn't have multiple opponents whom they have beaten over and over in big games salivating at the opportunity to get them in hot water for breaking the rules.

The Colts and Ravens, and by extension all of the Pats' rivals, have always been the ones with the most to gain from this.  They can point to all the times they've been beaten or flat out embarrassed at the hands of the Patriots and say, well, they're a bunch of cheaters.

Except Baltimore is 2-2 against New England in their last 4 including last years very close game and has had more success against the Pats in the postseason than any other team in the Harbaugh/Flacco era.  It doesn't quite have the same effect when a team that is actually winning games registers a complaint or two.

Ravens were behind this because pouty harbaugh took offense to brady's learn the rulebook comment

[PhoSita]

Except Baltimore is 2-2 against New England in their last 4 including last years very close game and has had more success against the Pats in the postseason than any other team in the Harbaugh/Flacco era.  It doesn't quite have the same effect when a team that is actually winning games registers a complaint or two.

If you don't think the Ravens are salty from losing to the Pats in the AFC Championship game a few years ago and again this year in the divisional round, despite the other games they won, I think you're being silly.


Of course the Ravens would love to see the Pats get taken down a peg and even hurt from a competitive standpoint.


Nobody would ever bother to make a big deal out of a team like the Jaguars doing something like this.  But if it's the team that beats you every time you face them, or even just a team that has played you to a draw and stood in your way of the Super Bowl multiple times, of course you would.

[BballTim]

After apparently not communicating much (if at all) from October through the afc championship game, Brady spoke to Jastremski 8 times on the phone for a total of almost an hour in the three days following the afc title game, texted him 15 times and met with him in person. When asked about all the communications, Brady couldn't recall any specifics from the conversations and claimed they were mainly about ball preparation for the super bowl.

  It's hard to come to any conclusion other than Brady being uncooperative and less than forthright in his answers after reading that.

Well, Walt Anderson thought he used the logo gauge, but it was hard to come to any conclusion other than he "may have misremembered". Welcome to the land of "independent" NFL investigations.

  Sure, the nfl investigation was something of a joke, and the PSI evidence was far from conclusive. The most compelling evidence against the Patriots came from their communications and behavior.

  Brady and a team employee that he had little to no contact with suddenly (immediately after the investigation began) had 8 phone calls totaling an hour in time, texted back and forth and met in person, all in the space of 3 days. Brady doesn't have a believable explanation for the flurry of activity and can't remember any of the details of the conversations. That looks much worse than any evidence the nfl got from measuring footballs.

So in otherwords.  You accuse somebody of stealing your car with the help of two other people and call the police.  They freak out and talk to eachother because they are being accused of something ridiculous.  You then realize you left your car in the garage the whole time, but they are guilty because they talked about it.

  More like you heard your 15 year old son and a friend have been joyriding in cars, your keys aren't where you think you left them and you  think your odometer has more miles on it than it should. You mention it to your son, who then has a flurry of conversations with his friend, then later denies remembering what they talked about beyond what the weather was like on one of the days they talked.

[hpantazo]

I have really gone full arc on this.  When along with the rest of the NFL fandom, I heard:

"The Patriot's balls were 2 psi under the minimum of 12.5 psig (the "g" here is important) and McNally was shown on film going into a bathroom with the balls"

I thought, OK, wow, I can't believe my Pats did this.

But if the first story was something more like:

"The Pats balls do not appear to be measurably underinflated and McNally took the balls into a bathroom for 90 seconds"

I think this whole thing would be a very different story.

Same now with the Phone:

"Brady destroyed his phone to avoid having to turn over information, continuing his pattern of lack of cooperation with the investigation"

or if you believe Sally Jenkins:

"Wells stated that Brady cooperated fully with the investigation and Wells did not need any further phone related information.  Brady got a new phone and destroyed his old phone."

Context is very important and it is clear that the NFL is going out of their way to create the worst possible context for all of these leaks.  Why??

Everything Goodell does is for the sake of public opinion.

He chose to make a big deal about going after the most polarizing franchise in the league.  He knew that no matter how egregiously the NFL handled the entire business, if they made a point of releasing information to make the Patriots look as bad as possible, there would be a majority of the viewing public who would side with the NFL, if only because they are happy to see the Pats brought down a peg or simply outed as the cheaters everybody knew them to be all along.

Charles Pierce suggested as much on Grantland -- Tom Brady may not be an arrogant, spoiled, pretty-boy cheater who deserves to be exposed and humbled, but that is how a lot of people see him.  The NFL has gladly catered to that portion of the NFL fanbase, and created a controversy they could actually handle so as to come out on top in public opinion.

