Maybe they dump the story about 20 minutes before the start of the 1st semifinal game tonight? It'd be hard for ESPN and CBS to shift gears when they are running a countdown to tip off clock.
Just because it hasn't been dumped on a Friday yet, doesn't mean that it won't be a Friday news dump. Based on Goodell's history, it's a good bet.E5 Yaz said:The story dump posts seem to have the same rate of success as the "... is going deep here" posts.
In making those posts, I was applying logic to a decision being made by Goodell. That's clearly doomed to failure. I should've known better.E5 Yaz said:The story dump posts seem to have the same rate of success as the "... is going deep here" posts.
I'm due to re-watch it yet again soon...but IIRC, I thought they (at least Collinsworth) kept bringing it up during the game as it got into the 4th quarter. I think I kept thinking that if it amounts to nothing, then they should edit out that audio for future replays as it would keep the non-story from ever going away.PaulinMyrBch said:Just watched the replay of the Super Bowl. Michaels and Collinsworth both have a conversation about how they are glad they story took a back seat for 3 hours so everyone could focus on the game, then I think they said, "but its going to be big in a few days." That was February 1st. A few days? Not on Wells' hourly.
I like the poll idea. And this is the best possible outcome, although I fear some type of punishment just because of how big it got. But if there's no evidence, I agree this should be the result. And I don't see Kraft letting this go, as the Patriots brand is at stake in his mind. I really hope this is the case. The longer it drags out, the better these chances are I think.crystalline said:Can we get a poll to predict outcome?
My vote: Wells report says no evidence of Patriots misconduct. No punishment. Kensil and other league employees fired for disrupting the game at halftime and bungling the measurements.
This one was ill-attendedValek123 said:
Thank you, or perhaps can we open a "news only" now, to allow the 2 minute look at reporter released information and allow this to continue to be the "NFL management continues to make a mockery of the game" thread until that time?
Who knows. But I doubt that Goodell thinks of the league as dysfunctional or is concerned about his position within it. Despite all the bad press (and perhaps, perversely, as a consequence of it) the league continues to print money. Its strategy of stonewalling until it cannot stonewall, and then making hollow, condescending gestures of recalcitrance seems to be working like a charm.lexrageorge said:So Florio is saying that Goodell will ignore whatever is in the Wells report solely to satisfy the ambitions of an insignificant number of fungible league operatives? That doesn't seem very smart unless you have ambitions of taking a dysfunctional organization and making it more dysfunctional.
I think it's more likely the Wells report will be influenced by the NFL than the NFL will punish the Pats if the report says they are clean.lexrageorge said:So Florio is saying that Goodell will ignore whatever is in the Wells report solely to satisfy the ambitions of an insignificant number of fungible league operatives? That doesn't seem very smart unless you have ambitions of taking a dysfunctional organization and making it more dysfunctional.
BCsMightyJoeYoung said:Soooo .. Silly question (I think .. Maybe not) .. Throughout this thread the incident is referred to by posters as either deflategate or ballghazi .. Now .. I am wondering as to the reasons for favouring one or the other.
Is it a political choice (republican scandal vs. A democratic one) or an age/generational thing? Or some combination of the two? Inquiring minds would like to know.
Political or generational? This is a silly football scandal...I don't think either apply. Watergate is so famous and Benghazi so recent that everyone knows both.BCsMightyJoeYoung said:Soooo .. Silly question (I think .. Maybe not) .. Throughout this thread the incident is referred to by posters as either deflategate or ballghazi .. Now .. I am wondering as to the reasons for favouring one or the other.
Is it a political choice (republican scandal vs. A democratic one) or an age/generational thing? Or some combination of the two? Inquiring minds would like to know.
PaulinMyrBch said:The more I look at this, the fewer options Wells actually has.
1. Patriots DEFLATED balls after they were inspected by the refs (Unlikely) - PATRIOTS ARE GUILTY
2. Patriots submitted UNDER INFLATED balls, but the refs did not use a gauge to check the balls and they slipped through inspection. - EVERYONE IS GUILTY
3. Patriots submitted PROPERLY INFLATED balls, refs checked them with gauge, and atmospheric conditions accounted for the under inflation at halftime. - NOBODY GUILTY
4. Patriots likely submitted PROPERLY INFLATED ball, refs did not use a gauge to check them, and atmospheric conditions likely accounted for under inflation. - EVERYONE LOOKS BAD.
Is there another possibility?
DrewDawg said:The idea that the NFL, if it gets a report from Wells that cannot establish the Patriots did anything wrong and still crush them is odd to me. If they were going to do that they didn't even need an investigation.
Oh, and I may not be around Friday, can someone help me out and post "Friday news dump?" for me now? Thanks.
drleather2001 said:The report will merely provide them with the cover to say that the decision was based on a thorough investigation, and so is therefore sufficiently supported.
#2 is the Bill Nye option. It takes into account Wells doesn't believe the science and that the balls must have been under 2 hours before gametime.wiffleballhero said:This seems about right, although I am not sure # 2 is really possible as a conclusion for the report. If the Patriots submitted under inflated balls there would be no way to confirm the initial submission problem precisely because it is the responsibility of the refs to confirm the ball pressure, not the team.
So isn't #2 related to #3 and should read: "The Patriots properly submitted footballs, but the refs did not use a gauge to check the balls and so there is no evidence that the balls were under inflated until halftime at which point atmospheric conditions are a possible factor."
