#DFG: Canceling the Noise
- Thread starter nattysez
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Give DBGS a break. I didn't see the article because I'm staying out of the "Perceptions" thread. I live out of state and I'm well aware of the Pats' perception. It was a good read.
Posts about general reaction and viewing of this issue are being moved to the Perceptions thread with extreme prejudice.
It's not a knock on the posts, but it's the only way to secure this thread as what it has become: A solid resource for understanding the real technical questions surrounding this issue. I think it's perhaps the best such source around at this point, which is a massive indictment of our sports journalism, but also a testament to the work of our legal talent here, for which we should all be appreciative.
...and for whose sake said other posts are moved, as I cannot bear to see the good information being dropped here diluted and lost.
It's not a knock on the posts, but it's the only way to secure this thread as what it has become: A solid resource for understanding the real technical questions surrounding this issue. I think it's perhaps the best such source around at this point, which is a massive indictment of our sports journalism, but also a testament to the work of our legal talent here, for which we should all be appreciative.
...and for whose sake said other posts are moved, as I cannot bear to see the good information being dropped here diluted and lost.
I think the most telling part of the story is the quote below. To the sore-loser teams like the Colts/Ravens/Jets/Steelers it doesn't really matter what actual evidence exists in this specific case because they KNOW the Patriots are guilty of SOMETHING.
[By reducing the suspension] youre angering some of the hard-core owners out there, said Paolantonio. I know who they are and Im gonna name em right now: Jim Irsay of the Colts. Steve Bisciotti of the Ravens and others in the AFC who believe the Patriots have gotten away with murder for years and have not been publicly punished properly.
[By reducing the suspension] youre angering some of the hard-core owners out there, said Paolantonio. I know who they are and Im gonna name em right now: Jim Irsay of the Colts. Steve Bisciotti of the Ravens and others in the AFC who believe the Patriots have gotten away with murder for years and have not been publicly punished properly.
Hopefully Goodell remembers what happened the last time he caved in to Biscotti regarding a player a suspension.Ed Hillel said:
Can someone explain why the owner who made him look really bad doing a favor for him in that case and the addict who owns a Midwestern small market team are so particularly influential with the commissioner?
soxhop411 said:
The Jets are already well represented in the NFL front office, so no need for them to lobby Goodell any more than that.
It gets more ludicrous by the day, does it not? Another mocking refutation of the Bob Kraft/Mighty Owner fantasy. Bisciotti is a newbie -- a newbie who damn near got Goodell fired after Goodell did him a solid on Rice. Then Bob Kraft rode to the rescue. Throw up in mouth time.judyb said:
I am not surprised. Long believed that one of the main drivers of this is envy AND the need for executives and coaches who keep coming up short to build excuses to save their more than a few seven-figure salaries.
dcmissle said:
So Goodell maintains that he is independent to hear and rule on an appeal that his own office handed down. Now, if Palantonio is to be believed, the very owners whose teams asked Goodell's minions to investigate the Patriots' ball pressure now have influence over Goodell's deliberations of Brady's appeal.
I'm not sure it's possible for the Pats to have good PR anymore, but if so the story about Irsay and Biscotti leading the charge to keep the suspension at 4 games is it. It's such transparent jealousy from big AFC rivals that any level headed media type and fan can see it. If there are any of those left..
People have asked many times whether there will be much in the way of discovery during a federal court case. I have been among those saying, not much but maybe some going to RG's bias.
Based on this report alone, I would seek to depose this unholy trinity of RG, Bisciotti and Irsay. And, of course, there is more than this report -- these two franchises were the instigators in January.
One might just get some discovery along these lies. They will lie in all probability -- but if deposed I'd put them in the uncomfortable position of telling the whole lie. Under oath.
Based on this report alone, I would seek to depose this unholy trinity of RG, Bisciotti and Irsay. And, of course, there is more than this report -- these two franchises were the instigators in January.
One might just get some discovery along these lies. They will lie in all probability -- but if deposed I'd put them in the uncomfortable position of telling the whole lie. Under oath.
dcmissle said:
That has been the fucking dream since January 19. All I want for Christmas - for this year and the rest of my life - is discovery. I will settle for no birthday, Christmas, Father's day, Valentine's day, anniversary, etc. etc. presents for the remainder of my years if we just had access to the league office's communications about this entire fiasco.
