Glazer: Giants reported to NFL that Steelers deflated footballs

DennyDoyle'sBoil

DennyDoyle'sBoil

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Marciano490 said:
Pereira, who I always thought of as a toadie, is now hypothesizing that on-field officials are receiving advice from replay officials through their headphones in violation of league rules. That's how many scandals this week?

http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/mike-pereira-nfl-breaking-its-own-rules-says-refs-getting-illegal-advice-on-headsets/
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I remember when he said it last year and I think there was a good discussion on in here, though maybe buried in a gamethread or something.

I wouldn't be surprised at all. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if New York is watching the game broadcast. The league doesn't really care about fairness. It cares about perceptions of fairness. If Chris Collinsworth says emphatically it's short of a first down to 10 million people, then I'm sure the NFL is plenty happy to just go with it.

My concern isn't the one articulated by Pereira here. He treats it as though it would be a technical violation of the rules, so long as they "get it right." My concern is anything that takes the ultimate decision away from the refs on the field. If you've ever met a high level ref in any sport, you know one thing -- they truly don't give a shit who wins. Truly. It's burned into them for years like religion before they ever get a whiff of those kinds of jobs. Sure, they are influenced by all sorts of things -- the emotions of a home field crowd, lobbying by coaches or players, whatever. And sometimes I'm sure that affects things, but in the end they just don't care who wins the game. To the NFL's credit, the hoops they make their refs jump through are very demanding -- their lives are an open book, financially, personally, and every other way. They undergo background checks similar to highly sensitive government jobs.

The league guy sitting in New York? Not so much. Left to its own devices, the NFL would probably turn into the WWE if they could sell it. Refs have always been the buffer. If they want to start putting actual NFL refs in the replay booth, like they do in baseball, or if they want to relegate replay to truly binary yes/no decisions with objective standards like hockey, then fine. Otherwise, removing the buffer is terrible. At least Riveron was a ref at one point, but he's now a company man. Blandino has never been an on-field ref, and his job duties are definitely blurred within the league, and he's definitely not subject to the same standards and expectations as the on-field refs.
 
dcmissle

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bankshot1 said:
Francesa just went on a rant when a caller said the Giants were cheating re the walkie-talkies. And went ballistic and accused the caller of being a Pats fan, and the Pats invented cheating, and "routinely jammed frequencies" of the communications devices.
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He is a bitter old fool deep into the winter of his career.
 
Dropkick Izzy

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bankshot1 said:
Francesa just went on a rant when a caller said the Giants were cheating re the walkie-talkies. And went ballistic and accused the caller of being a Pats fan, and the Pats invented cheating, and "routinely jammed frequencies" of the communications devices.
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There's video evidence of it!

 
Harry Hooper

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bankshot1 said:
Francesa just went on a rant when a caller said the Giants were cheating re the walkie-talkies. And went ballistic and accused the caller of being a Pats fan, and the Pats invented cheating, and "routinely jammed frequencies" of the communications devices.
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Outdoing Russo on things Deflategate.
 
JohnnyTheBone

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DennyDoyle'sBoil said:
I remember when he said it last year and I think there was a good discussion on in here, though maybe buried in a gamethread or something.

I wouldn't be surprised at all. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if New York is watching the game broadcast. The league doesn't really care about fairness. It cares about perceptions of fairness. If Chris Collinsworth says emphatically it's short of a first down to 10 million people, then I'm sure the NFL is plenty happy to just go with it.

My concern isn't the one articulated by Pereira here. He treats it as though it would be a technical violation of the rules, so long as they "get it right." My concern is anything that takes the ultimate decision away from the refs on the field. If you've ever met a high level ref in any sport, you know one thing -- they truly don't give a shit who wins. Truly. It's burned into them for years like religion before they ever get a whiff of those kinds of jobs. Sure, they are influenced by all sorts of things -- the emotions of a home field crowd, lobbying by coaches or players, whatever. And sometimes I'm sure that affects things, but in the end they just don't care who wins the game. To the NFL's credit, the hoops they make their refs jump through are very demanding -- their lives are an open book, financially, personally, and every other way. They undergo background checks similar to highly sensitive government jobs.

The league guy sitting in New York? Not so much. Left to its own devices, the NFL would probably turn into the WWE if they could sell it. Refs have always been the buffer. If they want to start putting actual NFL refs in the replay booth, like they do in baseball, or if they want to relegate replay to truly binary yes/no decisions with objective standards like hockey, then fine. Otherwise, removing the buffer is terrible. At least Riveron was a ref at one point, but he's now a company man. Blandino has never been an on-field ref, and his job duties are definitely blurred within the league, and he's definitely not subject to the same standards and expectations as the on-field refs.
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Denny, this was an awesome post. Thank you for introducing a concept that hadn't occurred to me yet.
 
