There's no way it was unique in the annals of the league, too. Much like Spygate, wrong place, wrong time. Only Belichick ignored a specific memo, as stupid as it was. Saints got SCREWED. And that's in capital letters.pappymojo said:
#DFG: Canceling the Noise
- Thread starter nattysez
- Start date
Yeah, this one can't be talked about enough. How the F do the Broncos have their own version of Spygate and practically walk...especially as repeat offenders?Bone Chips said:
(I know the answer)
Smiling Joe Hesketh said:
First they came for the Saints, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Saint.
Then they came for the Patriots, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Patriot.
[SIZE=13.3000001907349px]Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me[/SIZE]
Someone posted this earlier in the thread. It is obviously easy for things to get lost in one this big and fast moving.dcmissle said:
http://www.avclub.com/article/stuff-parity-nfl-punishes-quarterback-winning-too--219251
It really is amazing and infuriating to consider just how short-sighted and just plain arrogant (the NFL will never fall!) you have to be as a Commissioner not to protect one of the greatest players in the history of your sport over something that was not provable and never mattered. Sure seems like he got his dander up and never thought much beyond that. I'm sure the Patriots can be annoying to commish for. They annoy the living shit out of people. But for now (I'm guessing Brady's rep will rehabilitate for most sane people over time), he's been short-sighted to a disastrous and self-defeating degree.
Did you ever hear of David Stern's suspension of Michael Jordan for gambling? No, you didn't. And there's a reason for that.
Did you ever hear of David Stern's suspension of Michael Jordan for gambling? No, you didn't. And there's a reason for that.
Ed Hillel said:
And according to half the country, we're to blame for that one too, when you bring it up, because McDaniels.
Does anyone think that Tomase's claim that the Pats taped the Rams walk through might have been correct but he just sourced it poorly? I've always wondered about that one ...Ed Hillel said:
Listen, I think the Patriots are the best organization in the league. I don't think they're dirtier than anyone else—I think the league is littered with a seedy culture of gamesmanship—but I don't necessarily think they're cleaner either. To that end, I always did wonder how a story that managed to makes its way onto the front page of the Herald the day before the Super Bowl ended up being retracted in its entirety.riboflav said:
Could it have been secondhand Walsh and nothing more? For sure. But my l sense was that there was something there that simply vanished into the ether when they had to verify it.
As an aside, I love the fact that Michael Holley, who has spent more time with the Patriots and Bill Belichick than any reporter over the years, completely, completely exonerates the Patriots and Tom Brady on this. Thank God Chad Finn is with The Globe because otherwise they would have no one on the right side.
No!Van Everyman said:
1. BB denied it after immediately admitting the sideline thing immediately
2. Walsh denied it after getting immunity and seemingly like he had a bone to pick
3. WTF does "sourced it poorly" mean? If by that you mean he didn't have credible sources and he printed it anyway, then sure?
In short, there is zero evidence that we have ever seen including circumstantial evidence to imply they did anything of the sort. All we had is one unsubstantiated, retracted lie and you can't give those things life or nobody is safe.
djbayko said:
That one really is incredible when you think about it. Three years after Spygate (™), the Broncos, who were multiple time offenders, videotaped a 49er practice. FAR, FAR worse than what the Patriots did. They walked away with a grand total of a $100,000 fine, and the team video guy got fired. That's it. The Patriots, who cooperated FULLY with that Spygate investigation, were first time offenders, and got whacked $750,000 and a first-round draft pick.
I mean, it's incomprehensible.
... and didn't tape a practice, but taped games that are routinely taped by every team in the league every week.
IN FRONT OF 80,000 PEOPLE.
/Coach Bill
IN FRONT OF 80,000 PEOPLE.