There was another interesting nugget in Sal Paolantonio's report, as transcribed by Mike Reiss. I don't think we have heard the internal assessment of the NFL attorneys at this level before.
http://espn.go.com/blog/boston/new-england-patriots/post/_/id/4782832/nullhttp://espn.go.com/blog/boston/new-england-patriots/post/_/id/4782832/null
http://espn.go.com/blog/boston/new-england-patriots/post/_/id/4782832/nullhttp://espn.go.com/blog/boston/new-england-patriots/post/_/id/4782832/null
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2530328-insider-buzz-nfl-believes-brady-will-accept-reduced-deflategate-suspension
So Jason Cole is reporting the League believes TB will cave next week and accept a suspension, to avoid being distracted when camp starts Thursday--and the NFL's bottom line is that Roger needs a suspension for credibility.
The question is the wording--will the League accept wording that makes it all about noncooperation. And if so, will TB accept any suspension. Apparently the NFLPA, for its part, can't wait to get it to federal court.
It sounds like a difficult negotiation, likely to fail on Roger's failure to appreciate that he needs a deal more than Tom does. I doubt that Tom accepts even one game, or that Roger grants exoneration on the cheating.
So Jason Cole is reporting the League believes TB will cave next week and accept a suspension, to avoid being distracted when camp starts Thursday--and the NFL's bottom line is that Roger needs a suspension for credibility.
The question is the wording--will the League accept wording that makes it all about noncooperation. And if so, will TB accept any suspension. Apparently the NFLPA, for its part, can't wait to get it to federal court.
It sounds like a difficult negotiation, likely to fail on Roger's failure to appreciate that he needs a deal more than Tom does. I doubt that Tom accepts even one game, or that Roger grants exoneration on the cheating.
Still trying to figure out exactly what is "hardcore" about either Jim Irsay or Steve Bisciotti. They are just garden-variety chump owners of a couple of relatively small market franchises. Why would the commissioner give any special consideration to what these two clowns think?
Yeah I am at the point where if he willingly accepts a suspension then he is admitting to some level of guilt.Seels said:
That said I 100% believe he is innocent.
Several lawyers in this thread have suggested this has to be the case. The NFL has some good lawyers at its disposal---eventually the adults were bound to tell RG there are rules and this did not satisfy or follow them.Seagull said:
What the fourth rate PR hack does with that info is harder to predict.
I'm kinda convinced they think Brady would accept the suspension -because- they overran Bob Kraft, who capitulated twice before when the NFL levied punishment.
EFFFING BOB KRAFT.
EFFFING BOB KRAFT.
TB12 isn't Kraft and has his own recourse in the form of the NFLPA. He needs to listen to them and not the Patriots.DavidTai said:
Question for the lawyers: At this point can the Patriots even address this issue at all with Brady directly? Wouldn't there be some concern that the team could be placing undue influence/pressure in a player management issue?pappymojo said:
I hope they are successful in lobbying Goodell to keep it at 4 games. I want no part of Brady capitulating. And why don't these hard-core owners - or any other ones - share with the effing class WHAT EXACTLY the infractions are that the Patriots have been getting away with all these years? Like...specifically. Name them. Hell, don't even put your name to it, do it anonymously. What is it that you feel the Patriots have gotten away with?
Seriously - LEAK what they are. You know how to do that, call Bob Kravitz or whoever, put your lips together and blow (me).
Edit: typos and to capitalize Patriots. Because one should.
Seriously - LEAK what they are. You know how to do that, call Bob Kravitz or whoever, put your lips together and blow (me).
Edit: typos and to capitalize Patriots. Because one should.
Steve Bisciotti may well be a successful businessman, but as an NFL owner, he's the very definition of a JAG. Relative noob to the league, nothing particularly remarkable or interesting about either him as an owner, or the franchise he runs. Also Bisciotti absolutely disgraced himself by acting as a shameless apologist for the wife-beating slimebag Ray Rice. To say nothing of his franchise's beatification of Ray Lewis over the past several years.
There's really no good reason for Roger Goodell to have any heightened level of interest in what Steve Bisciotti has to say about anything.
There's really no good reason for Roger Goodell to have any heightened level of interest in what Steve Bisciotti has to say about anything.
There was at least one article in the days following the Deflategate break with a Chinese menu of rule bending examples. Everyone here was livid about the claims.Mugsy said:
I think your request of leaked transgressions has been met several times over. What's missing is someone going on the record with a specific accusation. And that's the thing - there is not evidence of such crimes, and no one is going to go on the record with mere suspicion.
Edit: Not to mention, there were a number of ex-players/front office personnel who did come forward with their suspicions in the afterglow of Deflategate. I don't have time to look them up right now, but one I recall was an ex-GM being certain that the Patriots stole a playoff game from him via videotaping practices. It was only a rumor he heard, but he really wanted to believe it.