Exactly , and it worked. Ray Rice and other horrible situations are long forgotten now. I also think Goodell told Kraft outright about this in their private meeting right befor Kraft decided not to pursue this further. He proably told him that this is the best strategy to save the league long term, and prevent massive losses of money for all owners, and really, there was no other franchise or star player that could take the fall for the league and survive. Problem is no one asked Brady if he was ok with going along with this.

[BballTim]

After apparently not communicating much (if at all) from October through the afc championship game, Brady spoke to Jastremski 8 times on the phone for a total of almost an hour in the three days following the afc title game, texted him 15 times and met with him in person. When asked about all the communications, Brady couldn't recall any specifics from the conversations and claimed they were mainly about ball preparation for the super bowl.

  It's hard to come to any conclusion other than Brady being uncooperative and less than forthright in his answers after reading that.

Well, Walt Anderson thought he used the logo gauge, but it was hard to come to any conclusion other than he "may have misremembered". Welcome to the land of "independent" NFL investigations.

  Sure, the nfl investigation was something of a joke, and the PSI evidence was far from conclusive. The most compelling evidence against the Patriots came from their communications and behavior.

  Brady and a team employee that he had little to no contact with suddenly (immediately after the investigation began) had 8 phone calls totaling an hour in time, texted back and forth and met in person, all in the space of 3 days. Brady doesn't have a believable explanation for the flurry of activity and can't remember any of the details of the conversations. That looks much worse than any evidence the nfl got from measuring footballs.

At the time the nfl lied and said the balls were 2 psi lower. So obviously Brady is curious as to why. This is also why Bill and Brady's press conference was awkward cause they were led to believe the balls were dramatically deflated beyond a scientific explanation.

  And you think that if both Brady and Jastremski were innocent it would take an entire hour's worth of conversation, a number of texts and a meeting in person to figure out that they'd done nothing wrong? Or that Brady wouldn't be able to recall what was discussed?

[BballTim]

on the first call, they say did you do anything? No.  Ok.  No reason to keep talking that much if there isn't something there. 

There's a much longer conversation you could make out of that, if you were so inclined.  Like say, if your professional reputation, millions of dollars, and a sizable chunk of your career could be affected by the answers.

Brady's lawyer, for example, could probably turn that into an hour's worth of questions investigating everything the ball attendant might have done or said during the entire 48 hours before, during, and after the AFC Championship game.

It's not so far-fetched to think Brady might have wanted to know what the heck happened with the balls after it came out in the news that the Pats were being accused of tampering with them and might get in trouble.  Especially with the Super Bowl on the line.

  Brady's lawyer might have been able to interrogate Jastremski for an entire hour, it's less likely that Brady would. Even if it's not far-fetched that he did, it's pretty far-fetched that he didn't recall any specifics of any of the conversations or whether they were talking about anything beyond ball preparation for the Super Bowl.

[Vermont Green]

I have really gone full arc on this.  When along with the rest of the NFL fandom, I heard:

"The Patriot's balls were 2 psi under the minimum of 12.5 psig (the "g" here is important) and McNally was shown on film going into a bathroom with the balls"

I thought, OK, wow, I can't believe my Pats did this.

But if the first story was something more like:

"The Pats balls do not appear to be measurably underinflated and McNally took the balls into a bathroom for 90 seconds"

I think this whole thing would be a very different story.

Same now with the Phone:

"Brady destroyed his phone to avoid having to turn over information, continuing his pattern of lack of cooperation with the investigation"

or if you believe Sally Jenkins:

"Wells stated that Brady cooperated fully with the investigation and Wells did not need any further phone related information.  Brady got a new phone and destroyed his old phone."

Context is very important and it is clear that the NFL is going out of their way to create the worst possible context for all of these leaks.  Why??

  Wells didn't say he did not need any further phone related information. He said that he didn't need to see the phone himself, he just wanted them to provide information from the phone that was related to the investigation. Brady refused to provide the information and directed someone to destroy the phone.

This is Sally Jenkins version of the alleged statements:

Wells never asked for Tom Brady’s cellphone and didn’t require it. “Keep the phone,” Wells told Brady and his agent. He insisted his investigation was thorough without it. “I don’t think it undermines in any way the conclusions of the report,” he said. Those were his exact words. So were these, after interrogating Brady for more than five hours: “Totally cooperative,” Wells said of Brady’s testimony.

Not even close to the way the NFL's leaks portrayed this.  That is my point.  The NFL is going out of their way to make it seem that Brady did not cooperate by "refusing" to give up his phone, then leaked that he "destroyed" his phone implying that this was further impeding the investigation.

