Falcons docked 3 days of practice - fans of cheating Patriots whine
- Thread starter tims4wins
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It says in the release that it was the team's first instance of violating the rule.
Clearly the NFL takes these integrity of the game offenses seriously.
Culture of cheating and skirting the rules. They were docked a pick for piping in noise. Clearly this franchise is out of control
Here's the thing. People can mock Pats' fans for being paranoid, having conspiracy theories, etc. But when you look at what's actually happening, we think what we think for GOOD REASON.
Carolina tampers with footballs in frigid Minnesota ON TELEVISION and the NFL sends a letter telling them not to do that again. The Pats are merely *suspected* of tampering with footballs and they lose a 1st round and 4th round pick, are fined $1 million, and lose Brady for 4 games.
Favre doesn't turn over his phone and he gets a $50k fine. Brady doesn't turn over his phone and he gets a 4 game suspension.
The Jets are multiple time rule breakers and their last violation cost them $100,000. The Patriots are supposedly multiple time rule breakers and they lose a 1st round and 4th round pick, are fined $1 million, and lose Brady for 4 games.
The Patriots video opposing teams from improper locations and get a $1 million fine and lose a 1st round draft pick. Denver, three years later, actually videotapes an opponent's PRACTICE before their game that week, and were fined a total of $100,000.
Brady is suspected of something and gets a 4 game suspension because some doofus once used the term "deflator" in a text 7 months before any of this actually supposedly happened. Peyton Manning HAS HGH SHIPPED TO HIS HOUSE by a company involved in PEDs, has his goons go rifle through their files, and have a private conversation with the guy accusing Manning of something - all while not denying that HGH was shipped to his house - and the NFL just believes that nothing happened.
Then there's this with Atlanta (multiple time offenders) and Seattle (multiple time offenders for the same thing), and all they get is a tiny slap on the wrist.
How are Patriots fans NOT supposed to think that the fix is in against their team by the NFL front office?
Carolina tampers with footballs in frigid Minnesota ON TELEVISION and the NFL sends a letter telling them not to do that again. The Pats are merely *suspected* of tampering with footballs and they lose a 1st round and 4th round pick, are fined $1 million, and lose Brady for 4 games.
Favre doesn't turn over his phone and he gets a $50k fine. Brady doesn't turn over his phone and he gets a 4 game suspension.
The Jets are multiple time rule breakers and their last violation cost them $100,000. The Patriots are supposedly multiple time rule breakers and they lose a 1st round and 4th round pick, are fined $1 million, and lose Brady for 4 games.
The Patriots video opposing teams from improper locations and get a $1 million fine and lose a 1st round draft pick. Denver, three years later, actually videotapes an opponent's PRACTICE before their game that week, and were fined a total of $100,000.
Brady is suspected of something and gets a 4 game suspension because some doofus once used the term "deflator" in a text 7 months before any of this actually supposedly happened. Peyton Manning HAS HGH SHIPPED TO HIS HOUSE by a company involved in PEDs, has his goons go rifle through their files, and have a private conversation with the guy accusing Manning of something - all while not denying that HGH was shipped to his house - and the NFL just believes that nothing happened.
Then there's this with Atlanta (multiple time offenders) and Seattle (multiple time offenders for the same thing), and all they get is a tiny slap on the wrist.
How are Patriots fans NOT supposed to think that the fix is in against their team by the NFL front office?
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Losing three days of OTAs isn't a tiny slap on the wrist. OTAs are important for incoming rookies and other new players. Frankly, this feels roughly in line with what the punishment should be for a first offense of this kind - perhaps a fine could also be assessed for the totality of other offenses they've committed. The problem is that you're comparing this to the over-the-top penalty the Patriots received for the ball fiasco, which is always going to end up twisting you in knots.
I'm not saying you shouldn't feel that the punishment levied against the Pats doesn't fit the crime but you're doing yourself a disservice by comparing that anomaly to everything else. In other words:
First offense of this kind - but second competitive integrity violation within a year or two. Deflategate had nothing to do with Spygate, was 7 years apart, and absolved the coaching staff - and yet the organization was STILL nailed with draft pick forfeiture. One of these things is not like the other indeed.
But that's the point. One reason the Pats were hammered so hard was that they were "repeat offenders". Atlanta is a "repeat offender" and their penalty isn't close to what New England's was. Losing a first round draft pick, a fourth round draft pick, and your star starting QB for four games.....
Amen brother.
I thought the Pats were hammered so hard because there's an anti-Pats conspiracy in the league office?
Something like that. Their rationale for the harsh penalty was that the Pats were "repeat offenders".
But that's obviously a bunch of crap since every other repeat offender gets very little for a penalty.
This isn't mere opinion - it's objective fact.
Two things you can always count on. The sun will rise, and Patriots fans will whine about fucking everything and turn it into their latest example of being persecuted by the illuminati, err, NFL overlords. "Oh, the Falcons are big cheaters too but they don't get punished like the Patriots, waaaah, if this was Brady and Belichick they'd be banned for life, waaaaaaaah," or the always popular hyperbolic and never amusing shit like, "Tom Dimitroff used to work for the Patriots, so Belichick was in on it. Dock the Pats a first round'a just to be sure!!!!" ." I know Bostonians in general are renowned for having immense chips on their shoulders, but fuck, I don't know how some of you manage to function on a day to day basis while seeking out perceived slights against a fucking football team.
Hey man, if there's two things I love, it's the Patriots and a good conspiracy theory. It gets incredibly tiresome looking at any discipline thread in this forum and being able to project the 3-4 posts in the first 10 minutes that will suck out loud and just cry over how unfair the world is. It would wear on me, personally, but others seem to wear the victim thing as a badge of honor. I just wish they would shut the fuck up about it and save the paranoid commentary for their local dive bars.
