Tom Brady’s First Deflation
This scandal is so fun. So many people angry at everything. Some level headed analysis, mostly drowned out by nonsense. Legions of people taking a giant dump all over Patriots fans regardless of any questionable evidence, and Patriots fans being whiny babies who are making it incredibly easy to laugh at them because they’ve gone full cult of Brady. It’s not over yet, the appeal process will give us even more fodder down the road, and I don’t see the back and forth stopping this week.
Seriously, Pats fans. I actually agree that there are too many people unwilling to listen to your side of the argument, but setting up go fund me accounts and being unwilling to consider your team isn’t Jesus might help the rest of the fans to listen to you. I mean look at this nonsense. As of writing this thing is up to $15,553 dollars. That’s almost 16k worth of money thrown away by idiots. The Patriots are worth 1.4 BILLION DOLLARS. They don’t need your handouts, this is one of the biggest fines in sports history and it’s still barely a blip on the Pats net worth. Brady is worth 120 million, his wife 320 million. What’s 1 million going to do to them? Prevent them from building another moat around their giant mansion? THE HORROR. You want to help the Patriots? Start a kickstarter to get them their first round pick back. it’ll mean just as much. At this point even I’m beginning to think the punishment was a touch too harsh and I agree that the NFL’s method of justice is a joke but all the crying is making me want the punishment to stick just to spite you. Which is kinda messed up, but right now I don’t care. The NFL is not out to get you. The NFL is probably pissed at this whole thing for even happening and would easily prefer having no scandal at all.
I think the NFL would have preferred the Wells report come up very inconclusive, on the Patriots side. Some people would have already made up their mind that the Pats were guilty, but the rest of us would ignore those people for the most part and it would fade into the background as nothing eventually, which is just how the NFL likes it. But the report officially saying the Pats and Brady probably knowingly broke the rules means they have to act, and any act the NFL performs was going to cause outrage from some large group and puts the NFL (from their perspective) into a no-win situation. So yeah, stop saying the NFL is out to get you. The NFL probably wishes it said not guilty just as much as you do.
Also, to everyone out there, conspiratorial Pats fans and angry tumblerites who don’t actually follow football but wanna be angry, stop using Ray Rice as a comparison. It’s not a valid comparison anymore. You can’t point to his initial suspension and compare it to this one, because doing so completely ignores everything that transpired after the initial Ray Rice error.
Dan Marino wore 14 when practicing at Pitt, but only wore 13 in games… BRADY WAS AT IT EVEN THEN.
Brady has magic deflation
Brady has magic deflation
The only reason I care about ballghazi is that you make superb comics about it. Other than that, I’m on my lawn chair watching the fireworks (comments)
“bandwagoner” has taken on a new meaning
Do we know who it was that performed Rex Ryan’s weight loss surgery? Did Rex sell his soul to the Deflator? I refuse to believe that the NY Jets could suck that badly after reaching the AFC championship. There must be a connection. There needs to be an inquiry into Tom Brady’s possible involvement in this matter. Anyone who is as outraged as I am can give me their mone- I mean donate to my gofundme campaign.
You fail to realize how horrendously despicable new england and nearly everyone from there is.
Yay for broad generalizations!
True story: I went to an Orioles-Red Sox game with my dad when I was ten. They sucked, like they always did back then, and I believe the score was something like 8-2, but being a naive little ten-year old, I thought my team was the best and amazing and could come back from anything, so I got up and started cheering in bottom of the eighth inning. Cue Sox fans throwing peanuts at me. Not even drunk ones, fully aware, sober, grown adults who were in another team’s park were throwing peanuts and insults and swearing at a ten-year old because he was rooting for his team in a situation where they were basically guaranteed to win.
So, yeah, I have no love lost for Bahstan spahts fahns. Watching them squirm this week has been a delight.
Wait you’re an O’s fan? High five. When were you a kid? When I was a kid in the 90’s the O’s were awesome. You must be younger than me.
Red Sox fans started invading Camden Yards when we started sliding and god it was awful. Sox fans were the worst.
I was a kid during the O’s glory years of the late 60’s/early 70’s. I even had a job at Memorial Stadium as a teen. I live outside of Boston now, and yes many Sox fans are obnoxious. And Fenway Park is a dump.
I am indeed an O’s fan! My parents were both from the Baltimore-DC area, and I got into baseball before the Nationals existed, so the Orioles were the only game in town. And yeah, unfortunately I was a kid in the late 90’s/00’s, so literally every Orioles game I went to was a loss. We were BAAAAAAAD.
Still praying Norris and Tillman can work themselves out this year, kinda nervous Bud’s elbow might be hurt with just how bad he’s been. Still, Ubaldo’s come out of nowhere to live up to his contract, so it’s not all bad this year.
“The NFL is not out to get you. The NFL is probably pissed at this whole thing for even happening and would easily prefer having no scandal at all.”