/Coach Bill
For the legals in the room:
I read the pieces by Stephanie Stradley and they are interesting. The part that was referenced above about direct vs circumstantial evidence is curious to me. Generally speaking, it would appear to me there is little direct evidence in this case and most of it centers around the gauges and how they were used. Clearly it is of questionable quality though - Exponent/Wells create bunches of assumptions about actual pre-game values (including contradicting the person who says he's pretty sure what gauge he used), half time values didn't include the full Colts balls which are still erroneously used as a control of sort. Video footage showing McNally going into the bathroom would appear to be direct evidence at first, but since we don't see what he does in there - it is really circumstantial evidence. All the text messaging is circumstantial evidence - plausible reasons can be offered for much of it, and no smoking gun.
In the interview Wells stated the direct evidence supported his conclusions and met the standard of proof necessary. Is this really true? People are (IMO validly) ripping the 'scientific proof' which is based on assumptions balanced on top of flawed choices piled on top of more assumptions fed into formulas which require precision. Absent scientific proof all that is left is a conclusion about some time in the bathroom and text messages between two people who clearly didn't care what kinds of things they texted on company phones and yet there is still no smoking gun - they all have to be read negatively to get to a guilty place.
All that said, my question is this. If Wells were being peer reviewed (don't know if the profession even does this) would he be getting slammed by his legal brethren? If this report were his work at the age of 25 (and he didn't have a long reputation, etc.) and he was looking to move firms, would it hurt him, help him, neither? It was claimed to be an independent report, does it read that way to legal minds? I'm just trying to get a handle on the actual report from the perspective of legal eyes. Thanks for any discussion in this direction.
Edit: Is his use of the term direct evidence in the press conference sneaky smart or sleazy given how little direct evidence is actually present?
I read the pieces by Stephanie Stradley and they are interesting. The part that was referenced above about direct vs circumstantial evidence is curious to me. Generally speaking, it would appear to me there is little direct evidence in this case and most of it centers around the gauges and how they were used. Clearly it is of questionable quality though - Exponent/Wells create bunches of assumptions about actual pre-game values (including contradicting the person who says he's pretty sure what gauge he used), half time values didn't include the full Colts balls which are still erroneously used as a control of sort. Video footage showing McNally going into the bathroom would appear to be direct evidence at first, but since we don't see what he does in there - it is really circumstantial evidence. All the text messaging is circumstantial evidence - plausible reasons can be offered for much of it, and no smoking gun.
In the interview Wells stated the direct evidence supported his conclusions and met the standard of proof necessary. Is this really true? People are (IMO validly) ripping the 'scientific proof' which is based on assumptions balanced on top of flawed choices piled on top of more assumptions fed into formulas which require precision. Absent scientific proof all that is left is a conclusion about some time in the bathroom and text messages between two people who clearly didn't care what kinds of things they texted on company phones and yet there is still no smoking gun - they all have to be read negatively to get to a guilty place.
All that said, my question is this. If Wells were being peer reviewed (don't know if the profession even does this) would he be getting slammed by his legal brethren? If this report were his work at the age of 25 (and he didn't have a long reputation, etc.) and he was looking to move firms, would it hurt him, help him, neither? It was claimed to be an independent report, does it read that way to legal minds? I'm just trying to get a handle on the actual report from the perspective of legal eyes. Thanks for any discussion in this direction.
Edit: Is his use of the term direct evidence in the press conference sneaky smart or sleazy given how little direct evidence is actually present?
Unless you realize that McD learned it from Belichick and the Pats are to blame for that one as well. This whole thing has left the world of logic and facts a long time ago. Fat Francesa brought up the taped walkthrough the other day and justified it by saying the Rams think it happened. He asked why that it is. Maybe because they lost to a 14 point underdog that they didn't think belonged on the same field as them. Sour grapes are something.ivanvamp said:
Just read the Harbaugh piece in SI. He is fucking insane. I'm 10 trillion miles from big time college sports -- or having a kid that might play it -- but do parents read that stuff and say, "oooh, that's the guy I want my son to play for?" I understand that *all* bigtime college FB coaches are a bit nuts, but I've never read stuff about Nick Saban, for example, that made me think he's a fucked-up person.
The Saints got screwed for a greater purpose, though. If the NFL showed via a weak punishment that their teams might have supported injuring other players -- that would have cost them billions in CTE litigation.Ed Hillel said:
So I can at least understand why Goodell abused his power with the Saints.
