#DFG: Canceling the Noise
- Thread starter nattysez
- Start date
lexrageorge said:
You know, despite my reading so much about this case my wife is ready to throw my computer into the driveway, I don't actually know what the "obvious reasons" are for the suspension of McNally and Jastremski. Is it that they were part of an agreed-upon joint disciplinary action by the NFL and Patriots, back before the time the NFL lowered the boom and Kraft decided the penalties were really not ok with him? Or because JJ and JM were talking trash about the talent? Or because their texts are assumed to be evidence of a conspiracy, whether or not one of them actually altered the air pressure after the referee inspected the footballs?
Can Kraft build a case with the other owners for an independent investigation into the release of information from the NFL.
Anonymous leaks to the press stating one set of numbers (since proven to be false)
letter to Kraft from Senior Vice President dated 01/19/2015 stating another set of numbers (since proven to be false)
letter to Kraft with correct numbers (?) but with instructions not to release them
Wells report finally revealing the numbers but with enough 'unknowns' to throw the whole thing in question
This is what needs to be addressed by the league - bullshit innuendo and false data that continually paints the Patriots in a negative light.
Anonymous leaks to the press stating one set of numbers (since proven to be false)
letter to Kraft from Senior Vice President dated 01/19/2015 stating another set of numbers (since proven to be false)
letter to Kraft with correct numbers (?) but with instructions not to release them
Wells report finally revealing the numbers but with enough 'unknowns' to throw the whole thing in question
This is what needs to be addressed by the league - bullshit innuendo and false data that continually paints the Patriots in a negative light.
Staying at a Holiday Inn wouldn't help. It would need to be a Holiday Inn Express....dcmissle said:
Can't respond to PMs on my phone. But read a couple sentences before that one and it says that each ball was inspected by measuring it on two different gauges.h8mfy said:
dcmissle said:
The Pats released it, and they also released proof that the NFL knew the numbers were wrong (March 23, I think), but prohibited the Pats from disclosing the corrected numbers to the public
Probably not. The other 31 owners just want this to go away. The longer it drags on, especially if it ends up in court, the more damage it does to their business interests.pappymojo said:
You think the guy who wrote the letter took the measurement?tims4wins said:
"The NFL" isn't how you should be looking at this.
It was noted in the Wells report too. Teddy brushed it off as a harmless fog-of-war information accuracy snafu.tims4wins said:
Myt1 said:
Obviously not. And in and of itself, sending the incorrect number to the Pats isn't the issue. To me, the issue is that they did not disclose the correct figure to the Pats immediately, and furthermore, instructed the Pats to keep it quiet while the Pats brand continued to take a hit.
Again, I have no understanding of what malice is or how it applies, I am just more generally discussing how the NFL looks really bad in handling all of this should certain things ever make it to court, I think.
So the Report and Teddy acknowledged, when they did publish, that 10.1 was inaccurate. There goes the falsity element, another essential part of pleading a libel or defamation case that can withstand a motion to dismiss.cshea said:
Right, but could Kraft convince them that the only way he allows this to go away is with a thorough and independent investigation, because I would take finding out who released what to the press (and firing them if appropriate) as a victory. I view the draft picks as a sunk cost. I just want to nail the asshole that was spreading dishonest information.cshea said:
Myt1 said:
I don't think much of the legal/defamation possibilities. But I will say that the Wells report is (unsurprisingly) incredibly slippery when it comes to its discussion of what happened with the readings and the notification of the Patriots. The whole thing just stinks:
1) Readings are taken at halftime, with New England's NFL Security rep Richard Farley writing everything down in front of Blakeman, Prioleau, Vincent, Kensil, and a few other guys (pg 66-67).
2) After the game, Farley produces a formal written statement that summarizes what happened and the ball recordings, then gets everybody who witnessed the process to sign it, including Vincent (pg 70-71).
3) No mention of what happened to this statement. But Farley is a low level minion and Vincent and Kensil are at the top of the NFL hierarchy and on the scene. It seems likely that they took possession.
4) Shortly after AFC Championship game ends, "senior league officials" conclude that a formal investigation should be conducted and somebody contacts Senior VP of Football Operations David Gardi to write a letter to the Patriots (100).
5) However, "the NFL personnel providing the air pressure information to Gardi" were not in possession of Farley's written statement (101). Therefore, somehow they communicated the wrong air pressure to him.
6) Vincent, Goodell, and Pash were all CCed on the letter, all of whom likely knew the correct air pressure, but none of whom ever bothered to correct the misinformation.
