So can SoSH talk about Deflategate again?

CoffeeNerdness

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and the trip to the restroom with the balls was such an absurd part of the saga.
This one really gets me. A 55 year old man goes into a small bathroom and over the course of 90 seconds deflates 12 balls by some minuscule amount of PSI(by average). That's the story. That's what they came up with.
 

Silverdude2167

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I recognize that this I'm opening myself up to all sorts of derision, but c'est la vie. I'm not convinced NE was innocent here. Now, I'll grant ALL the caveats: no one has ever cared about air pressure, the 11.5-12.5 PSI range is completely arbitrary, every game played in hot or cold weather has had footballs out of compliance, teams have been caught manipulating footballs and no one batted an eyelash, the league acted in bad faith, no real proof was ever presented, etc., etc. Again, I grant and accept all the caveats.

Now...that being said, there are still a few uncomfortable facts that lead me to believe something MAY have happened. I have no idea if anything did happen; just a few things that don't add up for me.

1. It's been a while, but IIRC, there were like 3 footballs that were legitimately low and low on both gauges. Lower than what they should have been based on the air temperature. The AVERAGE of the footballs were fine (for the gauge that the referee specifically remembered using), but there were a a few individual footballs that were out of the expected range on both gauges. That in-and-of-itself isn't nefarious, but it's odd.
2. McNally, this older guy in poor shape, took the footballs with him to the bathroom. He was in there for 90 seconds. Now, 90 seconds is kind of long for a pee, or he dropped a quick deuce. Either way, why in the wide world of sports wouldn't you use the bathroom BEFORE lugging around a duffel of footballs with you? Particularly if you're an older, out of shape guy? It makes ZERO sense. The only explanation I can come up with was the bathroom was in use and he didn't feel like waiting. Other than that, it makes zero sense. Would you take your suitcase with you into the bathroom at the airport if you didn't have to? Of course not. It's possible there was a good reason for him doing it in that order, but I don't remember any defense being presented as to how it came to be. This is a real red flag for me (unless a good reason was presented by him, and I missed it.)
3. 90 seconds would be WAY too fast to deflate 12 footballs, but certainly not too fast to deflate 3 footballs. Again, I believe there were 3 footballs that had the low PSI numbers. Why would he stop at 3 footballs? I don't have a good answer for that. Maybe he heard someone outside and got spooked so he stopped. Maybe a message came through telling everyone to report to the field asap because the NFCC game had finished. The NFCC game went into OT, so the AFCC start time was in flux until the NFCC game abruptly ended. Given 1 & 2, 90 seconds is a reasonable timeline for deflating 3 footballs.

By themselves, none of these three data points are a big issue. But taken together, they make me wonder. I'm not saying there was any sort of nefarious plot. I doubt anyone on the team ever cared about PSI. However, I could see a scenario where Brady intimated that when the weather is crappy, he likes the footballs to be a tad softer to better grip them. I could see the equipment staff taking that info and making it inclement weather SOP to set the footballs to like 11 PSI and figuring that was fine because A) close enough, and B) no one has ever cared or enforced PSI rules (and why would or should they?). I don't think it was ever a coordinated effort, which is why it never showed up in texts. I'm sure Brady never asked anyone to take PSIs out of footballs. But I could see a scenario where it was just understood that inclement weather = let's try to make Brady's life easier by providing him with a football that's a bit easier to grip. (And yes, this is as much of a fictitious narrative as anything else. I'm just trying to make sense of data points 1, 2 & 3).

Teams should be able to play with footballs at whatever PSI they want, because who cares? The league never proved their case, so screw them. Wells acted in bad faith. Fans never gave a damn about PSI until NE was involved. All that is true, but there's still some stuff that doesn't add up for me (unless again, a reasonable defense has been provided for these data points and I missed them.)
I'm sorry but what? Is this an elaborate troll job?

Honestly, the most exonerating thing from the Pat's standpoint is that the NFL ran tests the next year and refused to release the results. That alone is proof they did nothing wrong because we all know that if the NFL ran tests in the cold and found that no balls PSI decreased they would have quickly released the results.

Also science, but if you wrote all of the above you don't actually care about science.
 