I think they are absolutely nothing alike whatsoever, whether in terms of the type of infraction it is, or the perceived severity. It seems to me like OTAs are a point of contention for a few clubs, Seattle included. It also strikes me that Deflategate, as much as it was an overblown dramedy, was something that occurred (allegedly) on the field during the AFCC game. Slightly different context, and with a national audience watching, the penalty was always going to be more severe than things like OTA violations which are abstract to fans, even if they are (in my opinion) 'worse' rules violations because they put player safety at risk. The Seattle incident seems much worse since two players collided head on without pads, but they do need to crack down on this stuff. My guess is a 'league memo' will be coming shortly, and the next club found to violate it will be bludgeoned by Goddell.
I don't know if Atlanta was under or over penalized. I do know that Deflategate has dick all to do with violating OTA rules, but I also know that Patriots fans are insufferable fucks that actively seek out reasons to complain about how unfair everyone is to their team, so every single thread dealing with discipline will devolve rapidly into a rehashing of Deflategate and how unfair it all was, just in case anyone here forgot about it.
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Another thing you can always count on is fans of other teams throwing a hissy fit over Pats fans' paranoia without offering up an argument as to why the differing penalties are justifiable.
It reads as "yeah, you guys think you got fucked over, who the fuck cares, move on!" as if any other fanbase in sports would behave differently. If you're railing against sports fandom in general being fucking silly and stupid, I'm right there with you. Just don't know how that behavior can be ascribed to New England fans exclusively when we haven't had the same thing happen to other franchises.
Yea bud, I'm a Pats fan and season ticket holder so you'll need to refer to the Persecuted Pats Fan's Handbook for another line of attack.
Edit- If this were some in game infraction, I'd be all about the comparison, so it isn't that I don't think there are instances where Deflategate may be referenced in comparison to other discipline, but OTAs and on field violations are just not even in the same ballpark, again, despite the fact that in my opinion these things are bigger violations because they put the health and safety of players at risk.
I just think this kind of reaction is perfectly normal when it comes to sports fans. I understand why you are annoyed by it, but that comes with the territory, in my opinion. I don't think there's anything inherent to Pats fans that makes them behave like that, but I guess either way, that's the reality and you being tired of it is perfectly fine.
I'm going to drop it since it was indeed rather foolish to assume you were a fan of a rival team and go off on that line of attack. My bad.
Something that might be overlooked here is that the NFL may be hesitant to repeat the Deflategate saga. While Goodell stated he had no regrets with how it was handled, I have to imagine the owners aren't thrilled with the cost of research, litigation, etc. even if it is considered a "win" for the NFL.
At the risk of insulting the real survivors of something terrible, one might draw an analogy to PTSD rather than paranoia. Some fans who made it through Deflategate came back fine and were On To 2016. Others are horrifically scarred and can never move past it, and it colors their perceptions anytime events happen that call their memories back to that trauma. And of course, some don't post here or anywhere because they're no longer fans of the NFL, even if they once loved Brady and Belichick and might still do.
It's great that some fans have taken a stoic indifference to it and their approach has been to move along, and discuss the present rather than the past. Certainly makes for better conversation. But I'm still fairly sympathetic to the fans who feel like every more-proportional, well-considered team investigation and punishment is a trigger for one of their own 'Nam flashbacks. It's something they have to live down every time they converse with a fan of another team - feeling like someone unjustly accused, or having to defend one (i.e. the Pats), or every time they're reminded of the impact of the 2008 or 2016 first-round picks that never were, who might have given the team an even greater edge. That really really burns me too, even if I'm able to recognize that at this point it's like discussing religion or politics at a dinner party, and instead can choose to discuss other angles on events.
It's also a common theme, a dramatic arc to many a hero-based story, so it resonates more deeply. They shot Harrison Bergeron in the end, too, y'know? Ender Wiggin had to exile himself. Spiderman got some serious bad publicity. Rise too far above the competition and you can become an outcast. That same sequence of events that's so evocative in literature can be even more infuriating in real life, even in the fake-real-world of sports. Even if I don't feel it quite as deeply, I get it.
It's great that some fans have taken a stoic indifference to it and their approach has been to move along, and discuss the present rather than the past. Certainly makes for better conversation. But I'm still fairly sympathetic to the fans who feel like every more-proportional, well-considered team investigation and punishment is a trigger for one of their own 'Nam flashbacks. It's something they have to live down every time they converse with a fan of another team - feeling like someone unjustly accused, or having to defend one (i.e. the Pats), or every time they're reminded of the impact of the 2008 or 2016 first-round picks that never were, who might have given the team an even greater edge. That really really burns me too, even if I'm able to recognize that at this point it's like discussing religion or politics at a dinner party, and instead can choose to discuss other angles on events.
It's also a common theme, a dramatic arc to many a hero-based story, so it resonates more deeply. They shot Harrison Bergeron in the end, too, y'know? Ender Wiggin had to exile himself. Spiderman got some serious bad publicity. Rise too far above the competition and you can become an outcast. That same sequence of events that's so evocative in literature can be even more infuriating in real life, even in the fake-real-world of sports. Even if I don't feel it quite as deeply, I get it.
You realize I was being sarcastic, right?
I frankly don't care to compare the incidents because pitting apples against oranges is fruitless (see what I did there?). Caspir covered my opinion perfectly so there's really no need for me to expand on that but I will leave you with this one thought:
You're begging the question.