The three salient points any competent defense of Brady and the Patriots needs to address are these.
1. Did McNally and Jastremski do anything wrong? I.e., did they illegally tamper with the Patriots' footballs after the officials checked the balls? If the answer is no, then this issue is over. If, however, the answer is yes, move to point 2.
2. Did Tom Brady or Bill Belichick tell them to do it, or did they do it on their own? If the answer is no, TB or BB didn't direct or ask them to do it, then the discipline goes to these two guys and maybe the organization as a whole should take a small hit as well, since they are ultimately responsible for their employees. But Brady should get nothing. If the answer is yes, TB and/or BB were involved, move to point 3.
3. What should the punishment for TB and/or BB be? We can factor in issues like "cooperation" and "repeat offenders" if the situation actually warrants.
My replies to these questions.
1. There is certainly a little suspicious evidence that suggests that McNally and/or Jastremski *MIGHT* have done something illegal with the balls. But the fact of the matter is, when Walt Anderson's memory is approached consistently, the use of the logo gauge tells us that the Patriots' footballs were perfectly consistent with what the laws of physics tells us they *should* be given the conditions and initial measurements. So if they tampered, there's really no evidence of it. Occam's Razor tells us not to multiply entities unnecessarily. If a natural cause is sufficient to explain a phenomenon, we don't need to attribute anything else, unless there's overwhelming evidence to the contrary. There certainly is nothing resembling overwhelming evidence, and a natural explanation works perfectly fine. So it's actually more probable than not that they didn't do anything against the rules here.
2. There certainly is NO evidence AT ALL that Brady or Belichick had anything to do with this. In fact, the direct evidence we do have vis-a-vis Brady is that he was crystal clear that he wanted the footballs at 12.5psi. Never do they refer to him wanting it lower than that. Never does Brady mention any number below that. Never. Ever. The Wells report, after 103 days and 243 pages, could only claim that it is more probable than not that Brady had a "general awareness" of the actions of McNally and Jastremski. That's it.
3. As we've discussed, the penalty meted out to Brady and the Patriots wasn't even CLOSE to what the rulebook or precedent called for. Again:
- Tampering with the football? The Chargers got no penalty. The Panthers got no penalty. The Vikings got no penalty. The rulebook only calls for a $25k fine.
- Not cooperating? Favre got $50k. The Chargers got $20k. New Orleans cooperated fully and still got hammered. This is a non-issue.
- Repeat offender? The Jets were disciplined by the NFL three times from 2010-2015, and the lightest penalty they were given was for the last one (the Revis tampering). Denver was a multiple time offender and were hit with a total penalty of $100,000 for their own Spygate infraction in 2010. And that Spygate infraction was worse than what NE did, AND it came just three years after the Patriots' issue, so you'd think that the league would come down very hard on them for that. Nope.
In other words, no matter how you slice it, the Pats got hammered WAY, WAY outside the bounds of what's reasonable. Tagliabue made this point to Goodell in the Saints' case a few years ago. There was just no justification for Goodell's punishments. Just as there's no justification for these as well.
Any semi-competent judge should see these points clearly. And a fully competent judge will see how this was a railroad job from the beginning, and will issue discipline to the NFL for how they've handled this. The entire thing could have been stopped right at the beginning if Goodell had said, look, the readings of both teams' footballs were consistent with the laws of physics, the whole issue would have gone away.
1. Did McNally and Jastremski do anything wrong? I.e., did they illegally tamper with the Patriots' footballs after the officials checked the balls? If the answer is no, then this issue is over. If, however, the answer is yes, move to point 2.
2. Did Tom Brady or Bill Belichick tell them to do it, or did they do it on their own? If the answer is no, TB or BB didn't direct or ask them to do it, then the discipline goes to these two guys and maybe the organization as a whole should take a small hit as well, since they are ultimately responsible for their employees. But Brady should get nothing. If the answer is yes, TB and/or BB were involved, move to point 3.
3. What should the punishment for TB and/or BB be? We can factor in issues like "cooperation" and "repeat offenders" if the situation actually warrants.