Smiling Joe Hesketh

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This one really gets me. A 55 year old man goes into a small bathroom and over the course of 90 seconds deflates 12 balls by some minuscule amount of PSI(by average). That's the story. That's what they came up with.
And doesn't screw any of them up too much, like down to 7.5 or anything like that. I mean if that's their story it was hardly a precise operation.
 

Bowhemian

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One of the big things for me personally is that before DFG, no one ever gave a single shit about the air pressure of a football. Yes, the league had a written spec, but it was never enforced. Shit, the Aaron Rodgers over-inflation thing was laughed off by the announcers (Collinsworth maybe?) talking about it. The only reason that the refs checked the Patriots footballs was that somebody ratted on them, so the league told the refs to check them with a pressure gauge.

The refs, who didn’t even know which gauge they used and likely never in their careers had used a pressure gauge to check the pressure of a football.

The pressure gauges, who someone probably had to run down to Dicks Sporting Goods to buy. They are trying to measure to a tenth of a psi with a pressure gauge that does not have that level of accuracy. Mona Lisa Vito can’t produce a certificate of calibration for any of the gauges that were used. Before this whole hubbabaloo, they were likely checking the footballs by eyesight for any visible blemishes, and by squeezing them with their hands. Hey, this ones a little soft, throw some air in it.

It was, and still is a complete joke
 

JayMags71

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I don’t think CK had anything to do with this. He played his last game on 1/1/17. The process had played out, and Brady served his suspension for the first 4 games of 2016.
That was imprecise writing on my part. I wasn’t trying to imply CK and his situation had any bearing on how Goodell handled deflategate. It was just another ingredient in the NFL’s toxic stew that made me quit watching football.
 

Phil Plantier

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The fact that you had to go back to the 19th Century for two of those examples and into the last one for the other doesn't really support your point very well.

No one is saying they didn't know some history or events in the abstract, just that it was the first time they were smacked in the face with it in real time in such a concrete, tangible manner. What I'm saying is that your shot was cheap and your point does not stand up to scrutiny.
Are you old enough to remember the Iraq war?

OK?

The players did so under an assumption of good faith in such matters. And to answer your entirely irrelevant question, yes, I think the Saints got fucked, and in retrospect, probably even Ritchie Incognito (ugh).

Oh. Well then nevermind. Draft picks don't matter. My bad. You should get an NFL consulting gig with your revolutionary "anti-draft" thesis on roster construction. I imagine the Jets would be interested.

25% actually. 4/16 = 0.25. Brady's base salary was $1MM in 2016. No one is asking you to "feel the rage", in fact I'm quite confident no single person on the planet gives a flying fuck what you think about this particular matter. But you stated: "I cannot comprehend the persecution that you (and others) feel about this topic." So I tried to enlighten you.

And out of curiosity, what does "I hate cultural explanations for things," mean? "Cultural explanations for things?" Huh?
I think Deflategate relates to Trump in the sense that a group of ultra-privileged winners are so blinded by rage at a perceived slight from years ago that they flatly reject any calm discussion and instead live inside their own bubble of information where death threats are common and alternative views are shouted down.

Also, that Deflategate, of all things, is what enrages you about due process in America today is either disingenuous or depressing.

I hate cultural explanations because "culture" is a catch-all that is hard to analyze. Most things that have cultural explanations (tipping, waiting in line) resist causal analysis due to this. But I'm hard-pressed to think of another reason that Patriots fans are so exorcised about something that had no impact on performance (although you are right that they lost a draft pick. If only the Pats could have drafted the next Daniel Fells). So I fall back on culture. I guess we'll all have to look in the mirror and ask ourselves why we're so enraged and violent.

P.S. I was trying to figure out Brady's fine in terms of his income, and I wasn't including Giselle. Trying to argue the size of Brady's fine by using his base salary is not really arguing in good faith.
 

Smiling Joe Hesketh

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One of the big things for me personally is that before DFG, no one ever gave a single shit about the air pressure of a football. Yes, the league had a written spec, but it was never enforced. Shit, the Aaron Rodgers over-inflation thing was laughed off by the announcers (Collinsworth maybe?) talking about it. The only reason that the refs checked the Patriots footballs was that somebody ratted on them, so the league told the refs to check them with a pressure gauge.

The refs, who didn’t even know which gauge they used and likely never in their careers had used a pressure gauge to check the pressure of a football.