Then the NFL should have made a call to Belichick and said “teams are complaining about ball pressure, we are going to start checking. Cut that shit out.” and then this likely never would have happened. That clearly wasn’t someone’s agenda in the league office, and all the leaks around it prove it as it made it impossible for the NFL to handle it quietly.
Brady, for all his alleged media savvy, has acted like a dick in this whole situation. And I say that as a Pats fan. But the NFL has acted worse. They are completely media-driven at the moment, and that is not a good thing IMO, and Goodell is an incompetent boob.
I get that Brady wants to keep his personal business private, and he has a right to, but stonewalling never wins in the eyes of the public. Going against the “if you have nothing to hide you should be willing to let anyone search anything” mentality is a loser in the eyes of the public every time.
“Then the NFL should have made a call to Belichick and said “teams are complaining about ball pressure, we are going to start checking. Cut that shit out.” and then this likely never would have happened. That clearly wasn’t someone’s agenda in the league office, and all the leaks around it prove it as it made it impossible for the NFL to handle it quietly.”
I hate this argument because it completely ignores what happened. The Colts brought this whole thing to light, they were the ones that forced the issue, and then it exploded in the media and any chance the NFL had of burying under the rug was thrown out the window. Remember nobody gave it any thought initially, then the Colts guy came out with the initial deflation evidence on Tuesday, and after that point it was off to the races. Calling them with a “cut that shit out” wasn’t going to mean a damn thing at that point.
It also shouldn’t, because if the Patriots cheated and the NFL simply told them to knock it off without any repercussions, that would be bullshit. The Falcons got docked for cheating but the Patriots just get a finger waggle and a “stop it?” Nope, that would have been BS.
“I hate this argument because it completely ignores what happened. The Colts brought this whole thing to light, they were the ones that forced the issue, and then it exploded in the media and any chance the NFL had of burying under the rug was thrown out the window.”
Statements made by Wells himself contradict you.
Yur a chowda luvin simpletahn
They could have sent out a memo and said “from now on, no more playing crowd noise through the loudspeakers.”
Maybe they did and that’s why they were fined $750K and a 1st round pick. Oh wait…
What’s worse? Pumping in crowd noise to disrupt your opponents’ offense to gain a competitive advantage every home game for two years, or having a camera in the wrong location once?
Probably the one that helped a team finish above .500.
Except the NFL did warn the Patriots to cut that shit out. Pages 43-44 in the report. In 2004 the Patriots were caught using practice balls in a game that were not approved by the refs and “could not provide a sufficient explanation for the mistake.” They were issued a warning letter that any further incident with ball tampering would be disciplined by the league as an attempt to gain a competative advantage. If your team is cheating you shouldn’t get a warning, and you still got a warning, and you still cheated.
Interesting, since the same exact thing happened in the AFC title game, and it turned out to be an NFL staffer stealing balls to go sell for profit. But you’re probably right, the Pats are ALWAYS guilty cheaters who cheat.
Except the NFL did warn the Patriots to cut that shit out. Pages 43-44 in the report. In 2004 the Patriots were caught using practice balls in a game that were not approved by the refs and “could not provide a sufficient explanation for the mistake.” They were issued a warning letter that any further incident with ball tampering would be disciplined by the league as an attempt to gain a competative advantage. If your team is cheating you shouldn’t get a warning, and you still got a warning, and you still cheated.
Its fixed look teams let him throw a 3 yard pass but there corners play off like the hole 2 half
Except the NFL did warn the Patriots to cut that shit out. Pages 43-44 in the report. In 2004 the Patriots were caught using practice balls in a game that were not approved by the refs and “could not provide a sufficient explanation for the mistake.” They were issued a warning letter that any further incident with ball tampering would be disciplined by the league as an attempt to gain a competative advantage. If your team is cheating you shouldn’t get a warning, and you still got a warning, and you still cheated.
I do not get why there should be a warning for a rule breach. There of course can be, but if you try to bend the competition your way, why should you be exempt from immediate action?
Of course, as an avid chess player, I’ve seen some of this discussion before. During the US championships, star player Wesley So was caught making notes during his game, which is forbidden. So the match he just played was forfeit. Cue the supporters yelling “he should have been given a warning”. No matter that he already had received two warnings for this exact behavior during the same tournament, including a reminder of the “third strike – game lost” rule that is usually used in chess even for minor infringements (although not a written rule as such). Cue the “a third warning would have been better” or even “the ref just didn’t like that So wasn’t acting on his commands, so he felt the need to abuse his power”. It is not entirely the same, but a lot of similar arguments come up here. No, if you breach the rules and get away with a warning, that can be okay. But you have no right to ask for not being punished, because it was you who did something wrong.