My replies to these questions.
1. There is certainly a little suspicious evidence that suggests that McNally and/or Jastremski *MIGHT* have done something illegal with the balls. But the fact of the matter is, when Walt Anderson's memory is approached consistently, the use of the logo gauge tells us that the Patriots' footballs were perfectly consistent with what the laws of physics tells us they *should* be given the conditions and initial measurements. So if they tampered, there's really no evidence of it. Occam's Razor tells us not to multiply entities unnecessarily. If a natural cause is sufficient to explain a phenomenon, we don't need to attribute anything else, unless there's overwhelming evidence to the contrary. There certainly is nothing resembling overwhelming evidence, and a natural explanation works perfectly fine. So it's actually more probable than not that they didn't do anything against the rules here.
2. There certainly is NO evidence AT ALL that Brady or Belichick had anything to do with this. In fact, the direct evidence we do have vis-a-vis Brady is that he was crystal clear that he wanted the footballs at 12.5psi. Never do they refer to him wanting it lower than that. Never does Brady mention any number below that. Never. Ever. The Wells report, after 103 days and 243 pages, could only claim that it is more probable than not that Brady had a "general awareness" of the actions of McNally and Jastremski. That's it.
3. As we've discussed, the penalty meted out to Brady and the Patriots wasn't even CLOSE to what the rulebook or precedent called for. Again:
- Tampering with the football? The Chargers got no penalty. The Panthers got no penalty. The Vikings got no penalty. The rulebook only calls for a $25k fine.
- Not cooperating? Favre got $50k. The Chargers got $20k. New Orleans cooperated fully and still got hammered. This is a non-issue.
- Repeat offender? The Jets were disciplined by the NFL three times from 2010-2015, and the lightest penalty they were given was for the last one (the Revis tampering). Denver was a multiple time offender and were hit with a total penalty of $100,000 for their own Spygate infraction in 2010. And that Spygate infraction was worse than what NE did, AND it came just three years after the Patriots' issue, so you'd think that the league would come down very hard on them for that. Nope.
In other words, no matter how you slice it, the Pats got hammered WAY, WAY outside the bounds of what's reasonable. Tagliabue made this point to Goodell in the Saints' case a few years ago. There was just no justification for Goodell's punishments. Just as there's no justification for these as well.
Any semi-competent judge should see these points clearly. And a fully competent judge will see how this was a railroad job from the beginning, and will issue discipline to the NFL for how they've handled this. The entire thing could have been stopped right at the beginning if Goodell had said, look, the readings of both teams' footballs were consistent with the laws of physics, the whole issue would have gone away.
I wouldn't put Bountygate or anything else in the same conversation with this. The punishment was overblown but at its heart it was a player safety issue. Yes, players are trying to knock the shit out of other players all the time, but you really shouldn't be condoning intentional injury in any fashion. Even if it was a much smaller issue than the NFL says, something happened that shouldn't have and that could matter to the game.
You can't even feel the difference in 0.5 pounds of pressure in a ball. Deflation has literally nothing to do with gaining an advantage, and any time you compare it to other scandals or even waste time arguing the science of it (even if it's bunk), they've won. If you start to argue facts, you have tacitly accepted the premise that it matters. That reframes the conversation when the correct response is to laugh like Brady did when he was first asked about it.
You can't even feel the difference in 0.5 pounds of pressure in a ball. Deflation has literally nothing to do with gaining an advantage, and any time you compare it to other scandals or even waste time arguing the science of it (even if it's bunk), they've won. If you start to argue facts, you have tacitly accepted the premise that it matters. That reframes the conversation when the correct response is to laugh like Brady did when he was first asked about it.
It isn't quite over. If one of the "charges" against Brady is that he obstructed the investigation (or whatever faux-legal term the NFL uses), that charge is separate from whether anything illegal actually happened. That said, the *current* penalty is way beyond reasonable; so if the "charges" are reduced, the penalty is even more unreasonable.
joe dokes said:
I did address that point. If Brady did not cooperate (a dubious charge), then his penalty should be consistent with others who have not cooperated. Namely, Favre and the Chargers. So ok, level a fine of $20k to $50k. Heck, make it $100k if you really want. A four game suspension (worth $2 MILLION)???