The pressure gauges, who someone probably had to run down to Dicks Sporting Goods to buy. They are trying to measure to a tenth of a psi with a pressure gauge that does not have that level of accuracy. Mona Lisa Vito can’t produce a certificate of calibration for any of the gauges that were used. Before this whole hubbabaloo, they were likely checking the footballs by eyesight for any visible blemishes, and by squeezing them with their hands. Hey, this ones a little soft, throw some air in it.

It was, and still is a complete joke
The refs in that game against the Colts DIDN'T EVEN WRITE DOWN THE INITIAL PRESSURES BEFORE THE GAME.

That's how important everyone thought this nonsense really was.
 

CoffeeNerdness

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And doesn't screw any of them up too much, like down to 7.5 or anything like that. I mean if that's their story it was hardly a precise operation.
Right, which also suggests that he took every ball out and didn't replace them in the bag right away after deflating them because it'd be a goddamn miracle to mix the deflated balls back into the duffle and not grab a ball that you've already deflated. Pure insanity.
 

Salem's Lot

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He was about to go out to the field with the balls, then he saw that the NFC Championship game went to OT. So he decided to take a piss while he had a minute. That seems plausible no?
 

Smiling Joe Hesketh

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He was about to go out to the field with the balls, then he saw that the NFC Championship game went to OT. So he decided to take a piss while he had a minute. That seems plausible no?
Sure does. And having been told not to let the footballs out of his sight, he brought the bag into the bathroom with him. 90 seconds later he was all done.
 

lexrageorge

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The biggest issues that Brady had were:

a.) Nobody in the NFL gave a shit about ball pressure. Sure, sometimes the refs would check the balls and add or remove air if they were a bit out of spec. But that was it; seemed like the refs laughed about it more often than not. Or many times didn't even bother to check because the crew had more important things to discuss (points of emphasis, etc.). And nobody cared if the equipment guy took the balls into the restroom for a 90 seconds before the game.

b.) The one text where it was noted "the refs fucked us. Brady is pissed" when the refs pumped the balls up before one game.

c.) Brady's (correct) refusal to turn over his phone, and his (slightly less correct) decision to destroy his phone later. DcMissle (RIP) correctly noted that the appeals judges would have a problem with the destruction of the phone, even if it was standard op procedure for someone of Brady's profile.

d.) The fact that Brady had to prove something didn't happen; the NFL had no burden of proof they had to clear.

e.) The Pats won too much. Every other NFL city hated the fact that the New England Patriots, the formerly biggest joke of all joke franchises, completely dominated the league for 2 decades. Owners, GM's, coaches, players, fans, visiting teams media mouthpieces, etc., all hated the Pats for that very reason. It all started when the Pats beat Bill Poilan's Colts. Continued when the Pats ran the perfectly legal "ineligible receiver" play against the Ravens; somehow just running that play was considered poor sportsmanship by Shank, Borges and the rest of them. Pure jealousy.

f.) Goodell still had a bug up his ass about Spygate 7 years after the fact.

The NFL's goal from the outset was to find someone to blame. Paul-Weiss and Exponent were more than happy to oblige, and the whole concept of pressure vs. temperature was literally too complex for literally anyone in sports media to grasp. About the only thing the lawyers did that was "out of turn" was that they exonerated Belichick completely. That probably wasn't Goodell's desired outcome, but there was literally zero evidence to implicate him, and not even Paul-Weiss was willing to commit outright fraud.
 
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CR67dream

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Are you old enough to remember the Iraq war?

Come on, that all played out over a long stretch of time. Before social media was anything like it is now. It was not a situation that provided for an instant, almost spontaneous "holy shit" moment where millions of people around the world were simultaneously and suddenly rendered devoid of all reason.

Never mind that unlike the example you use, it was not a well planned, sophisticated disinformation campaign. The insanity that ensued was based almost entirely on one stupid, inaccurate tweet.
 

Smiling Joe Hesketh

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b.) The one text where it was noted "the refs fucked us. Brady is pissed" when the refs pumped the balls up before one game.
The one thing I believe might have happened is that in the Jets game the refs pumped the balls up to about 16 PSI and Brady was pissed so the guys took some air out as the game went on. I do think that's a reasonable guess. "Those fuckin' things were like rocks" was the text I remember.
 

