This article makes them look like shitheads. This is the best they could come up with? These guys are tasked with long form investigative work, but it reads like a rushed, weekly column.
I honestly don't think they do. At least not Wickersham, anyway - his sole "beat" these days appears to be an annual, vaguely-sourced or seemingly irrelevant story about how the Patriots are dysfunctional/bad.For fuck’s sake, these two assholes have NOTHING better to do with their lives?
Perhaps the most embarrassing part of an article full of it is the implication that because Specter opened the investigation in late 2008, and Donald Trump stopped contributing to him after 2008, that this was the reason. There's no mention of any other reason why Trump may have stopped his donations in 2009, like, say, Specter switching party affiliation and becoming a Democrat.This article makes them look like shitheads. This is the best they could come up with? These guys are tasked with long form investigative work, but it reads like a rushed, weekly column.
Because Wickersham is an extremely intellectually dishonest writer. He uses ONE unverified source with no confirmation, that source being an angry bitter person, not only with his own ax to grind, but the motive to try and clear his dead father's name for the shady and corrupt motivations for his pressuring the league for an investigation. He then takes that one unverified source as an excuse to dredge up irrelevant "anecdotes" about Tom Brady eating sandwiches on Trump's fucking plane and trying to pair Tom with his daughter, not to mention doing a jaunt down memory lane, except he deliberately mischaracterizes literally every single event. I'm so tired of the repeated lie that "the evidence was destroyed before anyone even knew there was any" except for the fact that the league PLAYED ALL THE TAPES FOR A ROOM FULL OF REPORTERS. It's almost like he wanted to write all these embarrassing but meaningless anecdotes and just needed even the flimsiest excuse to link them to a "story" for background. Fuck Seth Wickersham with a barbed chain mail condom.Perhaps the most embarrassing part of an article full of it is the implication that because Specter opened the investigation in late 2008, and Donald Trump stopped contributing to him after 2008, that this was the reason. There's no mention of any other reason why Trump may have stopped his donations in 2009, like, say, Specter switching party affiliation and becoming a Democrat.
Yep. We cry persecution complex because it is real.The only solace I am taking in this article is that it will provide further defense when I am attacked in a game thread for making a DFG reference or joke this year. Clearly, the world has moved on and our biased Boston fandom view that the NFL and ESPN are out to get “us” has been misplaced and Spygate and DFG should never again be spoken about in these hallowed SoSH halls.
Even if you're a paranoid schizophrenic, sometimes they actually ARE all out to get you.Yep. We cry persecution complex because it is real.
I mean, this article and premise is solely about whether or not the Congress of the United States of America should have done an independent investigation into whether or not the New England Patriots were cheating in NFL football games. It totally conflates/ignores, you know, the actual NFL investigation that cost the Patriots a 1st round draft pick and the Patriots $250k and BB another $500k (the maximum allowed). They are trying to make it seem like the Evil Trump was involved in covering up the “worst cheating scandal in sports history” and that the Patriots got away with something.Here's how it looks on ESPN.com right now:
View attachment 41473
Do any of you who read the article think that "A Spygate Mystery" has actually been "solved"? On a scale of 1-10, how misleading is that phrasing? (1 being not misleading at all, 10 being a complete sham)
Specter was essentially an arm of Comcast at the time, and Comcast was fighting and lost out to DirectTV for exclusive rights to NFL broadcasts.It really is ridiculous that Specter got involved at all. I get that the antitrust exemption gave Congress a doorway in, but still. It was an internal NFL issue that had NOTHING to do with its antitrust exemption. Like, why wasn't Congress interested in investigating the Broncos' multiple salary cap violations that allowed them to build a two-time SB winning organization? Maybe Specter didn't care about that because the Broncos didn't beat his Eagles in the Super Bowl......
There have been 30 posts in this thread since the recent ESPN story was first posted ... five of those have been by you.It's incredible to me that this is STILL a story, 14 years later.
