#DeflateGate (Court of Appeals Reinstates Suspension)

[kraidstar]

Ted Wells just held a press conference to try and clear his name in this since some people are arguing Wells did a bad job, wasn't independent enough, etc.

The biggest takeaway seems to be that they didn't even consider the crime that bad.  75% of this punishment is based on the fact that Brady and the team didn't cooperate with the investigation, so they basically had to assume their guilty.

If they didn't consider the crime that bad, then why even investigate? They didn't bother investigating the Chargers for the stickum incident, even though the Chargers refused to cooperate. The league just fined them and was done with it.

i'd say 10% of the punishment is for the actual crime, 10% is for having a previous violation, 10% is for not cooperating, and the other 70% is because goodell wants to appease the press and public, in large part because of how he mishandled the ray rice situation.

[Donoghus]

Ted Wells just held a press conference to try and clear his name in this since some people are arguing Wells did a bad job, wasn't independent enough, etc.

The biggest takeaway seems to be that they didn't even consider the crime that bad.  75% of this punishment is based on the fact that Brady and the team didn't cooperate with the investigation, so they basically had to assume their guilty.

If they didn't consider the crime that bad, then why even investigate? They didn't bother investigating the Chargers for the stickum incident, even though the Chargers refused to cooperate. The league just fined them and was done with it.

i'd say 10% of the punishment is for the actual crime, 10% is for having a previous violation, 10% is for not cooperating, and the other 70% is because goodell wants to appease the press and public, in large part because of how he mishandled the ray rice situation.

I certainly think that influenced the ultimate penalty rendered.  No doubt. 

To me, that's the problem here.  It's the arbitrary nature of these penalties whether its Rice, Hardy, Pryor, Bountygate, Deflategate, whatever.

There's not a whole lot of rhyme or reason with these things.   They tend to make mountains out of ant hills then turnaround & turn a blind eye to other things or make them appear rather trivial. 

[LarBrd33]

I don't have time to read all 89 pages.  Can someone give me a short summary of the Wells Report?  Did they find conclusive proof that the staff intentionally deflated the balls?  I thought it was just speculation without any evidence.  Did they find some?

It's just speculation.  There isn't even conclusive proof that the balls were even deflated.  Temperature and rain, as per the report, may explain everything.

I haven't read the actual report, but the article I just read about the Brady suspension makes it seem like there are text messages that prove the guilt of two staffers (McNally and Jastremski) and that there may have been texts from Brady that they also saw.  No?

 No texts prove guilt. There were no texts that specifically mention tampering.  There was a text message conversation between the two after a game against the Jets.  Apparently, Brady was upset that some of the balls felt overinflated.  Jastremski tested them the next day and found some pumped up close to 16 (12.5 to 13.5 is regulation). Jastremski pointed this out to McNally and told him that they should have been 13 and to not let the refs overinflate.  A few days later Jastremski texted McNally that he spoke again with Brady and he wanted them at 12.5 and to hand a copy of the rule book to the refs if they have a problem with that.  Within those conversations Jastremski and McNally had a lot of friendly banter and jokes.  The most incriminating text was McNally referring to himself as the "deflator".  Also there was a text about Jastremski giving McNally a needle.  They explained that comment to be about Jastremskig forgetting to give him a needle earlier in the season for a pump that McNally provides to the refs.  There were no actual texts from Brady until after the controversy began.  He texted Jastremski to call him which Wells found suspicious and texted to Jastremski to not worry as he had done nothing wrong.

TP.  Thanks for the summary.  It makes logical sense that Brady would text them after the controversy began.  If there were suddenly widespread accusations that I was in cahoots with some random co-worker in accounting to steal company data, I'd probably reach out to the guy... "Yo... you seeing this stuff in the news about you and me stealing company data?... Let's chat about this." 

[PhoSita]

Ted Wells just held a press conference to try and clear his name in this since some people are arguing Wells did a bad job, wasn't independent enough, etc.

The biggest takeaway seems to be that they didn't even consider the crime that bad.  75% of this punishment is based on the fact that Brady and the team didn't cooperate with the investigation, so they basically had to assume their guilty.