DennyDoyle'sBoil

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JohnnyTheBone said:
Denny, this was an awesome post. Thank you for introducing a concept that hadn't occurred to me yet.
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Thanks JTB. Deflategate threads get mocked by other SOSHers not interested in them, but they actually do have some interesting dimensions.
 
leftfieldlegacy

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bankshot1 said:
Francesa just went on a rant when a caller said the Giants were cheating re the walkie-talkies. And went ballistic and accused the caller of being a Pats fan, and the Pats invented cheating, and "routinely jammed frequencies" of the communications devices.
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The guy should've asked Mike about Parcells having the old Giant stadium end zone doors opened to increase the swirling winds and screw with the opponents kicking game. Or wait, maybe that was the responsibility of the DC.
 
bankshot1

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leftfieldlegacy said:
The guy should've asked Mike about Parcells having the old Giant stadium end zone doors opened to increase the swirling winds and screw with the opponents kicking game. Or wait, maybe that was the responsibility of the DC.
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Francesa has his hatreds/biases (the Pats/BB being two) but the point on Francesa other than it was timely, was that as Pat fans we should understand and accept 1) the blind hatred many have, proof and common sense be damned and 2) there will always be double-standards, and we're dealing with one now.
 
richgedman'sghost

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Marciano490 said:
I'm surprised by the balls on Pereira. Whenever I hear him, he seems to be bending over backwards to justify whatever the refs call. Good for him. I'll shake his hand next week when he's a barista at my local Starbucks.
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You have to distinguish between two issues. One is that Pereira will bend over backwards to defend his fellow on filed officials. The second issue is that he has no use for the League Office and Goddell in particular. There is a difference between the two. Wasn't Pereira on the Pats side in DeflateGate?
 
Marciano490

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Those are fair points. My opinion as to his balls was more that he works for the NFL and critiques them than that he'd be loyal.
 
Marciano490

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tims4wins said:
He works for Fox. So not technically for the NFL. Similar to Florio for NBC
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I know. I don't think I'm being that opaque. I thought it was fairly well understood that the NFL put pressure on its broadcast partners not to humiliate the league.
 
Van Everyman

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Great post, DDB.

I have said this to no real response on SoSH several times throughout the DFG ordeal but it bears repeating here: the NFL has spent a decade trying to pretend that its culture of gamesmanship—which is to say, cheating—does not exist. This league has more stories of stolen playbooks, spies sent by George Allen to opponent practices, Jimmy Johnson filming opponent signals than you can count. It is as much a part of the game as concussions.

This is in part due to the fact that its coaching culture is militant and intense to an insane degree. Many of these guys literally hate each other and will do anything to stop their rivals – witness not just the enmity between BB and, say, Harbaugh or Casserly but the vendettas someone like a Don Shula carries into his 80s from a motorized cart about not only "Belicheat" but also the Snow Plow Game. This shit runs deep in these people.

Whether it's Spygate, BountyGate, WalkieTalkieGate or anything else, Goodell has spent an inordinate amount of time trying to convince fans and the media that these are exceptions – not, you know, the way teams have operated since the beginning of time. Which has always been stupid but is increasingly so in an era of social media.

What you see with DFG, DFG2 and now WalkieTalkieGate is that the refs are being dragged into this charade—the vestiges of integrity left in the league—but here again you have a situation where the league can't help but insert itself into the process for ratings purposes – with the horribly compromised Blandino whispering in the ears of officials in playoff games and what have you. If you read between the lines I actually think a guy like Pereirra seems appalled by it all. Which makes sense because once you can't trust the officials to be doing their job, you might as well just have Jerry Jones and Jerry Richardson wrestling it out on the field.
 
Tyrone Biggums

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Mugsy's Walk-Off Bunt said:
Rumor-almost-certain-to-be-true: 345 Park Ave. about to dole out justice in pure, unadulterated NFL fashion.

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2016/12/18/nfl-appears-poised-to-slap-giants-on-the-wrist-for-walkietalkiegate/
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If anything involves the Giants Ravens Colts Broncos Jets or Steelers it's not a big deal. I've accepted that. Whether it's this. Irsays DUI, Revis tampering, the first Rice ruling, Suggs pouring bleach on his family, Sheldon Richardson chilling with guns in his backseat. Let's not forget the Brown ordeal this year. Suspended one game and he was perhaps the worst known offender in recent NFL history.
 
edmunddantes

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Peter King has spoken. The Giants are definitely only getting a fine.