I suppose that you could imagine that the Patriots were willfully submitting balls under 12.5, employing a gauge to get under the limit, but it makes far more sense to imagine that the Patriots don't use a gauge at all since it is the officials who are responsible for the gauging. The Patriots are responsible for picking balls they want and submitting them in a timely fashion, nothing else. This is the whole, 'just do your job' organization right? It is not the Pat's job.
My speculation on that one is that Wells basically says Pats "likely" submitted the balls at correct pressure and that the NFL drops ball on confirming that fact. But anything that clouds the picture is going to look bad because the media and haters will go off and just discount the possibility that we could have followed the rules properly.Otis Foster said:
Maybe I have't had enough caffeine, but why do the NEPs look bad in Scenario 4? They're not responsible for step 2 (refs screwed up) and step 3 (atmospheric deflation).
Christ, Wells will find Judge Crater before he resolves this fiasco.
DennyDoyle'sBoil said:I'm actually pretty surprised at how well the NFL is keeping this under wraps without any significant leaks.
There's little doubt that the NFL knows the results of investigation, at least preliminarily, and has for some time -- the bulk of the information that matters has probably been known for a month or more. At this point, I'm sure it's just tying up loose ends and wordsmithing, all of which can take time. Every witness you talk to has the potential to lead to two more you didn't know about -- even if it's on a minor point -- and then you have to coordinate schedules, look at e-mails and documents, etc. Part of me hopes that if the Patriots were going to get severely whacked, they'd have sent that up as a trial balloon because if there's anything close to a smoking gun, the NFL would have known about it for months now. Ultimately, though, this sort of tea leaf reading is useless. We'll know when we know.
Exactly.yecul said:The Patriots had under inflated balls on the field. How that came to pass, was there intent and other questions are important for the severity of the punishment. But, at the end, they will get some sort of a punishment no matter what, IMO, and that is what will be pointed to. I think there is a 0.1% chance that they get nothing short of the measurements being wrong... which is impossible to know because they don't track such things.
yecul said:The Patriots had under inflated balls on the field. How that came to pass, was there intent and other questions are important for the severity of the punishment. But, at the end, they will get some sort of a punishment no matter what, IMO, and that is what will be pointed to. I think there is a 0.1% chance that they get nothing short of the measurements being wrong... which is impossible to know because they don't track such things.
The problems start if the Wells report concludes that "while it's possible for the balls to deflate due to atmospheric conditions, we find that the degree of deflation that occurred means that some tampering was likely". Then it gets ugly.
Kenny F'ing Powers said:
Why would you assume this?
I kind of assume the opposite. If the NFL knew something, the public would know something. I assumed that the lack of leaks means that the Wells crew is doing their job appropriately.
Goodell had no choice but to bring in a third party to render a report. After the Ray Rice fiasco and in light of the Miami investigation, and given the magnitude of the public and media reaction to the deflated balls story, the NFL conducting its own investigation would have been a screaming PR disaster. Goodell also needed distance between himself and one of the owners. As a result, drawing conclusions from the fact that Goodell went the only route he could possibly go is weird science, indeed.Ed Hillel said:We're really going in circles now, but if that's the route he wanted to go, he wouldn't have brought Wells in.
Ed Hillel said:
We're really going in circles now, but if that's the route he wanted to go, he wouldn't have brought Wells in. If science backs the Patriots theory, and that much is found in the Wells report, he's not going to punish the Patriots based solely on footballs being underinflated. He just won't. Kraft would win the appeal in a heartbeat.
That's where I've been since Day 1. The Pats will somehow be held responsible for the under-inflation, by way of "spirit of the rules"/"spirit of the game"/"Pats should have known better" regardless of what is specifically written or not written in the rules.yecul said:The Patriots had under inflated balls on the field. How that came to pass, was there intent and other questions are important for the severity of the punishment. But, at the end, they will get some sort of a punishment no matter what, IMO, and that is what will be pointed to. I think there is a 0.1% chance that they get nothing short of the measurements being wrong... which is impossible to know because they don't track such things.
You should have stopped there. This thread has been going in circles for months.We're really going in circles now
Kenny F'ing Powers said:
Why would you assume this?
I kind of assume the opposite. If the NFL knew something, the public would know something. I assumed that the lack of leaks means that the Wells crew is doing their job appropriately.
If its 2.....isnt it the Refs responsibility (per the rule) to Say "Hey....these are under inflated.....we better pump them up". if they didnt, thats on them. You cant use a game as a "Sting Operation" certainly not a playoff game. Thats like using your Prod for Test purposes (for all us IT geeks).
1. Patriots DEFLATED balls after they were inspected by the refs (Unlikely) - PATRIOTS ARE GUILTY
2. Patriots submitted UNDER INFLATED balls, but the refs did not use a gauge to check the balls and they slipped through inspection. - EVERYONE IS GUILTY
3. Patriots submitted PROPERLY INFLATED balls, refs checked them with gauge, and atmospheric conditions accounted for the under inflation at halftime. - NOBODY GUILTY
4. Patriots likely submitted PROPERLY INFLATED ball, refs did not use a gauge to check them, and atmospheric conditions likely accounted for under inflation. - EVERYONE LOOKS BAD.