Why didn't the NFL say what Well's said.  We don't need his phone and he has been "totally cooperative".

[Rondo2287]

After apparently not communicating much (if at all) from October through the afc championship game, Brady spoke to Jastremski 8 times on the phone for a total of almost an hour in the three days following the afc title game, texted him 15 times and met with him in person. When asked about all the communications, Brady couldn't recall any specifics from the conversations and claimed they were mainly about ball preparation for the super bowl.

  It's hard to come to any conclusion other than Brady being uncooperative and less than forthright in his answers after reading that.

Well, Walt Anderson thought he used the logo gauge, but it was hard to come to any conclusion other than he "may have misremembered". Welcome to the land of "independent" NFL investigations.

  Sure, the nfl investigation was something of a joke, and the PSI evidence was far from conclusive. The most compelling evidence against the Patriots came from their communications and behavior.

  Brady and a team employee that he had little to no contact with suddenly (immediately after the investigation began) had 8 phone calls totaling an hour in time, texted back and forth and met in person, all in the space of 3 days. Brady doesn't have a believable explanation for the flurry of activity and can't remember any of the details of the conversations. That looks much worse than any evidence the nfl got from measuring footballs.

So in otherwords.  You accuse somebody of stealing your car with the help of two other people and call the police.  They freak out and talk to eachother because they are being accused of something ridiculous.  You then realize you left your car in the garage the whole time, but they are guilty because they talked about it.

  More like you heard your 15 year old son and a friend have been joyriding in cars, your keys aren't where you think you left them and you  think your odometer has more miles on it than it should. You mention it to your son, who then has a flurry of conversations with his friend, then later denies remembering what they talked about beyond what the weather was like on one of the days they talked.

False, in this case, the odometer and keys are exactly where you would expect. 

[BballTim]

After apparently not communicating much (if at all) from October through the afc championship game, Brady spoke to Jastremski 8 times on the phone for a total of almost an hour in the three days following the afc title game, texted him 15 times and met with him in person. When asked about all the communications, Brady couldn't recall any specifics from the conversations and claimed they were mainly about ball preparation for the super bowl.

  It's hard to come to any conclusion other than Brady being uncooperative and less than forthright in his answers after reading that.

Well, Walt Anderson thought he used the logo gauge, but it was hard to come to any conclusion other than he "may have misremembered". Welcome to the land of "independent" NFL investigations.

  Sure, the nfl investigation was something of a joke, and the PSI evidence was far from conclusive. The most compelling evidence against the Patriots came from their communications and behavior.

  Brady and a team employee that he had little to no contact with suddenly (immediately after the investigation began) had 8 phone calls totaling an hour in time, texted back and forth and met in person, all in the space of 3 days. Brady doesn't have a believable explanation for the flurry of activity and can't remember any of the details of the conversations. That looks much worse than any evidence the nfl got from measuring footballs.

So in otherwords.  You accuse somebody of stealing your car with the help of two other people and call the police.  They freak out and talk to eachother because they are being accused of something ridiculous.  You then realize you left your car in the garage the whole time, but they are guilty because they talked about it.

  More like you heard your 15 year old son and a friend have been joyriding in cars, your keys aren't where you think you left them and you  think your odometer has more miles on it than it should. You mention it to your son, who then has a flurry of conversations with his friend, then later denies remembering what they talked about beyond what the weather was like on one of the days they talked.

False, in this case, the odometer and keys are exactly where you would expect.

  That's the response of your spouse, who believes that not having proof that their son did something wrong is the same as having proof that they didn't.

[Rondo2287]

After apparently not communicating much (if at all) from October through the afc championship game, Brady spoke to Jastremski 8 times on the phone for a total of almost an hour in the three days following the afc title game, texted him 15 times and met with him in person. When asked about all the communications, Brady couldn't recall any specifics from the conversations and claimed they were mainly about ball preparation for the super bowl.

  It's hard to come to any conclusion other than Brady being uncooperative and less than forthright in his answers after reading that.

Well, Walt Anderson thought he used the logo gauge, but it was hard to come to any conclusion other than he "may have misremembered". Welcome to the land of "independent" NFL investigations.

  Sure, the nfl investigation was something of a joke, and the PSI evidence was far from conclusive. The most compelling evidence against the Patriots came from their communications and behavior.

  Brady and a team employee that he had little to no contact with suddenly (immediately after the investigation began) had 8 phone calls totaling an hour in time, texted back and forth and met in person, all in the space of 3 days. Brady doesn't have a believable explanation for the flurry of activity and can't remember any of the details of the conversations. That looks much worse than any evidence the nfl got from measuring footballs.