Most likely, Vincent and Kensil had the Farley statement, they contacted Goodell to discuss next steps (maybe on the phone but maybe in person given that RG was at the game too), and Goodell called Gardi to tell him to write the letter. If it was a game of telephone gone awry it happened within a pretty tight circle of principals who were all in the same location and all of those principals later had ample opportunity to correct the mistake but didn't.
dcmissle said:
Does it mean anything that they knew it was inaccurate long before they made it public or told the Pats that it was inaccurate, thus allowing a long period of time for the Pats / Kraft's brand to take a hit? Honest question.
Eddie Jurak said:
This is just another part of the whole deal that I just don't understand, unless the NFL was determined to label the Pats as guilty, no matter the evidence.
Oh hey, you know those reports that made you guys look bad right before the Super Bowl? Yeah, starting with the tweet from Mort with false info that blew this whole thing up, remember that? Oh and that letter we sent you stating that one of your balls was measured at 10.1 and that all of the Colts balls were a-okay? Yeah, all of that shit was wrong. But, oh, by the way, you can't tell anyone about it. We can't have public opinion sway in your direction! We can't have reporters and fans looking at this objectively with facts!
Why the gag order? What harm would it have done to the integrity of the game or your investigation for some actual TRUTH to come out?
Myt1 said:
This seems kind of ridiculous on its face, doesn't it? The NFL had the exact information from the officials, which were ultimately used in the Wells Report. I don't think there's any reasonable argument to be made that they conflated .2 and 2.0, particularly given that they sent a letter to the Patriots using 10.1 as a number, which was patently untrue. Additionally, we're dealing with numbers here, I'm not sure how opinion can fit in...maybe rumor, depending on the source. Regardless, whether or not the original leaker was mistaken, I feel it's reasonable to conclude that someone within the NFL had to have known the leaked numbers were wrong and knew the difference between 2.0 and 0.2. Nobody corrected it, and, in fact, the NFL sent a letter with false information. I think it would at least survive a motion to dismiss and get into the discovery phase, which I don't feel would be at all helpful to the NFL on the matter.
No, but that's not the point. If an NFL source leaked the original information to "the worldwide leader in sports," would that meet a publication element? That was my original question, because I think it's the only real potential issue to such a suit. If so, the letter wouldn't go to show publication, but malice.
tims4wins said:
You have to consider actual malice at the time the statement is "published," that is, did the maker of the statement know it was false or recklessly disregard whether it was at the time it was made.. And I'm still not convinced "we are going to investigate" is even defamatory, actual malice aside.
When was the gag order? Did I miss this? I assumed the Pats were simply as in the dark about this as anyone, and he letter they received from the league appeared to confirm the wrong numbers.
pappymojo said:
Page 52:
So possible, but not what happened according to the report.
tims4wins said:
I'm thinking of combining them for that reason.
Myt1 said:
Yeah, this is what fascinates me most about this. It's not only that they have a shit process that doesn't fulfill basic minimum criteria for procedural justice, but then they consistently violate even their own shit anyway. The last three high profile disciplinary cases have all been struck down or amended by neutral arbiters.
They pretty much just do whatever they think seems like a good idea at the time. That's not a process.
AB in DC said:
Right. And what the public misses or doesn't care about is that those are a much bigger deal.
The league's "system" fails to pass muster of being a legitimate system at just about every single level. I mean, basically, they don't roll dice, throw darts, or allow trial by combat between battle-cats--that's about it for what they have going for them.
Stitch01 said:
Why? I don't think Kraft has much chance in court period given the league agreement, and I'm not sure how the Brady stuff changes things at all.
dcmissle said:
Bountygate, Rice, Peterson. They're making it up as they go along, sometimes change their minds, and, as per above, do whatever they think makes sense without regard to promulgated standards, precedent, or law.
The mind reels. Do you think it's a self-conscious attempt to appease the media or are they really so self-involved in their NFL bubble that they think they're doing the right thing? I think abject cynicism might be less terrifying than idiocy as an explanation here, but I'm not sure.
Imagine someone acting like this in their personal life.
pappymojo said:
I think this is what Kraft is trying to do--put so much pressure on the league that the league hits the reset button in one way or another, either by getting the commish to dramatically reduce the punishment or by getting the punishment reexamined a la Bountygate. It's really his only legitimate option because actually litigating against the NFL to reverse a disciplinary matter would be such a long, hard road relative to the potential returns.
My NY city lawyer rumor mill tells me that the NFL is meeting with firms and looking to do some kind of internal investigation on conduct by NFL insiders related to deflategate but that information is worth what it costs you
I say this, no one cares. But lawyer-boy says it and it's holy writ?Myt1 said:
Fine. I see how it works here.