BaseballJones

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The one thing I believe might have happened is that in the Jets game the refs pumped the balls up to about 16 PSI and Brady was pissed so the guys took some air out as the game went on. I do think that's a reasonable guess. "Those fuckin' things were like rocks" was the text I remember.
And crazily....if that actually happened, then the refs would have been responsible for inflating footballs outside their legal range, yet if the Pats took some air out of them back down to the legal limit, the Pats would have been guilty of illegal football tampering.

Which is soooooooooo dumb.
 

tims4wins

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I couldn't make it very far in this thread, which tells me that for me personally, I am completely, 100% over DFG, and have no interest in discussing it any more. Progress for me.
 

BigSoxFan

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I couldn't make it very far in this thread, which tells me that for me personally, I am completely, 100% over DFG, and have no interest in discussing it any more. Progress for me.
Well, now that we watched our QB throw fungo practice to WRs for a whole season, we have bigger fish to fry.
 

Seels

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I'll never get over not having draft picks. Belichick probably just drafts some defensive back I hate anyway I guess.
 

scottyno

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Somehow I doubt Kravitz learned any new info about the evidence or lack thereof from this documentary that wasn't already publicly available 5+ years ago.
 

slamminsammya

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Are you old enough to remember the Iraq war?



I think Deflategate relates to Trump in the sense that a group of ultra-privileged winners are so blinded by rage at a perceived slight from years ago that they flatly reject any calm discussion and instead live inside their own bubble of information where death threats are common and alternative views are shouted down.

Also, that Deflategate, of all things, is what enrages you about due process in America today is either disingenuous or depressing.
There are three claims here that are not grounded in reality.

1) Patriots fans live in their own bubble of information - What credible information about deflategate was not reckoned with by Patriots fans?

2) Death threats are common - seriously?

3) Alternative views are shouted down - proving that hacky, bad science is hacky and bad is exactly analogous to how Trumpism deals with alternative viewpoints. This is at best a stretch.

The second bolded part is such a strawman that I might even suggest you are being disingenuous.

Was that calm enough or did I just do a Trumpism?
 

pappymojo

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Even if the NFL offers an apology and awards draft picks back to the Patriots (and the #1 overall draft pick needs to go to the Patriots due to the value change in the years lost) I will feel vindicated but I will never forgive anyone who was involved.
 

Bergs

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I think Deflategate relates to Trump in the sense that a group of ultra-privileged winners are so blinded by rage at a perceived slight from years ago that they flatly reject any calm discussion and instead live inside their own bubble of information where death threats are common and alternative views are shouted down.
What the fuck are you talking about?

Also, that Deflategate, of all things, is what enrages you about due process in America today is either disingenuous or depressing.
Yes, that's a perfect summary of what's going on here. I'm being disingenuous. Got it.

I hate cultural explanations because "culture" is a catch-all that is hard to analyze. Most things that have cultural explanations (tipping, waiting in line) resist causal analysis due to this. But I'm hard-pressed to think of another reason that Patriots fans are so exorcised about something that had no impact on performance (although you are right that they lost a draft pick. If only the Pats could have drafted the next Daniel Fells). So I fall back on culture. I guess we'll all have to look in the mirror and ask ourselves why we're so enraged and violent.
This meandering mess of a non-sequitor certainly seems to have landed where you wanted it, but I'm not sure that's anything to be proud of.

P.S. I was trying to figure out Brady's fine in terms of his income, and I wasn't including Giselle. Trying to argue the size of Brady's fine by using his base salary is not really arguing in good faith.
You weren't "trying" to do anything. You went with a random guess, I corrected it. It's part of my culture.
 

streeter88

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Wow. So reading that thread - and trying to do it without succumbing to the rising bile in my throat - was not fun.

I dunno - is it the Inauguration and the many threats and stresses there? Is it the Patriots first losing season in 2 decades? Is it that the pandemic is still WILDLY out of control?

Or maybe SOSH really isn't ready to talk about DFG again?

Edit: and the timing of the documentary and various responses, not sure if anyone mentioned it, is pretty much perfect for sticking a needle in Brady's eye and reputation just as he yet again rises to the very top of the heap. He WILL use it to fuel his drive for his 7th ring.
 