If they didn't consider the crime that bad, then why even investigate? They didn't bother investigating the Chargers for the stickum incident, even though the Chargers refused to cooperate. The league just fined them and was done with it.

i'd say 10% of the punishment is for the actual crime, 10% is for having a previous violation, 10% is for not cooperating, and the other 70% is because goodell wants to appease the press and public, in large part because of how he mishandled the ray rice situation.

I certainly think that influenced the ultimate penalty rendered.  No doubt. 

To me, that's the problem here.  It's the arbitrary nature of these penalties whether its Rice, Hardy, Pryor, Bountygate, Deflategate, whatever.

There's not a whole lot of rhyme or reason with these things.   They tend to make mountains out of ant hills then turnaround & turn a blind eye to other things or make them appear rather trivial.

The good news is that any decent independent arbitrator is likely to see the same thing.

An arbitrators job is to see when somebody like Goodell is acting without any real rhyme or reason, simply making decisions on a whim or based on personal (or public) feeling.

[GratefulCs]

you guys see this website?  LOL

http://yourteamcheats.com/

holy heck



TP


That website makes me, as a patriot fan, feel more comfortable with my outrage

[Eja117]

Well, the only way I as a fan can protest this is to stop watching NFL games.  Giving some serious thought to that.  I like college football more anyway, though I admit that the NCAA is probably at least as bad as Goodell.

While I applaud your sentiment, why would you protest this and not the Big Ben suspension, the Saints' bountygate, the Ray Rice screw up and a host of other Goodell overreaches? What makes this one special? Was it because it finally happened to your team?

It was Bountygate that turned me off from the NFL and I have no love for the Saints. It was yet another example of Goodell trying to make someone a scapegoat for his own failures as a commish. I haven't watched the Super Bowl the past two years. I never even turned on an NFL game on the TV last year. Last year was the first time that no one in my family got NFL merchandise for Christmas. And it all has to do with how the league is run.

The only sports merchandise purchased last year was a Celtics cap!

Those suspensions had the opposite problem, which was that they weren't long enough. Are we actually at the point now where we compare Tom Brady to a rapist (more likely than not folks...twice), and guy that knocked out his wife on video, and guys getting paid to hurt people circumventing the salary cap?

Is that really happening now? Yes. Yes it is. Which is why the rest of the league should have an asterisk next to what they do. There's just no league integrity. The only place that has it is Foxboro and they aren't angels.

That your first reaction is to call someone a rapist shows how very little objectivity or clarity of thought you have. But please feel free to go on ranting illogically because it is quite amusing to see you jump at conspiracy theories.

The league is not out to get the Patriots. Foxboro is not a beautiful, unique snowflake. The Patriots have been caught cheating - again. Deal with it.

I'm not allowed to compare Tom Brady's suspension for deflating balls to Big Ben's less bad suspension for being a rapist? Because I'm not objective?

[Moranis]

I just don't see this as the response an innocent man gives when asked about the Wells report

"I don’t have really any reaction, Jim. Our owner commented on it yesterday. It’s only been 30 hours so I haven’t had much time to digest it fully. But when I do I will be sure to let you know how I feel about it, and everybody else."

It seems to me that if I did nothing wrong, the first, and maybe only thing, out of my mouth is some sort of profession of innocence.  Not some garbage about it only being 30 hours and not having time to digest it and that I'll comment when I do.  Digest what.  Either you did something wrong or you didn't.  You shouldn't need to digest anything.  That speaks volumes about Brady's guilt in my mind. 

[Eja117]

Ted Wells just held a press conference to try and clear his name in this since some people are arguing Wells did a bad job, wasn't independent enough, etc.

The biggest takeaway seems to be that they didn't even consider the crime that bad.  75% of this punishment is based on the fact that Brady and the team didn't cooperate with the investigation, so they basically had to assume their guilty.

The two most important aspects of this is that when Wells asked to talk to McNally one last time after they uncovered the texts and wanted to further question him on it, the team said no.  And then he also cleared up the Brady phone issue, he never asked for Brady's phone.  He asked for Brady to pick out all of the texts that would be considered related to the investigation.  He even said he would take a written transcript of it and "take Brady's word on it"...and Brady still said no.

Now THAT certainly doesn't sound good on Brady's part.  I'd love to hear Brady's side of that story.

