Not only that, but what is it about the NFL that has created this culture of crybabies?LuckyBen said:It just amazes me how easily the NFL is willing to throw one of its greatest teams under the bus. No chance the NBA does anything to tarnish Lebron. MLB slid steroid use under the rug. And yet the NFL is worried about air pressure and the integrity of the game while its players murder and have all other sorts of serious issues.
The league is very aggressive with rule enforcement and discipline...unless a player beats a woman, that is.LuckyBen said:It just amazes me how easily the NFL is willing to throw one of its greatest teams under the bus. No chance the NBA does anything to tarnish Lebron. MLB slid steroid use under the rug. And yet the NFL is worried about air pressure and the integrity of the game while its players murder and have all other sorts of serious issues.
The variation of the 2 refs measurements was up to .5 psi per ball, did they use the same gauge, what is the accuracy of each gauge?koufax32 said:Using these readings we assume the Patriots' balls were measured immediately. For a conservative number let's say within 5 min. of entering a 71 degree environment. Using the experiment done by Car. Mellon and the time numbers given to us by DennyDoylesBoil, also assuming a starting pressure of 12.5 psi, the Patriot balls should have measured between 11.0 and 11.5. Forget the rest of the noise and speculation. If we base the whole thing on those assumptions then these numbers are hard facts.
The only way there was tampering going on is if it was done by less than .5 psi and even that's questionable. Texts are subjective. Motives are subjective. These numbers are not.
What am I missing??
djbayko said:They didn't ask for his entire phone's contents tho.
Ed Hillel said:What if Brady didn't have any? Could they just assume he's lying and claim he was being uncooperative?
.nighthob said:They didn't assume that the balls measured 12.5psi at 71º, they used the assumption that they measured 12.5psi at room temperature and were then warmed up later in the 71-74 range. This decreases the amount of reduction in pressure on the front end while maximising the expected increase on the back end. If they used the same temperature range on both ends then the balls fall within the expected range.
In fairness, a good portion of the media, including surprisingly some World Wide Leaders, seem to think this situation is vastly overblown.ivanvamp said:Heh. I just noticed the title: "INVESTIGATIVE REPORT CONCERNING FOOTBALLS USED DURING THE AFC CHAMPIONSHIP GAME ON JANUARY 18, 2015".
It's clear that they don't care ONE LITTLE BIT about any other football shenanigans that might or might not be happening around the league. And once again, I will refer us all to this story:
http://espn.go.com/blog/minnesota-vikings/post/_/id/11218/nfl-aware-of-game-ball-incident-during-panthers-vikings
"MINNEAPOLIS -- The Minnesota Vikings played their coldest home game in 38 years on Sunday, when they beat the Carolina Panthers in 12-degree temperatures at TCF Bank Stadium.
As both teams dealt with the freezing temperatures, Fox cameras showed sideline attendants using heaters to warm up game balls, which is against league rules. NFL vice president of officiating Dean Blandino said Monday morning on NFL Network that officials warned both the Vikings and Panthers not to heat up the balls during Sunday's game, and would remind teams this week not to heat game balls.
"You can't do anything with the footballs in terms of any artificial, whether you're heating them up, whether it's a regular game ball or kicking ball, you can't do anything to the football," Blandino said. "So that was noticed during the game, both teams were made aware of it during the game and we will certainly remind the clubs as we get into more cold weather games that you can't do anything with the football in terms of heating them up with those sideline heaters."
By rule, the home team is responsible for providing the game balls. The footage shown on NFL Network is from the Vikings' sideline,though there are attendants from both teams on both sidelines and a league source said the Vikings weren't heating up the balls during the game.
Zimmer said he hadn't heard anything from the league about it on Monday, adding, "Somebody told me (Carolina's) ball boys were doing it."
Ball boys are allowed to carry hand heaters, as Fox officiating analyst Mike Pereira pointed out, but they are not allowed to put game balls in front of sideline heaters. The Vikings have two December home games on their schedule -- this Sunday against the New York Jets and Dec. 28 against the Chicago Bears. After the league sent out a warning, it stands to reason they'll be watching the sidelines closely in cold-weather games this month."
So the NFL watched the Panthers (specifically) tampering with the air pressure in the footballs during a game (note, this was AFTER they were cleared by the game official), and this was SO SERIOUS A CRIME that they actually told the teams not to do it, and that they'd issue everyone else a note along those lines.
The integrity of the game is clearly at stake, right? Football pressure is so important that league rules MUST be followed or else. Or else..what? It's like the night watchman yelling, "Stop, or I'll yell stop again!"