Van Everyman said:
This is from the wellsreportcontext.com. Don't think we have seen the actual communication
I believe it was in the Goldberg/Pash emails where the Pats were trying to have Wells investigate the League and the leaks. Goldberg complained about the misinformation out there for 2 months and how they were only provided the correct numbers on 3/23 on the condition they don't make the numbers public.Van Everyman said:
I just want to state that 'fog-of-war' is a funny choice of words.cshea said:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fog_of_war
joe dokes said:
So there's no case that has established a duty to correct false information after the fact? Like I said, I'm not an expert, but I find it hard to believe. Additionally, I don't think that "we are going to investigate" was defamatory, but the mere numbers in and of themselves were. It led to a clear intimation that the Patriots were cheating, and the damages were obvious enough by turning on the television. The NFL was not ignorant to that.
kartvelo said:
Pretty simple IMO: 1) it was a game of telephone and the right figures didn't get into the right person's hands when the letter was written and 2) the NFL didn't want any more leaks since there were so many at the outset. At least that is what the NFL would argue. All of which is probably BS.
No. They were wrong. They may have been defamatory, but that turns on whether the publisher had actual malice. Which is why your repeated conflation of the publisher with "the NFL" isn't helpful.Ed Hillel said:
So, something like "Hey, Bob, those numbers we wrote you about... those were wrong. But listen, don't tell anybody, OK? No need to worry, it'll all come out in the Wells report. Gotcha covered, buddy!"tims4wins said:
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Honestly, do you care what the answer is, or are you just trying to be cute? Because I've written it like 5 times already in the thread.ivanvamp said:
Myt1 said:
That was the question I asked the first time I posted it, which nobody answered. If an organization leaks information to the media, knowing full well it will be published, and it meets all the other elements of defamation, does it still meet the publication standard? The NFL is an extreme example; if somebody leaks information, they know full well it's going to be widely published, especially if the leak is made to ESPN. I know that "communication to a third party" is also language thrown around as it pertains to publication. If the third party is the world's largest sports media entitty, does that count? I would think it does.
Back to my question from a little while ago. If they're conducting a fair investigation and that information told to the Pats was wrong, as soon as they found out it was wrong, didn't they have at least a moral obligation to correct it?tims4wins said:
http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2015/01/26/ted-wells-says-deflategate-investigation-wont-be-a-quick-one/Van Everyman said:
Wells:
“I expect the investigation to take at least several more weeks. In the interim, it would be best if everyone involved or potentially involved in this matter avoids public comment concerning the matter until the investigation is concluded. The results will be shared publicly."
Not that Kraft would ever lead the charge, but do owner(s) have the ability to call for an impeachment of the commish or call for a vote of no confidence?
Kraft has already demonstrated he doesn't care much about $1M. He's probably already paid Goldberg and his team, plus PR people, in that ballpark for all their work related to ball deflation (what would you guess: $500k?). If there is a lawsuit he'll be spending much more.Average Reds said:
The draft picks and reputation are what Kraft cares about - by directing Goldberg to spend time and money creating that web site, he's told everyone that.
Moral obligation, yes, but not a legal obligation. That's why this "defamation" stuff is a waste of bandwidth. The point to make here is that Goodell / NFL HQ are incompetent, biased, or some combination of both. That's where the focus needs to be.ivanvamp said:
ivanvamp said:
kartvelo said:
I mentioned this upthread but the only legitimate reason I can think of for why the Patriots were refused access to the correct halftime measurements for more than two months is that the league and/or Wells wanted to keep the Pats in the vulnerable position of having to defend themselves under the assumption that the evidence against them was far more damning than it actually was (i.e. 10 of 11 balls @ <10.5 PSI, 1 @ 10.1 PSI; all Colts balls within range, etc).
The league conveniently relented on their refusal only after Wells had substantially concluded all of his interviews with Patriots personnel, and even then it came with a strict non-disclosure agreement which likely precluded the Pats from hiring their own outside consultants to conduct a study using the actual measurements.
Myt1 said:
I believe so, as well, although the standard is likely higher since the Patriots as a brand are public figures. Still, I think leaking to ESPN should meet it.
What I'm not understanding is our disconnect, then. Assuming the original leak came from the NFL, I don't understand why we can't look at it as "The NFL." The original leaker is their agent, and Goodell is their agent. How are you suggesting it be looked at? I think we'll have to agree to disagree on the opinion/rumor argument, although I'm sure the NFL would argue that strenuously. I believe there would be enough to survive a motion to dismiss, at least. I am unclear at that point, however, whether the argument of "falsity" comes down to the PSI figures themselves or whether the Patriots actually deflated the footballs. the numbers were clearly false, the intimation the numbers suggest of tampering is clearly up for debate.