Uh....me posting on a private, members-only, message board has NOTHING to do with this story continually being put out there by the national media for public consumption.There have been 30 posts in this thread since the recent ESPN story was first posted ... five of those have been by you.
Want the "story" to go away? Ignore it and stop discussing that media outlets find new ways to revive it.
If you stop posting ... WE don't have to keep discussing it. It won't stop nation media from bringing it up ... it'll just stop us from discussing it.Uh....me posting on a private, members-only, message board has NOTHING to do with this story continually being put out there by the national media for public consumption.
I know you know this, so I don't get why you said what you said.
Nobody is making YOU discuss it at all. And I'm not the one who restarted this conversation 30+ posts ago. Nor have I posted anywhere near the majority of posts on this topic.If you stop posting ... WE don't have to keep discussing it. It won't stop nation media from bringing it up ... it'll just stop us from discussing it.
It's fine for you to have brought it up. It's a Patriots story in the national media, and it's a story that's had a big impact on the franchise. None of us are remotely driving this nationally. If people here don't want to talk about it, they're welcome to not visit the thread or contribute to it.Well, I’ll take the hit for posting the new story but at least I didn’t start a new thread
It's fine for you to have brought it up. It's a Patriots story in the national media, and it's a story that's had a big impact on the franchise.
It's incredible to me that this is STILL a story, 14 years later.
The last thing I need to see any more posts from you on this subjectDo you really need me to explain this to you? Because I will if you do.
Again: not a single person in the universe is making you enter this thread. This is all on you.The last thing I need to see any more posts from you on this subject
Do you really need me to explain this to you? Because I will if you do.Again: not a single person in the universe is making you enter this thread. This is all on you.
This thread went from old news boring to AWESOME!Yikes. Someone struck a nerve,
There's no need to repeat yourself.... since Cyrus Jones' last punt return fumble.
That's the proof copy. He's reading it for typos, before it goes to pressI am a little lost, what is wrong with that?
Autocorrect on ‘TisMissing an apostrophe?
In the end, Tom Brady just wanted to say goodbye -- in person -- to his longtime coach. But according to a new book to be published next month, Bill Belichick said he wasn't available and insisted the two New England Patriots legends talk on the phone.
"Tom Brady had been curious if there was another way of winning, and while nobody was arguing that Bruce Arians was a better coach than Bill Belichick, or even close, the seamlessness of Brady's proficiency and performance was making his former coach's methodologies look antiquated, even silly," the book says. "It was better to be feared -- but was it necessary?"
At the 2008 league meetings, Belichick and then-New York Jets head coach Eric Mangini nearly had a fistfight. After a dinner for head coaches, Julie Mangini, wife of Eric, bumped into Belichick and said hi, trying to ease tension after the post-Spygate fallout. Belichick blew her off, and when she told Eric what had happened, he charged across the room and needed to be held back by other coaches from swinging at Belichick. "Hey Bill, f--- you!" Mangini yelled.
https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/32294122/new-england-patriots-book-goes-secretive-controversial-franchise-robert-kraft-tom-brady-bill-belichick"As for Kraft, in late September, he was in Aspen (Colorado) for a conference and bumped into a few friends in the hotel lobby early one morning. He told them he was leaving later for Detroit, where the Patriots were playing their next game. 'I hate leaving here,' Kraft said. 'You leave here and you leave some of the most brilliant people you've ever met. You pick up so much knowledge from all these brilliant minds. And I have to go to Detroit to be with the biggest f-----ng a--hole in my life -- my head coach.' "
In the lead-up to Super Bowl LII against the Philadelphia Eagles, Patriots cornerback Malcolm Butler and defensive coordinator Matt Patricia traded heated words at practice over the former Super Bowl hero's lack of effort. Butler was demoted. At the team party after New England's loss, Butler responded to teammates asking why he was benched by saying, "These dudes," referring to the coaches, according to the book, "these mother f---ers."