#DFG: Canceling the Noise
- Thread starter nattysez
- Start date
rodderick said:
There was a reference to that in the Wells report. Not in the Dolphins/Patriots game in Oct 2004, but the NYJ/Pats.
http://nesn.com/2015/05/wells-report-patriots-warned-in-2004-about-improper-footballs/
Doctor G said:
The assumption is that he was not using a gauge but just a needle. There were two gauges in the Refs room. If McNally took one with him to the field it would ahve been discovered when they went to get the gauges at halftime. He would have a lot less control using just a needle and little margin for error.
I'm guessing a part of Brady's appeal will be to establish a pattern of incompetence by the league office and RG in particular and the fact that many of his ruling have been overturned.
Furthermore, I thought there was a single bag of balls used by both teams back then.rodderick said:
. Gee, I wonder if it is theoretically possible that a NFL official might instruct a ballboy to introduce a non-approved ball into a game. Wild, I know.Hoya81 said:
I would love to see Kensil's email / cell phone records regarding this whole thing. My random thought of the hour.
I found the box score from that October 25 2004 game. You're going to be incredibly surprised, guys!
http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/recap?gameId=241024017
http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/recap?gameId=241024017
For the multitude of reasons that don't need to be restated here, whoever he hires has, shall we say in a lawyerly way, a lot to work with. To put it another way, paraphrasing Joe Pesci's character's assessment of Tony Dogs in the movie Casino, Goodell and the league are just begging to be made an example of. That said, Kessler has a proven track record of sticking it to the league and seems like a safe choice.theapportioner said:
And I hope him and his crew put those f@&$s through the litigation equivalent of putting their collective head in a vise.
yup, that is EXACTLY what I meant. Maybe they'll get him a 12 Pats jersey with the name "Wells" on the back.Bleedred said:
I can't believe we're still talking about something as trivial as air pressure in a football... Is there any competitive advantage to playing with an under inflated/over inflated ball? Why is this all of a sudden a major infraction? Did anyone actually ever give a single shit about this until now?
Eck'sSneakyCheese said:
An underinflated ball is theoretically easier to handle (catch, carry) in rain/snow games. The downside (also theoretical) is that the ball, being less firm, can't be thrown as hard or as deep and is possibly more vulnerable to wind.
jsinger121 said:
My new conspiracy theory: NFL denies ever receiving appeal letter, denies appeal, makes Brady suspension stand
Brady had 7 completions in that 2004 Miami win. The other game the Pats lost - the infamous throw the ball off your ass play.
Or it wouldn't have caught their attention because no one has ever given even a fractional shit about the condition of game balls until halftime of the 2015 AFC Championship Game. That's what makes the Pats defense difficult--it is against the written rules, but has never been seen as a violation of the actual rules.rodderick said:
I'm surprised the Colts didn't ask to check the curve on every Bruins' stick while they were at it.
Joe D Reid said:
But doesn't what happened in the Minnesota-Carolina game earlier in the year give them about as good a precedent as you could hope to find?
Now that Wells has adamantly defended the report, this matter has become a dick-measuring contest between two very prominent law firms (Winston & Strawn v. Paul Weiss), in addition to the fact that the NFL will look completely amateurish if yet another suspension is determined to have been improperly levied. This ridiculousness over deflated balls is only going to get higher-profile as time goes on.
Which all, again, points out what a massively huge mistake it was by Goodell not to do a David Stern-style warning-and-sweeping-under-the-rug of this whole thing when it first reared its head.
Which all, again, points out what a massively huge mistake it was by Goodell not to do a David Stern-style warning-and-sweeping-under-the-rug of this whole thing when it first reared its head.
Because of Goodell's initial (non) handling of the incident which allowed the whole thing to mushroom as every media outlet in the country threw their hot takez out there. Whether a sign of utter incompetence or supreme competence, Goodell has taken the NFL's version of the pine tar incident and, for the paltry sum of $5mm, used it to keep the league on the front pages nationwide leading up to the Super Bowl and throughout the offseason. The reason we're still talking about it is because despite our awareness that ESPN's content has become overwhelmingly valueless drivel, we haven't fully developed the ability to disregard it completely. Well, that and the draft picks.Eck'sSneakyCheese said:
BigSoxFan said:
This is a great point. The NBA is still incredibly healthy. Whereas the NFL is actively promoting this as a threat to the integrity of the game. You would think they would want to downplay threats to the integrity of the game as much as possible.