I don't understand why he needs these texts when he already has them. He already had the phones of McNally and Jags. That's how he got the text from Tom that said "how you doing Johnny Boy. You didn't do anything wrong".  So what else does he want? Texts between Tom and who exactly?

[tarheelsxxiii]

He did do something wrong, and there was no concrete evidence of it. So the over-the-top punishment is even more of a backhand.

I have a friend in NY that I shared this with:
Guessing you are a Jets or Giants fan,
so: Jets, 2014: Fined 100k for tampering with Revis; 2010: Sal Alosi sticks his left knee out to intentionally trip CB Nolan Carroll; also 2010: Jets fined 125k for illegally failing to place Favre on IR; 2006: Caught SpyGating in the same fashion; 1992: Jeff Blake admitted to DeflateGate within organization (lol); 1989: 5 players punished for PEDs... it goes on..

Giants, 2012: cheap shots and illegal hits aggressively punished by league (e.g., 30k for a random S); 2011; "more probable than not" they were injury-faking in an attempt to slow down games;2004: Eli subverted the draft to try to prevent chargers from drafting him; 2001: Spcygate, also "more probably than not" that they were eavesdropping on convos b/w Eagles and Vikings during their playoff victories; 1996: 6x they were investigated and found guilty of PEDS use for 6 players, over time.. 1981-1983: Lawrence Taylor admitted to hiring escorts on the eve of games for opposing RBs in order to weary their legs; 1980s-2000s: "more probable than not" they opened stadium's tunnel doors to make wild wind gusts even worse at strategic times; 1956: Spygate (same issue, found guilty)

[Eja117]

I just don't see this as the response an innocent man gives when asked about the Wells report

"I don’t have really any reaction, Jim. Our owner commented on it yesterday. It’s only been 30 hours so I haven’t had much time to digest it fully. But when I do I will be sure to let you know how I feel about it, and everybody else."

It seems to me that if I did nothing wrong, the first, and maybe only thing, out of my mouth is some sort of profession of innocence.  Not some garbage about it only being 30 hours and not having time to digest it and that I'll comment when I do.  Digest what.  Either you did something wrong or you didn't.  You shouldn't need to digest anything.  That speaks volumes about Brady's guilt in my mind.

It's just that the NFL is using anything Brady says against him. If he says "I didn't do anything" and then they find a text that says "You know how I like em" it won't matter if he's talking about balls or burgers. 4 game suspension. Lose a million bucks and a draft pick. Oh and now he's a liar too.
They aren't giving Brady any benefit of the doubt or anything. They aren't taking him at his word so why does he owe them any words? Why should Brady have to go around professing his innocence when other QBs are going around freely admitting to knowingly doing what he did or worse?

I'm done with the Patriots explaining themselves. It's time for the NFL and others to do the explaining. Why do you not care about what Rodgers said? Why do you not care about Brad Johnson? Why did Ray Rice get 2 games for a violent crime and Brady gets 4? Why did Ray Lewis get nothing for interfering in a murder trial? Why did the Vikings get nothing? Why did the Chargers get a 20K fine? Why did the Jets get nothing when they were caught video taping AFTER spygate?  Why isn't Anderson in trouble for clearly not following protocol? At what point does Brady have a right to privacy?

[Eja117]

So how did the Vikings heating up footballs on the sidelines, on national TV, not become a high-profile case of cheating? Doesn't get more blatant than that.

I think that there's a difference between ignorance of a rule, and knowing a rule and then taking steps to break it, while hiding it from detection.

The Vikings were heating their footballs up out in the open, where the officials and everyone else could see what they were doing.  They probably had no intent to cheat, and it was a one time thing.

What the Patriots were found to have done is different.  They surreptitiously broke the rules, and then lied about it.  I think it's a different type of violation.

That said, that doesn't mean the penalty is appropriate.  However, I think that intent plays a big role here.

So why doesn't Aaron Rodgers and Brad Johnson get the Brady treatment?