So in otherwords.  You accuse somebody of stealing your car with the help of two other people and call the police.  They freak out and talk to eachother because they are being accused of something ridiculous.  You then realize you left your car in the garage the whole time, but they are guilty because they talked about it.

  More like you heard your 15 year old son and a friend have been joyriding in cars, your keys aren't where you think you left them and you  think your odometer has more miles on it than it should. You mention it to your son, who then has a flurry of conversations with his friend, then later denies remembering what they talked about beyond what the weather was like on one of the days they talked.

False, in this case, the odometer and keys are exactly where you would expect.

  That's the response of your spouse, who believes that not having proof that their son did something wrong is the same as having proof that they didn't.

Nope, you are off base.  You lack evidence that anything wrong occurred, let alone who was responsible. 

Infact I would say the science proves the patriots did nothing wrong, and the nfl has done nothing to suggest that anything wrong occured

[PhoSita]

  More like you heard your 15 year old son and a friend have been joyriding in cars, your keys aren't where you think you left them and you  think your odometer has more miles on it than it should. You mention it to your son, who then has a flurry of conversations with his friend, then later denies remembering what they talked about beyond what the weather was like on one of the days they talked.

Would be a fine analogy if the NFL had the broad authority to punish players the way parents can punish their children.  Mere suspicion of wrongdoing based on seemingly guilty behavior is sufficient in that situation.

Many of the responses I've seen to this whole controversy suggest that a good number of NFL fans think the NFL does have that authority, or at least that it should.

Luckily for Brady, that is not the case.

[BballTim]

I have really gone full arc on this.  When along with the rest of the NFL fandom, I heard:

"The Patriot's balls were 2 psi under the minimum of 12.5 psig (the "g" here is important) and McNally was shown on film going into a bathroom with the balls"

I thought, OK, wow, I can't believe my Pats did this.

But if the first story was something more like:

"The Pats balls do not appear to be measurably underinflated and McNally took the balls into a bathroom for 90 seconds"

I think this whole thing would be a very different story.

Same now with the Phone:

"Brady destroyed his phone to avoid having to turn over information, continuing his pattern of lack of cooperation with the investigation"

or if you believe Sally Jenkins:

"Wells stated that Brady cooperated fully with the investigation and Wells did not need any further phone related information.  Brady got a new phone and destroyed his old phone."

Context is very important and it is clear that the NFL is going out of their way to create the worst possible context for all of these leaks.  Why??

  Wells didn't say he did not need any further phone related information. He said that he didn't need to see the phone himself, he just wanted them to provide information from the phone that was related to the investigation. Brady refused to provide the information and directed someone to destroy the phone.

This is Sally Jenkins version of the alleged statements:

Wells never asked for Tom Brady’s cellphone and didn’t require it. “Keep the phone,” Wells told Brady and his agent. He insisted his investigation was thorough without it. “I don’t think it undermines in any way the conclusions of the report,” he said. Those were his exact words. So were these, after interrogating Brady for more than five hours: “Totally cooperative,” Wells said of Brady’s testimony.

Not even close to the way the NFL's leaks portrayed this.  That is my point.  The NFL is going out of their way to make it seem that Brady did not cooperate by "refusing" to give up his phone, then leaked that he "destroyed" his phone implying that this was further impeding the investigation.

Why didn't the NFL say what Well's said.  We don't need his phone and he has been "totally cooperative".

  This is from the Wells report:

"Similarly, although Tom Brady appeared for a requested interview and answered
questions voluntarily, he declined to make available any documents or electronic information
(including text messages and emails) that we requested, even though those requests were limited
to the subject matter of our investigation (such as messages concerning the preparation of game
balls, air pressure of balls, inflation of balls or deflation of balls) and we offered to allow Brady?s
counsel to screen and control the production so that it would be limited strictly to responsive
materials and would not involve our taking possession of Brady?s telephone or other electronic
devices. Our inability to review contemporaneous communications and other documents in
Brady?s possession and control related to the matters under review potentially limited the
discovery of relevant evidence and was not helpful to the investigation."

  Jenkins (and you) seem to be taking that out of context.

[BballTim]

After apparently not communicating much (if at all) from October through the afc championship game, Brady spoke to Jastremski 8 times on the phone for a total of almost an hour in the three days following the afc title game, texted him 15 times and met with him in person. When asked about all the communications, Brady couldn't recall any specifics from the conversations and claimed they were mainly about ball preparation for the super bowl.