Moreover, Brady himself isn't a repeat offender. He's never ever ever ever had a sniff of wrongdoing before. Suh got his penalty for stomping on Aaron Rodgers wiped out because he wasn't treated as a repeat offender, because his prior instance was more than 32 games ago. See (http://www.freep.com/story/sports/nfl/lions/2014/12/30/ndamukong-suh-dirty/21078689/).
So Brady, a first-time "offender" for anything, got a 4-game suspension and a $2 million loss of salary for "more probably than not" having a "general awareness" that McNally and Jastremski may have been doing something wrong, and for not cooperating. There is, of course, no rule in the NFL rulebook against having a "general awareness" of wrongdoing. And not cooperating got others a $20k or $50k fine.
What they did to Brady was unconscionable.
The difference between direct evidence and circumstantial is way overblown. "Circumstantial" doesn't mean "bad." It just means that the evidence requires an inference to reach a conclusion re: proving an issue of fact.RetractableRoof said:
The strength of the evidence depends on the plausibility of the inference, and the relation of the evidence to other pieces of evidence that together prove the fact at issue. Circumstantial evidence can be strong - ask Mr. Hernandez.
If I'm at a party, and I discover that one of my Guinness tall boys was swiped from the fridge, it's not direct evidence that Kilgore was there. But, come on.
My biggest take away from the report is that it's a pure advocacy piece, not an independent investigation.RetractableRoof said:
If I represented the NFL asked one of our younger attorneys to write a motion to the court arguing our position in support of a request for punishment, I would say he/she did a good job with the limited evidence available.
However, if I asked for an internal memo weighing the strengths and weaknesses of the case to best determine what likely occurred, I would be pretty disappointed in the work product.
I would also be pretty upset that he/she failed to ask critical questions of key witnesses during interviews/depositions and claiming he/she didn't have enough time to review key pieces of evidence prior to the interview/deposition.
Stradley covers that in the back-and-forth:OilCanShotTupac said:
It's not that the evidence is weaker in-and-of-itself because it's circumstantial rather than direct, but it's bizarre that an experienced lawyer like Wells, who presumably knows the difference, falsely maintains that the evidence is direct when it is clearly not. If Kraft or Goodell or Brady or Vincent makes this mistake, it's not a big deal, because they're not lawyers and shouldn't be expected to know the difference, but Wells ought to know better, and it's hard not to think he's being deliberate untruthful, which undermines his credibility and the investigation's.
It patently obvious that Wells isn't "independent", but rather trying to advance a case. He leaves out anything that is even neutral towards, never mind favorable to, Brady and the Pats. And he begins with the assumption of guilt and works from there.
I think Ivan's summary is essentially what Kessler will argue. Wells produced a prosecutor's brief, much as Chris Christie bought a defense brief that was supposedly independent. Which shows what Roger wanted--not an even-handed investigation, but blood.
I can't help it but when I saw the photo of Mr. Wells, this is who I thought of right away.
https://www.google.ca/search?q=simon+legree&biw=1366&bih=576&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=gVZXVe2yE8qcyATTv4Aw&sqi=2&ved=0CEgQsAQ#imgdii=V2M6_kkw9nLT3M%3A%3BV2M6_kkw9nLT3M%3A%3BkC1oNSu9jTdfkM%3A&imgrc=V2M6_kkw9nLT3M%253A%3BAr-FlZM5NVAgQM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fstatici.behindthevoiceactors.com%252Fbehindthevoiceactors%252F_img%252Fchars%252Fchar_44706.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.behindthevoiceactors.com%252Fshorts%252FMerrie-Melodies%252FSimon-Simon-Legree%252F%3B210%3B240
https://www.google.ca/search?q=simon+legree&biw=1366&bih=576&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=gVZXVe2yE8qcyATTv4Aw&sqi=2&ved=0CEgQsAQ#imgdii=V2M6_kkw9nLT3M%3A%3BV2M6_kkw9nLT3M%3A%3BkC1oNSu9jTdfkM%3A&imgrc=V2M6_kkw9nLT3M%253A%3BAr-FlZM5NVAgQM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fstatici.behindthevoiceactors.com%252Fbehindthevoiceactors%252F_img%252Fchars%252Fchar_44706.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.behindthevoiceactors.com%252Fshorts%252FMerrie-Melodies%252FSimon-Simon-Legree%252F%3B210%3B240
Average Reds said:
It wont. At all. He is not his brother's keeper. But, hey, Harbaugh family fucked-up-i-tude is a break from un-billed hours..