[Eja117]

Add Rich Gannon and Steve Beurline to the ranks of QBs that don't care what QBs do with balls. Interestingly Rich has basically agreed to Brad Johnson's story about doctoring the balls before the Super Bowl


http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/writer/jason-la-canfora/24982082/as-deflategate-unfolds-we-find-doctoring-nfl-footballs-is-nothing-new

[Moranis]

I just don't see this as the response an innocent man gives when asked about the Wells report

"I don’t have really any reaction, Jim. Our owner commented on it yesterday. It’s only been 30 hours so I haven’t had much time to digest it fully. But when I do I will be sure to let you know how I feel about it, and everybody else."

It seems to me that if I did nothing wrong, the first, and maybe only thing, out of my mouth is some sort of profession of innocence.  Not some garbage about it only being 30 hours and not having time to digest it and that I'll comment when I do.  Digest what.  Either you did something wrong or you didn't.  You shouldn't need to digest anything.  That speaks volumes about Brady's guilt in my mind.

It's just that the NFL is using anything Brady says against him. If he says "I didn't do anything" and then they find a text that says "You know how I like em" it won't matter if he's talking about balls or burgers. 4 game suspension. Lose a million bucks and a draft pick. Oh and now he's a liar too.
They aren't giving Brady any benefit of the doubt or anything. They aren't taking him at his word so why does he owe them any words? Why should Brady have to go around professing his innocence when other QBs are going around freely admitting to knowingly doing what he did or worse?

I'm done with the Patriots explaining themselves. It's time for the NFL and others to do the explaining. Why do you not care about what Rodgers said? Why do you not care about Brad Johnson? Why did Ray Rice get 2 games for a violent crime and Brady gets 4? Why did Ray Lewis get nothing for interfering in a murder trial? Why did the Vikings get nothing? Why did the Chargers get a 20K fine? Why did the Jets get nothing when they were caught video taping AFTER spygate?  Why isn't Anderson in trouble for clearly not following protocol? At what point does Brady have a right to privacy?

Brady purposefully set up an interview with Jim Gray.  And that was Brady's answer.  This wasn't part of the investigation and Brady didn't have do the interview, but if you intentionally do a voluntary interview and that is your answer to the question, it says volumes. 

[Eja117]

I just don't see this as the response an innocent man gives when asked about the Wells report

"I don’t have really any reaction, Jim. Our owner commented on it yesterday. It’s only been 30 hours so I haven’t had much time to digest it fully. But when I do I will be sure to let you know how I feel about it, and everybody else."

It seems to me that if I did nothing wrong, the first, and maybe only thing, out of my mouth is some sort of profession of innocence.  Not some garbage about it only being 30 hours and not having time to digest it and that I'll comment when I do.  Digest what.  Either you did something wrong or you didn't.  You shouldn't need to digest anything.  That speaks volumes about Brady's guilt in my mind.

It's just that the NFL is using anything Brady says against him. If he says "I didn't do anything" and then they find a text that says "You know how I like em" it won't matter if he's talking about balls or burgers. 4 game suspension. Lose a million bucks and a draft pick. Oh and now he's a liar too.
They aren't giving Brady any benefit of the doubt or anything. They aren't taking him at his word so why does he owe them any words? Why should Brady have to go around professing his innocence when other QBs are going around freely admitting to knowingly doing what he did or worse?

I'm done with the Patriots explaining themselves. It's time for the NFL and others to do the explaining. Why do you not care about what Rodgers said? Why do you not care about Brad Johnson? Why did Ray Rice get 2 games for a violent crime and Brady gets 4? Why did Ray Lewis get nothing for interfering in a murder trial? Why did the Vikings get nothing? Why did the Chargers get a 20K fine? Why did the Jets get nothing when they were caught video taping AFTER spygate?  Why isn't Anderson in trouble for clearly not following protocol? At what point does Brady have a right to privacy?

Brady purposefully set up an interview with Jim Gray.  And that was Brady's answer.  This wasn't part of the investigation and Brady didn't have do the interview, but if you intentionally do a voluntary interview and that is your answer to the question, it says volumes.

Nobody sets up an interview where no questions are asked and none answered. That was a prior engagement that he didn't cancel and the only thing he said was that the Super Bowl wasn't tainted. Not sure why Jim Gray was there if he was supposed to be there originally or if he was essentially rushed to the scene.

[PhoSita]

Brady at that event talked like a man acting on the advice of his lawyer.  In TV land, that makes him guilty.  In real life, that makes him smart.