I'm not entirely sure what you are getting at here, but I think you are mixing up your scandals. Specter's ire was aimed at Spygate, he was dead before Deflategate happened.I wonder if the spreading of sports betting throughout the country in the intervening years would lead to a more thorough investigation by the federal government than a butthurt senator from Pennsylvania, if this incident happened present-day. I'm not under the illusion the result changes, but the course of discovery would lead to much laughter and further exposure of the league office as unfit for managing a Wendy's.
Yes I am mixing it up, thanks for the correction. Agreed about the waste of time it would be for the Senate.I'm not entirely sure what you are getting at here, but I think you are mixing up your scandals. Specter's ire was aimed at Spygate, he was dead before Deflategate happened.
Edit; and in either case I think the Senate wasting time investigating this kind of stuff is silly. It is frustrating as a sports fan, but it is fucking sports.
I wonder if the spreading of sports betting throughout the country in the intervening years would lead to a more thorough investigation by the federal governmentthan a butthurt senator from Pennsylvania, if this incident happened present-day. I'm not under the illusion the result changes, but the course of discovery would lead to much laughter and further exposure of the league office as unfit for managing a Wendy's.
And, FWIW, Specter's comments about Spygate came when PA-based Comcast was in a dispute with the NFL over the terms for carrying NFL Network.I'm not entirely sure what you are getting at here, but I think you are mixing up your scandals. Specter's ire was aimed at Spygate, he was dead before Deflategate happened.
Edit; and in either case I think the Senate wasting time investigating this kind of stuff is silly. It is frustrating as a sports fan, but it is fucking sports.
Unfortunately nothing beats the product they put out there from a sports/competition perspective. YMMV obviously but the season was ridiculously entertaining and the playoffs have been even better. It is the only sport where I can watch full games involving teams I don't care about. The league sucks but the product is better than it ever has been.I know I have asked this before, but do you all still watch these fuckers?
Football good. NFL bad. I'm sure if you've asked it before you know the answers you'll get.I know I have asked this before, but do you all still watch these fuckers?
Just want to point out that this is a great analogy.The NFL collecting PSI readings stands right up there with OJ vowing to find the real killers in terms of lame, disingenuous pursuit of justice.
I cant argue with that or the below. I loved the NFL from the early 1970s until 4 years ago.Unfortunately nothing beats the product they put out there from a sports/competition perspective. YMMV obviously but the season was ridiculously entertaining and the playoffs have been even better. It is the only sport where I can watch full games involving teams I don't care about. The league sucks but the product is better than it ever has been.
Yes, and I don't enjoy the college game as much but it has filled the need for me once I decided the NFL cared about nothing but the NFL.Football good. NFL bad. I'm sure if you've asked it before you know the answers you'll get.
You sure do post a lot about the NFL without watching it.I know I have asked this before, but do you all still watch these fuckers?
Just like music/movies/tv shows good. Entertainment companies bad. With long histories, and recent instances, of racism, misogyny, and corruption. We all hold our noses and rationalize for the things we like and are entertained by. Let's not pretend boycotting any one of them is a particularly noble stand(not saying you are doing this, just pivoting off your post).Football good. NFL bad. I'm sure if you've asked it before you know the answers you'll get.
I personally have a much bigger problem with the NCAA than the NFL. Denying the players the ability to monetize their college careers, particularly those who will never go on to play at the next level, is far worse than anything the NFL did or does, in my opinion. At the pro level at least the players are being paid.I cant argue with that or the below. I loved the NFL from the early 1970s until 4 years ago.
Yes, and I don't enjoy the college game as much but it has filled the need for me once I decided the NFL cared about nothing but the NFL.
When you call a league "fuckers" and say they should get fucked by a fence post but continue to watch it, it raises questions about what WOULD it take to walk away?
It isn't racism. It isn't sexual assault. It isn't "scandals" like Deflategate, it isn't concussions, it isn't getting into bed with politicians.
What would it take?
Obviously Deflategate is not like the others, but if those haven't driven someone away,what would?