(About So, to somewhat clean his name: He was in a precarious personal situation at the time, he took – unlike his supporters – the penalty in stride and continued the tournament with two straight wins, and probably nobody thought that he was actually trying to get an unfair advantage. The problem just is, you could use the same kind of notes to do so, if you use a code, and if it were let go, referees would only be able to prevent cheating if they could break a code.)
The thing i hate about this whole thing is the low standard of evidence used to make this decision. In the US we use beyond a reasonable doubt to convict a person. That’s considered 92% sure. You cant tarnish the character of a man by calling him a criminal without real proof.
But you can label a man a cheater and treat him like a criminal with a preponderance of evidence which is 51%. So after months of investigation the report can only say that they’re 51% sure that Brady might be a cheater. There’s literally no evidence.
Actually we use preponderance of evidence in civil suits too, so I could use you and drag your name through the mud with 51%. Personally I believe that innocent until proven guilty should be everything and preponderance of evidence is horseshit, but it’s used plenty in US courts.
if we did that, the entire civil justice system would grind to a halt and be totally useless as a way of peacefully resolving disputes between parties, because plaintiffs would almost never prevail and a lot of parties that deserve redress would not get it. the standard is higher in criminal court because the stakes are higher than in civil court (in criminal court you can lose your freedom or even your life, whereas in civil court the most you’ll lose is money).
preponderance of the evidence really just means “is it more likely than not,” as the Wells report repeatedly said. and since we’re not even dealing with the civil justice system here, i think preponderance of evidence is a perfectly reasonable standard of proof for this purpose. no matter what delusions of grandeur Roger Goodell has, the worst he can do to Tom Brady is cost him some money, within the confines of the overall agreements between Brady, the CBA, and the NFL.
Except we actually do do that. 51% is the legal standard for civil suits. Maybe look things up before giving an opinion to avoid being wrong?
To further add onto your point, the line from the report “More probable than not” is the legal standard in civil cases. It’s clear from that, and much else in the report, that the NFL had lawyers work on the report. The NFL used the standard used in US Civil Court cases when it could has used whatever the hell it wanted.
My point is more about how people are reacting,what they’re saying, and how they treat Tom Brady.
The court of public opinion needs no evidence. People would still be calling Tom Brady a cheater even if the Ted Wells report had gone the Patriots’ way.
“I think the NFL would have preferred the Wells report come up very inconclusive, on the Patriots side.”
Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen. You don’t dump millions into an investigation and then accept a result of ‘inconclusive’.
Yup. And they also paid Ted Wells to make Incognito look like he was bullying JMart too.
Jim Turner (ex Dolphins OL coach who lost his job as a result) was on the radio earlier today. He sounded like he wanted to rip Wells’ head off and shit down his neck.
I would take the word of someone who lost his job because of a investigator with a grain of salt. Honestly, Jim Turner deserved to get sacked for how terrible the OL became under his watch, regardless of his involvement in the bullying scandal.
It would cost the NFL a lot less if the result was “inconclusive” or “Nothing wrong happened”. You sound more than a little demented in your perspective on this.
Well, it happens in other sports and organizations. Internal reports often come up – if not with a clear cut “we did no wrong at all” – with an “not enough evidence”, “no clear indication that” and similar. Ask IOC, FIFA, FIDE, banks, consulting companies etc. They often don’t dump millions into a report to get a result but to keep up the pretense of actually caring about accusations they merely consider a pain in the bottom.
An actual physicist with a PhD, who analyzes data for a living, checks in:
http://drewfustin.com/deflategate/
Conclusion: the most logical interpretation of the data is that there was no tampering.
Since he’s a Pats fan, he’s probably lying though.
He’s a scientist who went conclusion –> hypothesis, rather than the way science actually works. Imma just put him in the “nutso” pile and move on.
Gonna ignore the Nobel Laureate the Pats posted on their website too? I mean, I know I’m a homer with confirmational bias, but will you acknowledge yours?
Gonna ignore the Nobel Laureate the Pats posted on their website too? I mean, I know I’m a homer with confirmational bias, but will you acknowledge yours?
Why is it that everyone acted like Brady was so great back in 2002 when he rode his defense to the Super Bowl?
Errr, it was 2001, I know, but I’m going by the Super Bowl calendar year
The true Brady greatness didn’t begin until after that coin toss vs. Sam Madison against Miami in 2003
Here’s the thing that bothers me: how long has Brady’s been doing this? My feeling is that he’s been doing this for most of his career. He just now got caught but only for the AFC championship. Has he been doing this for entire season? We may never know, unless they investigate further.
Also, can’t find sexy rexy. Where is it?
(Insert fart noises here)
I like how the Patriots offense is exactly the bills spread no huddle , receives read press or off coverage they have 3 routs .its fixed cause they have no deep threat man press use a db instead of the middle lb cause its slot receiver quick slant or out so bracket the slot and blitz the a gap
Ok there offense is 90 bills but no deep balls and then go ace or big pound it till its 3rd and 4 sreen pass pick play