This whole investigation reminds me of that one line from Jurassic Park - along the lines of "you were so preoccupied with whether you could, you didn't stop and ask whether you should".
The NFL had no clue about the Ideal Gas Law, how balls were handled before games, etc., before delving into this, and now they have a bigger mess on their hands than they could have imagined.
The NFL had no clue about the Ideal Gas Law, how balls were handled before games, etc., before delving into this, and now they have a bigger mess on their hands than they could have imagined.
This is exactly my suspicion right now. I was afraid to ask publicly, but is it possible that Wells hired Exponent as part of a plan to justify a longer investigation? Do lawyers do this?Super Nomario said:
I doubt it. Not saying that lawyers don't do it, but in this case, Wells and PW obviously had the go ahead to bang out a nice seven-figure chunk of billables as they saw fit.EricFeczko said:
EricFeczko said:
IANAL, but I'm not so sure about the bias toward billable hours hypothesis. I'm sure Ted Wells wasn't exactly cutting corners to wrap things up in an expeditious way and keep costs down. But it seems like the biggest priorities here for a firm like Paul Weiss and a lawyer like Wells are protecting the relationship with the client and making sure that the firm comes out of the process with its reputation enhanced. If billing an extra million was compatible with those big pictures objectives, sure why not. But its hard for me to imagine them jeopardizing those big picture objectives just for a very short-term (and, ultimately, fairly small in the big, big picture) financial gain.
This. Wells makes plenty of money (If I had to guess...$3-5 million a year). It's the nature of NY firms to bill the shit out of clients like this, particularly when they have a mandate from a multi-billion dollar client to do whatever is necessary on a particular matter. I'm guessing 20-40 PW lawyers touched this case underneath Wells. Wells has too many clients and his reputation is too important for him to try to squeeze another $100K or even $500K in billables. Goodell is such a fool, there's no doubt Wells will be called upon again...and soon. Wells would be killing one of his golden geese if he were to unreasonably inflate his billables. Shit, NY firms (Proskauer, skadden, PW, Winston and Strawn, Sullivan and cromwell) "regular" billables are so outlandish anyway, there would be no need.Morgan's Magic Snowplow said:
norm from cheers said:
Zolak said at some point today that it was standard operating procedure that if you had issues with the game balls in humid stadiums etc., you requested the kicking balls, which were allowed to be broken in back then. Not sure when the rule changed, but it's now the opposite
I told you guys this would cost millions, got slapped down, and now the narrative is, he milked it?
No.
Any investigation without an expert like Exponent would have been even weaker than this pitiable one is right now.
The hours reflect the magnitude of the task, and given the agreed upon destination this task was enormous. Goodell's shop prints money anyway.
What we've seen here is pretty common. From his grave, Arlen Spector is lamenting what the single bullet theory would command in a free market.
No.
Any investigation without an expert like Exponent would have been even weaker than this pitiable one is right now.
The hours reflect the magnitude of the task, and given the agreed upon destination this task was enormous. Goodell's shop prints money anyway.
What we've seen here is pretty common. From his grave, Arlen Spector is lamenting what the single bullet theory would command in a free market.
I wonder how much Brady will end up shelling out to Winston & Strawn. He's a wealthy guy, but I have to think it's not pocket change to him like it is for the league. I never had the opportunity (or the curse, as some folks I know would probably describe it) to do the NYC/DC biglaw thing, but I'm curious to hear from some of the guys here who have as to what they think it will run Tom. Obviously, he's going unleash the hounds, but he can't be too happy about having to do it.
I love this post in the abstract but as Deadspin pointed out, where was Kraft when all these other teams were being abused by the Sheriff?jsinger121 said:
http://deadspin.com/the-patriots-war-against-the-nfl-has-spilled-online-1703915895
As bad as the Brady/Patriots penalty is—and I think there's an argument it is the single worst penalty in sports history, at least in the ballpark of the Black Sox—I think his past support of Goodell for bad behavior is going to limit his allies here. To say nothing of the jealousy factor.
Hoya81 said:
I think we have to stop this narrative right now.
We are not comparing 8psi to 16psi. We are not even comparing 11.5psi to 13.5 psi. The Wells report, in all it's cherry picking and biased glory, has determined that the Patriots balls were about 0.3psi below what would be expected. In other words, 0.3psi higher and the balls are legal.
And that's the best that this guilt-presuming report could manage despite all their data manipulations.
So, do we believe that a ball at 12.2psi would be fumbled or dropped significantly less than a ball at 12.5psi?