Pardon my digression into something or someone who is in no way involved in this whole shitshow that all of us are striving mightily to get to the bottom of in time for Tom to rely on us.
Are any of the attorneys identified in the Wells report members of the Mass bar? Because, it's an interesting 'going to war' tactic to consider whether a bar complaint investigation will move at a faster rate than other types of discovery might.
Yes, this is dirty pool as legal profession expectations go. I doubt anyone on the Pats legal team is willing to go there.
Yes, this is dirty pool as legal profession expectations go. I doubt anyone on the Pats legal team is willing to go there.
dcmissle said:
The resulting antitrust suit might bankrupt all of them. I don't think they'd go there with Kraft; the risk is too large.
Players make comments about opposing coaches all the time, many far less charitable than "read the rulebook". None of those comments have resulted in anything like this happening.norm from cheers said:
You need to consider the following:Van Everyman said:
1.) Despite the fact that there would have been 10's if not 100's of witnesses to such an event, and despite the fact that one Tomase broke this story reporters from all over were doing everything they could to verify this story, noone was able to corroborate it at all. Print columns would always say "In a story released by the Boston Herald's John Tomase....", because no single journalist was every able to find anything to even faintly verify that the story even could have taken place.
2.) Tomase retracted the story once Matt Walsh testified that he never did such thing.
3.) During the retraction, Tomase essentially threw his single source under the bus, and clearly stated that to his knowledge the events in the story never took place.
Based on the above, it's easy to conclude that it was "more probable than not" that the story was completely bogus. All of the above can be verified by quick search of Google and Wikipedia, which is why posters here get "distraught" when this stupidity is brought up.
This is the type of information I was looking for. I'm trying to get a sense of what this quality of work represents.Bongorific said:
Thank you for responding.
This is one, of many, reasona I think the Pats are going to fight this tooth and nail. The Herald and Tomas's can publish a retraction and apology every single day and it won't change the public's perceptions on the walk through tape. They already suffered irreparable damage based on one false story. They won't let it happen again.lexrageorge said:
It has already happened again... this will never go away no matter any legal resolution short of league office issuing an apology.cshea said:
That's why Kraft believing in the innocence of the team demanded one.
Oh of course. The damage is done and nothing will change that. The difference, IMO, is with the walk through tapes they swallowed their pride and made up with the Herald and basically let it drop. They won't do that this time around.
What rule of professional responsibility did they violate? Working for an asshole? Because if that's a viable basis for discipline, we're all going to be out of a job.PedroKsBambino said:
What's so tough is that you have media people who ought to know better (-cough- Francesca -cough-) saying things that simply aren't true. It's almost as if people on the airwaves driving the sports conversation around the country haven't even really been following the story. I mean I heard the other day a talk show host - not a caller - ask incredulously, well why didn't the Colts' footballs deflate?cshea said:
When these morons are driving the sports conversation, and when you have Franceaca actually shouting down callers who are trying to explain the science, telling them, "Don't give me formulas! We KNOW they tampered with the footballs!!" Then it's pretty difficult to undo the damage.
Not that they should just accept it, but holy cow.
What we need is a judge ruling on this, saying that the Wells report was a farce, that the league went after the Patriots despite knowing the evidence wxpnerated them, Goodell should be fired, and the Patriots are completely exonerated here. The entire penalty is rescinded.
That is what we need. I hope we get it.