It's just not that big of a deal for a 4 plays or so that the walkie talkie thing happened. /paraphrasing
 
Tyrone Biggums

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Phil Plantier

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Assuming you're a team not on double secret probation, doing this would be worth it, right? Playoff home game, "experience" some interference with the headsets, use unapproved devices, lose 15 spots of draft position on your fourth rounder. I wonder if we'll see more teams try this, or will there be a Memo of Doom saying that the next team gets a more severe penalty.
 
richgedman'sghost

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I hate to say it but I'm actually surprised the penalty is this "severe". From all reports beforehand such as the Peter King tweet mentioned above, I assumed that the Giants would only be fined. Somebody could correct me, but isn't the League in all actuality making the Giants 4th round pick a 5th rounder? It might be semantics but after the 4th round compensatory picks are made, then the 5th round is supposed to begin right? So the Giants actually pick at the top of the 5th round? Or am I mistaken? It's too early to tell the Giants exact draft position, but in essence the Giants are punished about 20 draft slots for the walkie talkie mischief.
It is kinda sad that the NFL set such low expectations for punishment that I'm almost pleasently surprised that the Giants even lost one draft pick...almost pleasently surprised..
Edit Just read the post above mine..WTF with the stipulation that the pick will not drop more than 12 slots? I take back all the positive things I just said.
 
BaseballJones

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richgedman'sghost said:
I hate to say it but I'm actually surprised the penalty is this "severe". From all reports beforehand such as the Peter King tweet mentioned above, I assumed that the Giants would only be fined. Somebody could correct me, but isn't the League in all actuality making the Giants 4th round pick a 5th rounder? It might be semantics but after the 4th round compensatory picks are made, then the 5th round is supposed to begin right? So the Giants actually pick at the top of the 5th round? Or am I mistaken? It's too early to tell the Giants exact draft position, but in essence the Giants are punished about 20 draft slots for the walkie talkie mischief.
It is kinda sad that the NFL set such low expectations for punishment that I'm almost pleasently surprised that the Giants even lost one draft pick...almost pleasently surprised..
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No, because the league said there's a maximum of a 12 spot drop.

But I'm with you - I am surprised that this penalty is this "severe", even though it's a complete joke.
 
richgedman'sghost

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BaseballJones said:
No, because the league said there's a maximum of a 12 spot drop.

But I'm with you - I am surprised that this penalty is this "severe", even though it's a complete joke.
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I edited my post. I did not know about the limits on the dropping in slots on the pick. This is a complete and utter joke.
 
PedroKsBambino

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RedOctober3829 said:
There's clearly two sets of rules when it comes to situations like this. One involving being a cronie like Mara and Rooney and one involving the Patriots
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I really think Kraft should consider a public statement on this and the Steelers ball deflation. I know it is somewhat against his interests within the league, and it is so egregiously inconsistent I think he may need to make the point to protect the team going forward. It is outrageous and indefensible how the league does these things.
 
Papelbon's Poutine

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PedroKsBambino said:
I really think Kraft should consider a public statement on this and the Steelers ball deflation. I know it is somewhat against his interests within the league, and it is so egregiously inconsistent I think he may need to make the point to protect the team going forward. It is outrageous and indefensible how the league does these things.
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In what way would it protect the team going forward?
 
Stitch01

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PedroKsBambino said:
I really think Kraft should consider a public statement on this and the Steelers ball deflation. I know it is somewhat against his interests within the league, and it is so egregiously inconsistent I think he may need to make the point to protect the team going forward. It is outrageous and indefensible how the league does these things.
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He did make a statement of sorts.

http://www.boston.com/news/new-england-patriots/2016/11/16/robert-kraft-just-visited-trump-tower
 
dcmissle

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Best of all possible outcomes from my perspective. League was never gonna whack them -- cuz Giants, not Pats. So it fuels another Sally Jenkins column, further underscoring the joke that was DFG. And I think it further fuels another team as well. My team.
 
PedroKsBambino

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Papelbon's Poutine said:
In what way would it protect the team going forward?
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Because however small, the possibility that Kraft will effectively go postal on the league (which is things like joining a players association antitrust suit, dropping a dime on sponsors or around the concussion litigation, recording league meetings/calls with Goodell) is one of the very few protections they have against even more egregious, even more punitive competitive balance penalties in the future, and that possibility depends on the league believing he might be moving towards such a decision if they do it again.

Obviously, I'm exceptionally unimpressed with NFL behavior around deflategate...
 
Bongorific

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I liked the way Jonathan Kraft handled it earlier in the week.

One of the things that bothered them the most with Deflategate was how many owners and senior team executives came out publicly and privately to opine on the Patriots' (alleged) guilt. And yet, he said, none of them probably actually read the Well Report and the Wells Report In Context. Therefore, he wasn't going to opine on Deflategate 2 or Walkie Leaks as he didn't have all of the facts.
 
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