  It's hard to come to any conclusion other than Brady being uncooperative and less than forthright in his answers after reading that.

Well, Walt Anderson thought he used the logo gauge, but it was hard to come to any conclusion other than he "may have misremembered". Welcome to the land of "independent" NFL investigations.

  Sure, the nfl investigation was something of a joke, and the PSI evidence was far from conclusive. The most compelling evidence against the Patriots came from their communications and behavior.

  Brady and a team employee that he had little to no contact with suddenly (immediately after the investigation began) had 8 phone calls totaling an hour in time, texted back and forth and met in person, all in the space of 3 days. Brady doesn't have a believable explanation for the flurry of activity and can't remember any of the details of the conversations. That looks much worse than any evidence the nfl got from measuring footballs.

So in otherwords.  You accuse somebody of stealing your car with the help of two other people and call the police.  They freak out and talk to eachother because they are being accused of something ridiculous.  You then realize you left your car in the garage the whole time, but they are guilty because they talked about it.

  More like you heard your 15 year old son and a friend have been joyriding in cars, your keys aren't where you think you left them and you  think your odometer has more miles on it than it should. You mention it to your son, who then has a flurry of conversations with his friend, then later denies remembering what they talked about beyond what the weather was like on one of the days they talked.

False, in this case, the odometer and keys are exactly where you would expect.

  That's the response of your spouse, who believes that not having proof that their son did something wrong is the same as having proof that they didn't.

Nope, you are off base.  You lack evidence that anything wrong occurred, let alone who was responsible. 

Infact I would say the science proves the patriots did nothing wrong, and the nfl has done nothing to suggest that anything wrong occured

  The science doesn't prove the Pats were guilty and it doesn't prove that they were guilty. That's fairly obvious.

[Rondo2287]

After apparently not communicating much (if at all) from October through the afc championship game, Brady spoke to Jastremski 8 times on the phone for a total of almost an hour in the three days following the afc title game, texted him 15 times and met with him in person. When asked about all the communications, Brady couldn't recall any specifics from the conversations and claimed they were mainly about ball preparation for the super bowl.

  It's hard to come to any conclusion other than Brady being uncooperative and less than forthright in his answers after reading that.

Well, Walt Anderson thought he used the logo gauge, but it was hard to come to any conclusion other than he "may have misremembered". Welcome to the land of "independent" NFL investigations.

  Sure, the nfl investigation was something of a joke, and the PSI evidence was far from conclusive. The most compelling evidence against the Patriots came from their communications and behavior.

  Brady and a team employee that he had little to no contact with suddenly (immediately after the investigation began) had 8 phone calls totaling an hour in time, texted back and forth and met in person, all in the space of 3 days. Brady doesn't have a believable explanation for the flurry of activity and can't remember any of the details of the conversations. That looks much worse than any evidence the nfl got from measuring footballs.

So in otherwords.  You accuse somebody of stealing your car with the help of two other people and call the police.  They freak out and talk to eachother because they are being accused of something ridiculous.  You then realize you left your car in the garage the whole time, but they are guilty because they talked about it.

  More like you heard your 15 year old son and a friend have been joyriding in cars, your keys aren't where you think you left them and you  think your odometer has more miles on it than it should. You mention it to your son, who then has a flurry of conversations with his friend, then later denies remembering what they talked about beyond what the weather was like on one of the days they talked.

False, in this case, the odometer and keys are exactly where you would expect.

  That's the response of your spouse, who believes that not having proof that their son did something wrong is the same as having proof that they didn't.

Nope, you are off base.  You lack evidence that anything wrong occurred, let alone who was responsible. 

Infact I would say the science proves the patriots did nothing wrong, and the nfl has done nothing to suggest that anything wrong occured

  The science doesn't prove the Pats were guilty and it doesn't prove that they were guilty. That's fairly obvious.

Ironic

[BballTim]

  More like you heard your 15 year old son and a friend have been joyriding in cars, your keys aren't where you think you left them and you  think your odometer has more miles on it than it should. You mention it to your son, who then has a flurry of conversations with his friend, then later denies remembering what they talked about beyond what the weather was like on one of the days they talked.

Would be a fine analogy if the NFL had the broad authority to punish players the way parents can punish their children.  Mere suspicion of wrongdoing based on seemingly guilty behavior is sufficient in that situation.

Many of the responses I've seen to this whole controversy suggest that a good number of NFL fans think the NFL does have that authority, or at least that it should.

Luckily for Brady, that is not the case.

  I'd guess that depends on whether their standards for guilt are more like criminal or civil court.