I post about their problems, yes.You sure do post a lot about the NFL without watching it.
Good points. The new monetization rules hopefully will help the athletesI personally have a much bigger problem with the NCAA than the NFL. Denying the players the ability to monetize their college careers, particularly those who will never go on to play at the next level, is far worse than anything the NFL did or does, in my opinion. At the pro level at least the players are being paid.
The NFL as an organization is odious but I'm able to compartmentalize, and at least the players indirectly benefit from my eyeballs and dollars.
911, I'd like to report some OG on OG crime.You sure do post a lot about the NFL without watching it.
The opposite. The past 5+ years have laid bare that people will believe whatever the fuck they want to believe as long as they have a scintilla of evidence to hang that belief on and other people telling them to believe it. The weight of opposing evidence does. not. matter.I wonder if the spreading of sports betting throughout the country in the intervening years would lead to a more thorough investigation by the federal governmentthan a butthurt senator from Pennsylvania, if this incident happened present-day. I'm not under the illusion the result changes, but the course of discovery would lead to much laughter and further exposure of the league office as unfit for managing a Wendy's.
The ones who will never go on to play professionally are the ones who are super fortunate to be playing for free college and training. The ones who are stuck playing for a year or two for peanuts because of the NBA/NFL's age limit...they're the ones with a beef.I personally have a much bigger problem with the NCAA than the NFL. Denying the players the ability to monetize their college careers, particularly those who will never go on to play at the next level, is far worse than anything the NFL did or does, in my opinion. At the pro level at least the players are being paid.
The NFL as an organization is odious but I'm able to compartmentalize, and at least the players indirectly benefit from my eyeballs and dollars.
I don't, I watch the NFL after all. To the extent I have more interest in the NFL than the NCAA is just because I don't really have a college team, but I don't begrudge anyone who watches either. My post was in response to Lose who has rationalized watching college over the pros, neither organization is virtuous.The ones who will never go on to play professionally are the ones who are super fortunate to be playing for free college and training. The ones who are stuck playing for a year or two for peanuts because of the NBA/NFL's age limit...they're the ones with a beef.
Anyway, if you only spend your time and money on entertainment when the entertainers AND their financial backers all align with you politically and morally...you're going to be really bored.
To take it a step further, I wish the media would discuss why the PSI range even exists, and what advantage there is to having "under-inflated" balls. We know Aaron Rodgers like balls over 14 PSI. We know that you can't throw a fully deflated football. We also know that when you buy a Wilson NFL football, it says on the box, ideal performance at 12.5-13.5 PSI. Gee, I wonder where the NFL got their "rule" from? None of it makes any sense whatsoever in terms of trying to gain a competitive advantage. Forget the ideal gas law, science, etc. Why does the PSI of the ball matter to the competitive product?As obsessed with justice as I often am, and I take seriously that DeflateGate was a function mostly of sour grapes against the Patriots success by other owners and some league officials and also retaliation against Brady has quietly always been a solid union guy and major part of lawsuits against the league…
I find that, with the passing of the years, whenever I think of DeflateGate, I think less of the league being bullshit—Brady and the Patriots’ talent has long since been vindicated—but how much I had to reassess downwards my already low opinion of both scientific literacy and journalism in this country.
I mean, many have brought up the absurdity of people’s ignorance of the ideal gas law, to say nothing of not applying their own real life experiences to the issue, but remember how long it took the media to stop saying the balls were 2 pounds lighter? And people just mindlessly repeating it as against lived experience? And I just heard it again on one of the national cable news channels covering Brady’s retirement.
Seriously: WTF? I just remember thinking: This is really, really bad, and I didn’t mean the league’s bullshit.
Edit: Dammit @Leather .
Edit2: Or should I say, “You’re with me, @Leather ?