I think it means they're absolutely nuts when it comes to competition. I mean, they all are to some degree, but we know Irsay's story, and I think it's fair to say Harbaugh is an extension of his owner. They're wah wah pants, just like Irsay. When they lose, it's never because they were outplayed, there's always some excuse, and hell if they're not going to spend their millions to find and/or create it.Gorton Fisherman said:
On the larger topic, this is a really strange negotiating tactic by the NFL. Leak that you think you can convince Brady to take a suspension? To what end? Is that supposed to pressure Brady into something? At some point, relatively soon probably, NFLPA lawyers will seek to force a ruling on Brady, so there's no real leverage there in scaring him into dragging this out. Really, they seem desperate, and if what Sal Pal reports is true, they probably are.
What's starting to anger me again are the draft picks. Fuck!
Agreed. And they're probably gone, which pisses me off to no end.Ed Hillel said:
But take the long game and see where public sentiment is in the weeks leading up to the draft. April is a long way away.
dcmissle said:
Well, yes. But, given the legal talent Goodell has access to, we also have to assume that he was told he would almost certainly lose in other recent moves he made, yeah? I mean, the Hardy suspension was pretty clearly too big given the timing... but the Ray Rice double jeopardy second-ruling was just absurd.
So we know the NFL will make moves that they will probably lose if they think they have good reason to. I mean, that's part of what makes this so fascinating.
And, frankly, objectionable. So, based on your history in the field--and I know there are vagaries here--when might a judge get irritated when it becomes sufficiently evident that a repeat player entity is playing the system this way? I mean, I know it happens, but is there any consistent threshold or is it just happenstance?
Mugsy's Walk-Off Bunt said:
The annoying thing about that crap--and I don't want to go to far into Public Perception thread territory here, though people are welcome to quote this there--is that this case, because of Goodell's timing of things, now works as evidence against itself. That is to say, the only evidence before this was spygate. But the investigate went on so long, that people got used to hearing about the Patriots cheating with respect to deflating balls, and then when the ruling came out, people were like, "Hey, yeah, I think I remember hearing about them doing that before!" when is was the same. damned. incident.
Psychology even has names for this kind of "priming" to set people up to accept an idea as true.
Federal judges, however, tend to be more rigorous in separating out discrete issues than does the media or the public.
There is no Rev said:
The Commish got exactly what he wanted on the Rice case part deux -- he got Rice off the field at the time when the NFL was getting beaten up the most. And Rice hasn't played a down since. So in that case, yeah, I don't think Goodell cares that it got overturned
Is the worm starting to turn? With the start of football season coming up, more and more of the mainstream media are starting to write about the situation. Up until now, outside of Boston and Indy, it's been basically all NFL "broadcast partners" (with a few exceptions like Florio), none of whom are going to be especially critical of the league's handling of the situation. But regular media folks aren't in the NFL's pocket, and some of them have actual, you know, journalists, who care about what the facts are.
Maybe I'm being too optimistic, but if there's one thing that would get Goodell to cave, it's a belief that public opinion is no longer as anti-Patriots as he thought.
Maybe I'm being too optimistic, but if there's one thing that would get Goodell to cave, it's a belief that public opinion is no longer as anti-Patriots as he thought.
You are confusing tactics with strategy. You're also missing the fact that the NFL and /or any franchise has the power to do that without making complete donkeys of themselves in the process.AB in DC said:
The problem in the Ray Rice case wasn't the fact that he got it wrong by trying to take a second bite at the apple, it's that he got it wrong the first time when he had all the information he needed to get it right. Then he exposed himself as a moral and ethical hypocrite by changing the punishment after the howls of protest (following the initial ruling) and the release of the elevator video.
Again, if getting Ray Rice off the field was the priority, all they had to do was let the Ravens cut him initially. But that's not what the Ravens wanted and the NFL was their enabler.
The fact that the Patriots have no recourse really chaps my hide. I mean, what mechanism exists to stop Goodell from having penalized the Patriots, say, their first round pick for the next ten years? If there's no recourse, there's no recourse, no matter what the penalty is.Section15Box113 said:
Given this, it really is amazing to me how short sighted the other owners are. Yes it's wonderful that their main competition gets hammered in this case. But they are supporting a system that also leaves THEM with no recourse should Goodell bring a totally unreasonable hammer down on them. You'd think that some of them at least would sit up and take notice of this.
Seels said:
People settle for all kinds of reasons. Whether people they dont know will lose respect for them is usually pretty far down the list.