OurF'ingCity

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If we're doing the whole historical parallels thing I actually agree the Iraq War is a way better comparison than Trump/Qanon. QAnon (and the larger "stolen election" narrative) is just a batshit insane theory with not even a hint of evidence to support it that a relatively small percentage of the population (though obviously much, much too large for the good of the country) believes. The NFL equivalent would be if Roger Goodell refused to award the Lombardi Trophy to the Patriots in 2014 because he thought Belichick was an alien from another world or something.

Conversely while I take CR67's point about social media, there are a lot of other parallels - namely, that a large majority of Americans were duped by those in power and a bunch of supposed "experts" into believing something that played into their preconceived notions. With Deflategate most Americans already hated the Pats and thought of them as cheaters so the idea that the Patriots were fucking with the pressure in balls probably didn't seem terribly far-fetched, as ridiculous as it is in retrospect (and was at the time to Pats fans). With Iraq, most Americans were still in post-9/11 jingoism/Patriot Act/"if you're not with us you're against us" mode and so, similarly, didn't need much convincing when they saw a bunch of politicians from both sides of the aisle saying that we needed to invade Iraq due to WMDs.

But maybe the point is that the specific comparison doesn't matter as all of the things we are discussing are part of the inevitable human tendency to believe things we want to believe are true, regardless of evidence - certainly it isn't limited to just sports and politics, as any trial lawyer or jury consultant could tell you.
 

Harry Hooper

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I take the fact that we have never heard the league mention psi again as a tacit admission that they were full of shit. Again.
This is ALL anyone operating in good faith has to know about Deflategate. The idea that the Commish could foist his subsequent "spot checks" story on the world and not be absolutely pilloried for it by a whole array of media just shows how nuts things are. As the Commish proudly said about the NFL at his SB press conference, "We have the best partners in media!"

I mean, I guess I should reveal my bias here: I cannot comprehend the persecution that you (and others) feel about this topic.

It's like the Raiders complaining about the Tuck Rule, except if the Raiders won the game.

The Patriots won the Super Bowl that year. The four games off may have actually *helped* Brady win the Super Bowl that year too.

I hate cultural explanations for things, but it's the only thing I can come up with for how much anger people have for a penalty that had no effect on anything.
Assuming this post was made in good faith, it is true the Pats won the SB that year, but the ramifications of Deflategate go on and on in terms of reputations damaged, lost picks, and further NFL punishments ratcheting up as one "transgression" increases the need to enact further penalties on the Pats when a warning should be appropriate, and harsher penalties than should otherwise be levied. It's never going to be "over" as much as anyone would like. The Pats don't get to wipe the slate clean with the league after 6 years of safe driving.

I don’t know. I hated Kravitz as much as anyone when all this was happening. And I’m sure he is dreading coming back under the microscope so wants to deflect. Which he does here.

But he’s also owning a fair amount here, regretting the Belichick should be canned tweets in particular and how he bought into the idea that the story must be true bc he was so invested in it being true.

I also don’t think it’s exactly controversial to conclude that the excuses for the “Deflator” texts were weak – I’m not saying they’re proof or anything but did we ever get an explanation for that that isn’t a joke? Combined with the Pats’ reputation for bending the rules, I think a lot of people can reasonably conclude that something may well have transpired. What they can’t say—which Kravitz acknowledges here—is that there’s any proof at all.

I’m not sure what else we want from the guy. He’s basically concluding that he thinks his gut was right but there’s really no evidence to suggest it, there were a ton of agendas at play and that the investigation was a complete joke.

Why do we always need people to come running down the aisle like the Senator in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington screaming “I was wrong! I’m the one who should be expelled!”
"Combined with the Pats’ reputation for bending the rules" There it is. The NFL is quite capable of turning down the volume if not outright "disappearing" stories it wants to go away. Sticking just to the Goodell reign, the Giants had the coach illegally talking to his quarterback on the field as the game was being played, but almost no one nationally, even NFL fans, knows about it. It certainly wasn't anything close to the lead story on the NBC/CBS/ABC News. The Steelers may have been playing with under-inflated footballs in 2016, but the NFL essentially ignored it. Seattle has gone through a string of practice violations. The Texans in 2020 had organized workouts {despite COVID-19 restrictions} that were a violation of both integrity of the game concerns and health & safety concerns. Heck, NFL HQ claimed to not have possession of the Ray Rice tape, and folks bought it.