To take it a step further, I wish the media would discuss why the PSI range even exists, and what advantage there is to having "under-inflated" balls. We know Aaron Rodgers like balls over 14 PSI. We know that you can't throw a fully deflated football. We also know that when you buy a Wilson NFL football, it says on the box, ideal performance at 12.5-13.5 PSI. Gee, I wonder where the NFL got their "rule" from? None of it makes any sense whatsoever in terms of trying to gain a competitive advantage. Forget the ideal gas law, science, etc. Why does the PSI of the ball matter to the competitive product?
We don’t let people who don’t like soccer crap all over the soccer forum, because people who watch the sport deserve to have a place to discuss it intelligently. We don’t have a similar blanket rule for BBTL because the NFL has cultural salience in America that soccer doesn’t. For example, you don’t need to follow football to have intelligent opinions about, say, the Brian Flores situation, or the sport’s problem with concussions and the NFL’s handling of that problem, and the NFL is big enough that those issues affect non-fans as well as fans.I know I have asked this before, but do you all still watch these fuckers?
No, I know. I was agreeing with your stance on it.I don't, I watch the NFL after all. To the extent I have more interest in the NFL than the NCAA is just because I don't really have a college team, but I don't begrudge anyone who watches either. My post was in response to Lose who has rationalized watching college over the pros, neither organization is virtuous.
You said it better.As obsessed with justice as I often am, and I take seriously that DeflateGate was a function mostly of sour grapes against the Patriots success by other owners and some league officials and also retaliation against Brady has quietly always been a solid union guy and major part of lawsuits against the league…
I find that, with the passing of the years, whenever I think of DeflateGate, I think less of the league being bullshit—Brady and the Patriots’ talent has long since been vindicated—but how much I had to reassess downwards my already low opinion of both scientific literacy and journalism in this country.
I mean, many have brought up the absurdity of people’s ignorance of the ideal gas law, to say nothing of not applying their own real life experiences to the issue, but remember how long it took the media to stop saying the balls were 2 pounds lighter? And people just mindlessly repeating it as against lived experience? And I just heard it again on one of the national cable news channels covering Brady’s retirement.
Seriously: WTF? I just remember thinking: This is really, really bad, and I didn’t mean the league’s bullshit.
Edit: Dammit @Leather .
Edit2: Or should I say, “You’re with me, @Leather ?
Can you explain?was the guy who allowed the Clement TD in SB52 to stand even though by that year's rule it was not a TD ("we want that to be a catch.")
Exactly this. I was visiting one of my best friends 2 weekends ago, sitting outside in their backyard, when the leaked Brady retirement news hit the wire - he and I both got alerts on our phones. His wife rolled her eyes and tried to explain to me that Brady was a cheater because of deflategate. Nice job completely wrecking the reputation of a guy who did nothing, NFL. It still makes me mad.The greatest player to ever play the game, who has never tested positive for PEDs, has never been arrested, has never been involved in any off the field incident that has brought shame on him or the league, was dragged repeatedly over something that never happened, had an entire Super Bowl run up subsumed by inane speculation about him being a cheater, and ultimately was suspended for four games for that same thing that never happened. And most of the national football media has never properly covered the incident. And 9/10 opposing fans you talk to think he deflated the footballs.
I’ll never let this one go,
The Clement TD should not have counted by the rules of that season as the ball had not stopped moving by the time he got the second foot down before going out of bounds. The call went up for review, and it was reported (and I need to find the source) that Troy Vincent was there as the call was being reviewed and said "We want that to be a catch" and ordered that the TD stand as called.Can you explain?
https://boston.cbslocal.com/2018/03/22/corey-clement-super-bowl-touchdown-shouldnt-have-counted-troy-vincent/Can you explain?
The rule hadn't changed yet. The "old language" was actually the rules that were in place for SB52.“That slight movement of the ball. The old language read [if there’s] slight movement, then that means you’ve got to overturn it. … [Now] you can have movement but you can still maintain control. We removed and got out of the business of slight movement. Because you can have movement but still be in control,” Vincent said. “The Clement play in the Super Bowl was the best example. The ball moved but he had complete control over the ball through the process of the catch.”