Or he just wants to get on the field and have this whole shitshow over when he says so -- instead of some unknown time down the road when a judge *might* say so. "Hope is a good thing, Red." So is certainty.
Mr. Kraft had a few opportunities to be the one to sit up and take notice. I clearly can't be certain but my take is that he failed to do so.ivanvamp said:
When the definitive book on this is published in a couple of years I really hope there is a lot written about the parallels between & influences of the Rice story (Bisciottie, Goodell, Mort, ESPN, the investigation by independent lawyers, etc.) and this story.
It's like the NFL learned all the wrong lessons.
It's like the NFL learned all the wrong lessons.
I would have advised the NFL that it was very likely to lose both the RR and AP cases. Hardy was a tougher call because it went to Harold Henderson, who had a reputation as RG's go-to guy. Now that makes the defeat sting more.There is no Rev said:
Judges' bullshit meters are pretty sensitive. And judges are entirely unimpressed that the NFL is one of the parties. Litigants are litigants.
Copies of the RR and AP decisions were posted in one of these threads long ago. I suggest reading the former by retired judge Barbara Jones. Her contempt for several of the arguments is only thinly veiled, which is a natural comeuppance when you make bogus arguments that insult the intelligence of the judge.
This case, if it is filed, will be treated on its own merits. The procedural history you refer to will be laid bare. The court will be made to understand who is responsible for the delay. And the point will be made at some point that for such a devastating problem that allegedly imperils the integrity of competition, not a goddamn thing has been done by the NFL on a going forward basis about football inflation or deflation.
I don't know whether TB's case would be filed in MA or Minnesota and, if the latter, whether it would be assigned to Judge Doty. If so, get your popcorn. He has a long history with the NFL. He also was a Korean War combat veteran as a captain in the United States Marine Corps. Guess where his bullshit meter is set.
Not picking on you because this has been said multiple times, but the Rice double jeapordy case did not end up in court. Goodell appointed a truly neutral arbitrator (a *retired* federal judge) to hear Rice's appeal and she tore Goodell a new one. Likewise the Hardy appeal was heard by Harold Henderson, the not-neutral Goodell associate who also heard the Peterson appeal--which was indeed vacated in federal court.AB in DC said:
I can't think of a "conduct detrimental" case other than Peterson where Goodell's discipline was ultimately overturned in court.
Oh and Tagliabue took him to the woodshed in the Bountygate case, but again that was in the CBA appeal context.
Sal Paolantonio on WEEI, suggesting the following "compromise" to satisfy Brady and the hard-line owners:
- League reduces suspension to two games for non-cooperation.
- League issues an official statement exonerating Brady of any wrongdoing related to deflating the footballs.
Brady happy because he's cleared of wrongdoing.
Hardliners happy because he is still punished.
And the Patriots still fined and docked the 1 and 4.
Butch and Bradford seemed to think it was viable and a "common sense" solution, but wondered whether the union would go along.
Personally, I think it's insane. I don't think Brady would take it. And don't think the union would either.
If that's what the NFL office comes up with, we're where we've been for awhile now: see you in court.
- League reduces suspension to two games for non-cooperation.
- League issues an official statement exonerating Brady of any wrongdoing related to deflating the footballs.
Brady happy because he's cleared of wrongdoing.
Hardliners happy because he is still punished.
And the Patriots still fined and docked the 1 and 4.
Butch and Bradford seemed to think it was viable and a "common sense" solution, but wondered whether the union would go along.
Personally, I think it's insane. I don't think Brady would take it. And don't think the union would either.
If that's what the NFL office comes up with, we're where we've been for awhile now: see you in court.
Section15Box113 said:
Union can't, as a practical matter, accept more for non-compliance than past practice (which is Favre's fine, essentially) seems to me.
I also think they are eager to take this as the 'test case' to strike the overall disciplinary process.
Brady might say to league "if you exonerate me, I'll take the one-game suspension---and I won't waive right to sue you for libel" If they truly believe their process, they might take that. And since they nearly surely don't, when they say no to that deal you say "then you need to offer more because we agree the way the NFL conducted this is a problem"
You have made this argument several times and I think that people understand it. The problem is that you are making a general statement rather than a specific judgment about this case.joe dokes said:
I would expect a player at the beginning or middle of their career to want precisely what you have articulated - get this behind them and get on the field. But Brady is at the end of one of the greatest careers in the history of the NFL. I would expect that he cares a hell of lot more about fighting an unjust punishment than just getting back on the field.
I'll agree with you that I don't think he gives a damn what people think of his decisions here. You control what you can control and nothing more.