Definitely changed. Clearly said that they were not team employees when it went up.Flunky said:
#DFG: Canceling the Noise
- Thread starter nattysez
- Start date
Yea, the NFL is doing a great job of spoiling the greatest two week period of the season, at least for a lot of Pats fans who have grown tired of whiny fans and mediots looking for any reason to trash a team that is literally giving them the gift of watching one of the greatest runs in American sports history by any franchise. Most of the season I've avoided the media and just tuned in on Sundays, and I've been better for it. I thought the SB would be full of puff pieces and analysis. Fuck me in the eyes for my naiveté.
Why on earth would the league want this to go away? They'll milk this until media days next week, when about 30 minutes before they issue a release finding "nothing here to see."
Everyone is talking about the NFL in its dead week. This is NFL gold.
Everyone is talking about the NFL in its dead week. This is NFL gold.
Caspir said:
I know, I know, salary cap and all but it's comments like that which make people want to rip on the Patriots. That's what Yankee fans said in the late 90's. They were the Evil Empire. Don't you understand the Patriots are football's evil empire?
They overinflate them before they are checked by the referees 2 1/2 hours before the game.EL Jeffe said:
Of course, the referees could easily notice this and let air out of the ball so that it's within the acceptable range.
canderson said:
Plus if everyone is talking about how the Patriots cheat no one will notice how PED usage apparently follows Carrol wherever he goes (Browner, Sherman although he got it overturned, Moffit, Bruce Irvin, Winston Guy, Allen Barber, Walter Thurmond, and, going back to USC, a whole bunch (Ting, Cushing, potentially Clay Matthews)
EL Jeffe said:
Because up until about 2 hours before kickoff, the balls are in the team's possession. So in Green Bay's case, they provide the over-inflated balls to the refs for inspection hoping they get through undetected or unchanged. If they do, they do. If they don't, they don't.
EL Jeffe said:
They submit the balls slightly over the 13.5 lb threshold and hope the refs don't take any air out once they test the balls. I'm assuming if you've got a 12.5 - 13.5 range to deal with, QB's that like them low submit all balls right at 12.5 and QB's that like them firm submit them at 13.5. If you go slightly above or below that and hope you don't get caught, you're just pushing the envelope.
I would think if you're playing somewhere cold, inflating at room temperature indoors at 12.5 would result in below that pressure outdoors 2 hours later, which is what you can expect the NFL to say on this matter in a few days.
The ball boys are technically NFL employees but they are people who are off the street and paid $10-$15/hour. Most work as either visiting locker room attendants or game-day employees. They are from the area and are fans of the home team. So, it is easier than you think to have influence over these guys.
Which is pathetic by the NFL if it's important to the integrity of the game.RedOctober3829 said:
Yahoo adds more waste to the manure fire:
http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nfl-shutdown-corner/how-did-colts-find-out-about-deflate-gate--and-gronk-takes-blame-144407663.html
>>New England could end up being fined, and Kravitz said a source told him the league might even strip the Patriots of draft picks if it's found they deflated footballs after the officials inspected them before the game. Brady's lone interception against the Colts might end up being a lot worse for the Patriots than we could have imagined at the time.<<
http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nfl-shutdown-corner/how-did-colts-find-out-about-deflate-gate--and-gronk-takes-blame-144407663.html
>>New England could end up being fined, and Kravitz said a source told him the league might even strip the Patriots of draft picks if it's found they deflated footballs after the officials inspected them before the game. Brady's lone interception against the Colts might end up being a lot worse for the Patriots than we could have imagined at the time.<<
Ah, okay. So since the referees specifically check every ball before the game with a gauge, GB is banking on the refs either not paying too close attention, not really caring, or maybe the refs understanding that the air pressure will drop the ball into acceptable range once the game begins. Some footballs get through, some don't. C'est la vie.PaulinMyrBch said:
Okay ... someone make a list of all SoSH lawyers nicknamed Spanky:
Bob Kravitz @bkravitz · 2h 2 hours ago
Ha ha I've got a New England lawyer threatening me with having committed libel. The story/tweet was RIGHT. Bring it on spanky
Bob Kravitz @bkravitz · 2h 2 hours ago
Ha ha I've got a New England lawyer threatening me with having committed libel. The story/tweet was RIGHT. Bring it on spanky
canderson said:
Nah, there is no such thing as an NFL dead week. People talk about the NFL 24/7/365. If columns and TV shows weren't spending time on this they'd be talking about some other NFL-related topic. This ain't taking time away from discussion that would be had about MLB's offseason or the NBA.
The league is simply scared of it's own shadow. They are afraid to do *anything* hastily at this point, even for something that seems increasingly obvious to be a ridiculous "issue".
Still waiting for an explanation of how the ref who spotted the ball somehow missed it. There was a running play right before that too, did they miss it twice?
Koufax said:
I happen to have the page still open from loading it a while back. It's changed completely in this section
Left: What it said when I loaded the page a while ago.
Right: What it says now.
johnmd20 said:
If people want to rip the Patriots because they are in the midst of an unparalleled run simply because people refer to the run as unparalleled, then I hope they get herpes and give it to their kids. It's not really a controversial statement. No QB has been in as many SB's as Brady, most wins by a coach and by a QB in the playoffs, most wins by a QB/Coach combo, 3 rings, 6 conference titles, a 16-0 season, haven't lost a division title outright since last millennium, etc. I totally understand that the Patriots are the new Evil Empire, and I'm fine with it. It beats being a laughingstock, but the whole, "They hate us because of X," when X is a statement of fact is silly. If someone wants to dispute that this is, in fact, one of the greatest runs by a franchise in American sports history, I'd love to hear it because it would require the writer to be one equivocating mother fucker. It becomes tiring "defending" basic statements, and doubly so when the only rebuttal is, "BELICHEAT! *, no titles since Spygate!" or something along those lines. That's all I meant by being tired of the coverage and the media as a whole. I guess we've come full circle from the "Gold Standard/Patriot Way" shit from 2001-2006, and this is just our comeuppance for being media darlings in the early stages of the dynasty. I want to win this game more than pretty much any sports-related event of my life, but avoiding the media between now and kickoff is probably healthier.