Reading this forum, V&N, and others the last few years really made me grateful for the friends and family that I have.Exactly this. I was visiting one of my best friends 2 weekends ago, sitting outside in their backyard, when the leaked Brady retirement news hit the wire - he and I both got alerts on our phones. His wife rolled her eyes and tried to explain to me that Brady was a cheater because of deflategate. Nice job completely wrecking the reputation of a guy who did nothing, NFL. It still makes me mad.
And remember, Vincent had played eight years for the Eagles and had been a 1st team All Pro for them in 2002.https://boston.cbslocal.com/2018/03/22/corey-clement-super-bowl-touchdown-shouldnt-have-counted-troy-vincent/
The rule hadn't changed yet. The "old language" was actually the rules that were in place for SB52.
One of the things I most vividly remember about defaltegate was Neil DeGrasse Tyson getting the gas law formula wrong, and declaring that the Patriots' numbers were a statistically significant outlier. He eventually admitted error but then sort of covered the explanation in a little bit of bullshit -- having to put in a dig at the Patriots on the way out (though also admitting they won the game fairly.)As obsessed with justice as I often am, and I take seriously that DeflateGate was a function mostly of sour grapes against the Patriots success by other owners and some league officials and also retaliation against Brady has quietly always been a solid union guy and major part of lawsuits against the league…
I find that, with the passing of the years, whenever I think of DeflateGate, I think less of the league being bullshit—Brady and the Patriots’ talent has long since been vindicated—but how much I had to reassess downwards my already low opinion of both scientific literacy and journalism in this country.
I mean, many have brought up the absurdity of people’s ignorance of the ideal gas law, to say nothing of not applying their own real life experiences to the issue, but remember how long it took the media to stop saying the balls were 2 pounds lighter? And people just mindlessly repeating it as against lived experience? And I just heard it again on one of the national cable news channels covering Brady’s retirement.
Seriously: WTF? I just remember thinking: This is really, really bad, and I didn’t mean the league’s bullshit.
Edit: Dammit @Leather .
Edit2: Or should I say, “You’re with me, @Leather ?
It was MUCH worse than that. The Wells Report deliberately photographed the two gauges from an angle that made them look very similar, so that their claim that Walt Anderson was mistaken would seem credible. But the actual gauges looked much different, one had a longer and bent shaft and it was obvious they weren't alike at all.We were so deep into it at the time that we kind of focused on the things that were natural to focus on -- that he was wrong and that the whole premise of which numbers to use was fucked from the start. Remember that there were two different gauges used and the disparity only was present if you assumed that one gauge but not the other was the one used to take the half time readings. The most damning part of the Wells report to me has always been it's offhand and footnoted conclusion that is largely obscured on page whatever of a thousand pages that the ref who did the measurements (Walt Coleman) remembered using the gauge that gave the not nefarious results. But Wells simply concluded without much else that he was "mistaken."
To me, the sociology aspects of deflategate are much more interesting than rehashing what did or didn't occur. It feels like we've just been over all that so much. The Leather and Rev discussion is much more interesting to me.You could be opening a large can of worms here, @DDB, talking about how scientists and their conclusions can be influenced by narratives.
I don't disagree. Nor do I think it's a bad thing to point out that scientists are human too and are subject to all the same biases (conscious or unconscious) as non-scientists, even as their professional work demands more objectivity than it does for some others. I just think...it's opening a can of worms.To me, the sociology aspects of deflategate are much more interesting than rehashing what did or didn't occur. It feels like we've just been over all that so much. The Leather and Rev discussion is much more interesting to me.
In a bad way? Seems like it's better to know than not.I don't disagree. Nor do I think it's a bad thing to point out that scientists are human too and are subject to all the same biases (conscious or unconscious) as non-scientists, even as their professional work demands more objectivity than it does for some others. I just think...it's opening a can of worms.
I agree here too. But this principle wouldn't just apply to Deflategate. I can think of other, uh, contentious and current issues in the world where this could be in play. But that's better for V&N and I think I'll just stop right now.In a bad way? Seems like it's better to know than not.