The Patriots have deflated footballs in a similar cold-weather game, and they MAY or MAY NOT have tampered with them (still no proof they did, though it wouldn't surprise any of us if McNally did), and the Pats might be facing the suspension of the best player in the NFL as a result - and there is NO EVIDENCE that he was actually involved at all - just that he more likely than not "had a general knowledge" of what was going on.
A team is caught ON TV tampering with the footballs during a game and they get.nothing. Absolutely. Nothing. But the Patriots, who are NOT caught actually doing anything but circumstantial evidence leads a biased investigator-for-hire to the conclusion that they more likely than not did do something, will be hit hard with punishment.
This cannot be emphasized enough how unfair this is to the Patriots. The media should be ALL OVER THIS. How on earth is this just? How on earth is this in any way fair or right?
Not just team but agruably it's greatest player. But the NFL has never been a player's league like the NBA. It's seen them as replacable commodities. They only care about maximizing the owners' financials.LuckyBen said:It just amazes me how easily the NFL is willing to throw one of its greatest teams under the bus. No chance the NBA does anything to tarnish Lebron. MLB slid steroid use under the rug. And yet the NFL is worried about air pressure and the integrity of the game while its players murder and have all other sorts of serious issues.
I know! Like pointing out that according to evidence submitted in proof of his ongoing conspiracy he requested a copy of the actual rule to show the referees!nattysez said:Do you really not understand the difference between Brady's ongoing in-person discussions with J about how he wanted the balls (which info was then conveyed to M by J) and his sudden interest in talking directly to M, who'd actually been doing the deflating, via phone and text when the allegations surfaced?
The excuse-making on here for Brady is mind-blowing.
Granted, I don't know how the investigators requested these records, but I work in a division of fraud investigations, and when we ask for cell phone records, we don't ask for all of them, but we ask for all of them within key timeframes. In this regard, it wouldn't surprise me if they asked for Brady's complete phone records surrounding the AFCCG, and a few other key dates. I really doubt they'd ask him or his lawyer to comb through for "specific texts/calls between yourself and Parties A/B/C between this date and that date" because that gives the party being investigated an opportunity to doctor the records, in which case it's garbage as far as evidence goes.Jettisoned said:
Doesn't really change anything. They'd have criticized him for not giving them much to go on and it's basically the same situation as if he refused outright.
CSNNE covering it live at 7:30pjr said:Any media outlets covering Brady live tonight?
But wouldn't they have the other end of the conversation? This makes no sense.PhilPlantier said:
Yes. They could find it "more probable than not" that he was lying, because it is unlikely that Brady, who was a "catalyst" based on "most plausible" reading of the text exchanges, would not have reached out to discuss the issue. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
That's why this portion of the report rings so hollow:
"[W]e offered to allow Brady‟s counsel to screen and control the production so that it would be limited strictly to responsive materials and would not involve our taking possession of Brady‟s telephone or other electronic devices."
If counsel "screens and controls" the production, and the investigation then fails to bear fruit, it invites an inference that counsel was not forthcoming.
ivanvamp said:Heh. I just noticed the title: "[SIZE=12pt]INVESTIGATIVE REPORT CONCERNING FOOTBALLS USED DURING THE AFC CHAMPIONSHIP GAME ON JANUARY 18, 2015".[/SIZE]
It's clear that they don't care ONE LITTLE BIT about any other football shenanigans that might or might not be happening around the league.
Investigative Activities
A. Scope of Investigation
On January 23, 2015, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell publicly announced that
the NFL had retained Theodore V. Wells, Jr. and Paul, Weiss to conduct an investigation,
together with NFL Executive Vice President Jeff Pash, into whether the footballs used in the
AFC Championship Game complied with the specifications set forth in the NFL‟s Playing Rules.
As described by the League, the “goals of the investigation will be to determine the explanation
for why footballs used in the game were not in compliance with the playing rules and specifically
whether any noncompliance was the result of deliberate action.”
KenTremendous said:
I think everything in the report has been dissected, interpreted, misinterpreted, and debated. Let's play an exciting round of: Gedankenexperiment!
Let's say Brady wants the balls at 12.5. He knows the rules, to a T, he likes the balls at the minimum, and he hammers -- absolutely hammers -- the ball guys all the time about making sure the balls are at the low end. Once in practice he threw a pick because the ball floated on him, and he (just to be a dick) checked the pressure and it was 13.6 and the ball boys realized they had missed this one, somehow, and Brady went nuts and threatened to have them all shipped to Green Bay in February. Brady has sat these guys down and let them know in very clear "I AM GOD AROUND HERE" terms that he needs his footballs as squishy as possible, and if they don't make his footballs as squishy as possible, goodbye cool job you can brag to your friends about.