GregHarris said:
We're still waiting for everything related to this story, except the fact that there's an "investigation" about a deflated ball.
So far, we've heard about:
Weighing balls, PSI range, roughing up balls to the passer's liking, Aaron Rodgers, lost draft picks, Spygate, vacated AFC title, Jim Irsay, Jealousy, interception, weather...
Nothing about what in the actual fuck happened except as reported third hand to some Indy reporter.
And, that's the problem. Maybe the NFL wants to do this by-the-book and leave no stone unturned. Fine, that is understandable given recent fuckups. But there's nothing stopping them from releasing a quick statement summarizing what the status is and what they plan on doing to investigate. Or, if had any integrity at all (and assuming it's true) from saying "Lots of balls are removed during game play due to inflation issues. We hope and expect that this is simply one more instance of that. Given the high stakes, however, we are making sure that we are 100% certain that this was the case." Or something.
Instead they continue to allow smoke to gather to the point where even the NFL won't be able to clear the air.
This is good news, and what I had hoped. Given too many issues already discussed here (e.g., chain of custody, etc...), I don't see what they can really even do except look at the balls taken from the game at that time and analyze the overall process. If what Mike Freeman says is true, then the process is pretty clear and is what has to be verified occurred during the game. And in the absence of the league creating a working flux capacitor to go back in time and take game balls from other teams, or the finding that the Patriots inserted a special magic gas into the football that caused deflation over a period of time, this story should be put to bed soon. Good catch Mark on the video link too....that should at least deflect from this being a Patriots-only issue. And the public perception of Rodgers seems to be very positive, so that should also help.Mooch said:
The Patriots made one of the best turnarounds I can recall given how much scrutiny they faced early in the season, and with much of the media still continuing to bring up topics like Spygate. The team deserves better than to have this hours after thoroughly pounding the Colts to get to the Super Bowl. I hope the investigation and report come out soon enough, so we can move on and enjoy the time leading up to the Super Bowl. And given that it could very well be a process issue involving officials, independent of the team (at least how I'm interpreting it), then the NFL is in its best interest to be convincing in its statement that there is no issue and move on.
I'm assuming they have to comb through hours of tape as well. It's not going to be just examining the balls.
Clearly Belichick had Jason Grimsley climb through the HVAC ducts into the officials room to deflate the balls after the officials had already examined them. We'll probably lose our next 5 first rounders for this.
Even here he is slimy. What he almost certainly means is "a lawyer from New England". The false implication is that the NEP threatened him. That is almost certainly false because it would be an undeniably brain dead thing to do.
I'm going to speculate that when the refs inspect the balls prior to the game, they may do a cursory job. Perhaps they test 1 or 2 out of each batch of 12 balls with a pressure gauge, and then do the rest by feel. After all, the refs handle balls all the time, and they probably would know if one was significantly out of spec, but probably wouldn't notice if a ball was inflated to 12.25 psi or 14 psi instead of the 12.5-13.5 psi range stated in the rule book. So does the intern in the GB locker room inflate the balls to 13.75 psi, assuming it wouldn't be noticed? Sure. Could the Pats do something similar (inflating to 12.4 psi)? Sure. Is either a big deal? If you say "yes", I'd have to respond "Seriously, protesters?"EL Jeffe said:
It's also possible that the refs do measure the pressure but don't really do anything unless the ball is less than 12 or more than 14. Maybe they even know who likes the balls hard and soft and get a chuckle ("Hey, it's Green Bay; they always come in a little on the high side; don't worry about it").
I can also believe that balls sometimes lose pressure during a game. Put a ball under a falling Wilfork and see if its pressure is identical before and after. If Brady likes the balls a little "soft", neither Brady nor his center are going to ask for a replacement during the game; they'll just let the official do that.
I find this scenario 1000 times easier to believe than the Patriots somehow surreptitiously tampering with the balls on the sideline during the course of the game.
The only people that think this is a big deal are some noise makers among the mediots and the NFL's PR folks that want to give the impression that the NFL is doing a serious investigation on what is really a laughable matter.
You missed the Yahoo story then. According to Yahoo the chain of evidence went Jackson interception--> Colts' Equipment Manager, who only tested the ball and in no way tampered with the pressure at all, --> Colts' Coaching Staff --> League Official. So that ball, in and of itself, is worthless. So Antipatriot Nation can have their conspiracy with confidence.drleather2001 said:
mwonow said:
King was just on WEEI and was not asked a single question about his SI colleague's article.
King did relate the fanatical procedures that Peyton Manning goes through to prepare game balls. It goes WAY beyond umpires wiping down new baseballs with Delaware River mud. Incredible that the NFL ever opened this door because of QB whining.
I'm not sure what Rodgers is saying when he says he has "major problems with the way it goes down".
Is he referring to the Pats, or to the allegation of wrongdoing? Jesus, people, subject/verb agreement matters.
And what does Peyton have to do with it?
Is he referring to the Pats, or to the allegation of wrongdoing? Jesus, people, subject/verb agreement matters.
And what does Peyton have to do with it?