Then let's say the ball guys begin to resent how hard he is on them. Welker and Edelman and Ridley take the same abuse, but they're making millions and they're pros. We're just part-time employees, for Chrissakes. Why is he such a dick to us all the time? Brady knows he's tough on them and gives them autographed stuff they can sell -- the least he can do, and also, hey, they do a decent job keeping my equipment the way I like it. But behind the scenes they bitch about him all the time. Because it's cool to be so close to Tom Brady that you can bitch to your friends about what an ass he is.
Then let's imagine that what they are doing, to get the balls the way Brady likes, isn't -- and I know this is shocking -- to get a very accurate hand gauge and do a precise adjustment. What they are doing is just sticking a needle in, after the ref checks, and letting it hiss out for a sec. They know the balls are at 13 or so when they come out of the box, so after the ref check (which they assume shows them to be 13ish), they just go "Psssssssss" for five seconds. So they did that, like they always do, and they didn't really consider that it might matter what the exact measurements are -- because literally no one had ever cared before. They know it's maybe a little dicey (as does Brady) to mess with the balls after the ref checks them -- they all know they are not supposed to do that -- but it's the only way to guarantee that the refs don't inflate them back up to like 13.5 (or 16, apparently, if they're playing the Jets). And also, come on, who cares, as long as it's in the range, more or less, right?
But then the needle went in too long, the AFCCG balls went down too low, they were exacerbated by the change in temperature, the Colts had tipped off the league, and now all this.
The question is: in this scenario, which is something close to how I think it went down, is Brady guilty of violating the $25K-fine rule?
I am sincerely asking -- I think one could argue that he may bear some responsibility, in this scenario, in some way. I think any decent lawyer could also easily get him out of even a fine. But I'm curious to hear other thoughts.
They did, but the way they did it was... how to say this... they are playing a game called stupid or liar, where it doesn't matter what the outcome is, because either way, they win.Jettisoned said:
They did include differences between wet and dry footballs.
Ed Hillel said:But wouldn't they have the other end of the conversation? This makes no sense.
Harry Hooper said:
I don't get the reference to Wilson shipping balls out at 13 psi. They don't take the game balls out of a box right before the game. They are extensively broken in be each team for their own QB and turned over to the refs on game day.
Everyone's already stipulated that Wells wanted the ability to comb through every text to quote mine anything that could be construed to support the conclusion he was working from.PhilPlantier said:I'm sorry, I'm not sure what you're asking. What I took from the report is that investigators wanted Brady's text/call data because the information they wanted wasn't available from any other source. They didn't have the other end of "the conversation" because they weren't even sure whom Brady might have spoken to about deflation, or whether such communications even existed.
PhilPlantier said:
Yes. They could find it "more probable than not" that he was lying, because it is unlikely that Brady, who was a "catalyst" based on "most plausible" reading of the text exchanges, would not have reached out to discuss the issue. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
That's why this portion of the report rings so hollow:
"[W]e offered to allow Brady‟s counsel to screen and control the production so that it would be limited strictly to responsive materials and would not involve our taking possession of Brady‟s telephone or other electronic devices."
If counsel "screens and controls" the production, and the investigation then fails to bear fruit, it invites an inference that counsel was not forthcoming.
RedOctober3829 said:
Okay, I can't find it right now, so I am probably misremembering the statement. Either way, I'm still on the side of "Brady shouldn't have shared any texts."PhilPlantier said:
Are you basing your conclusions about the scope of the request on this portion of the report?
"Of note, Tom Brady was asked to provide emails and text messages in response to narrowly tailored requests pertinent to the subject of our investigation. Brady declined our request."
From experience both sending and receiving interrogatories, I can assure you that "narrowly tailored" means very different things to lawyers sitting on opposite sides of the table. I'm not excusing Brady's general lack of cooperation, but I wouldn't dismiss concerns about the breadth of the request based on Wells' self-serving suggestion that the request was reasonable and non-intrusive.
drleather2001 said:Please keep us updated. Don't have NFL network.
Yeah, who knows what it means. It could mean Wells offered to let Brady's firm host any responsive documents on its server/platform and have no actual file transfer.Shelterdog said:
The "to screen and control" is odd language. Maybe the associate just oddly drafted it and no one caught it, but as drafted it suggests to me that Wells said "we look over your shoulder at your document review.:
?Luis Taint said:MSNBC, and Chris Matthews, just set journalism back 20 years with their coverage.
Best sentence yet in this epic thread.ivanvamp said:And oh yeah, my Three Games to Glory DVD just arrived today.