I am pretty sure the item with "deflate and give somebody that jacket" with the screencap of the guy wearing/holding the bulky jacket in the game vs. the Packers that was happening when the text was sent is out there if you want to find it.
 
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Harry Hooper

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There was so much leftover bullshit from Spygate that impacted Deflategate that it's impossible to tease it all out.

In addition to above, there was this bizarre paradox that people simultaneously thought that the harshness of the Spygate penalty was proof of severe wrongdoing (and not merely the technical violation that it was), but at the same time Goodell was "soft" on Kraft because Kraft was a "shadow commissioner."

My take has always been that:
A) Goodell, new Commissioner, was overly harsh on Spygate because he wanted to set a tone of authority in the face of Belichick's disrespect for the rules;
B) Kraft, because he recognized the need to ingratiate himself to the league in light of what happened in Spygate, made it his business to be useful to Goodell, particularly in negotiating the 2011 collective bargaining agreement, for which he received the lion's share of credit.
C) Other owners begin resenting the attention Kraft is getting, and suspicious of his closeness with Goodell, start spreading the "Shadow Commissioner" whisper campaign to play up Goodell's insecurity;
D) Goodell, in order to dispel the image of Kraft's influence, uses Deflategate to smack the Patriots again and in the process determine the actual legal lines of his own authority. This was made possible from a PR standpoint due to the lack of correction issued for the reasons behind A.

And through all of Deflategate, Kraft naively thought he would get a fair shake because he had acted in good faith toward Goodell, and served the league well, since 2008. That everyone saw he was being shivved in real time while he played softball until it was too late made it all the more infuriating.
Yes, there was that odd duality of the harsh penalty for Spygate having to be evidence of major violations, but yet somehow not being harsh enough. Regarding your B above, you are leaving out the very public role Kraft played in saving Goodell from the real prospect of being forced to resign as Commish during the Ray Rice fiasco. www.cbsnews.com/video/patriots-owner-bob-kraft-on-ray-rice-incident-thursday-night-football/

I am not sure that your D above is valid. It just may have been the work of Mike Kensil and other anti-Pats minions at NFL HQ starting a conflagration, and then Goodell moving under pressure from other owners and elsewhere to keep himself from getting burned. Kensil was effectively banished to China by the NFL in the Deflategate aftermath, possibly because he had dragged the NFL and the Commish especially into the whole morass.



I recognize that this I'm opening myself up to all sorts of derision, but c'est la vie. I'm not convinced NE was innocent here. Now, I'll grant ALL the caveats: no one has ever cared about air pressure, the 11.5-12.5 PSI range is completely arbitrary, every game played in hot or cold weather has had footballs out of compliance, teams have been caught manipulating footballs and no one batted an eyelash, the league acted in bad faith, no real proof was ever presented, etc., etc. Again, I grant and accept all the caveats.

Now...that being said, there are still a few uncomfortable facts that lead me to believe something MAY have happened. I have no idea if anything did happen; just a few things that don't add up for me.

1. It's been a while, but IIRC, there were like 3 footballs that were legitimately low and low on both gauges. Lower than what they should have been based on the air temperature. The AVERAGE of the footballs were fine (for the gauge that the referee specifically remembered using), but there were a a few individual footballs that were out of the expected range on both gauges. That in-and-of-itself isn't nefarious, but it's odd.
2. McNally, this older guy in poor shape, took the footballs with him to the bathroom. He was in there for 90 seconds. Now, 90 seconds is kind of long for a pee, or he dropped a quick deuce. Either way, why in the wide world of sports wouldn't you use the bathroom BEFORE lugging around a duffel of footballs with you? Particularly if you're an older, out of shape guy? It makes ZERO sense. The only explanation I can come up with was the bathroom was in use and he didn't feel like waiting. Other than that, it makes zero sense. Would you take your suitcase with you into the bathroom at the airport if you didn't have to? Of course not. It's possible there was a good reason for him doing it in that order, but I don't remember any defense being presented as to how it came to be. This is a real red flag for me (unless a good reason was presented by him, and I missed it.)
3. 90 seconds would be WAY too fast to deflate 12 footballs, but certainly not too fast to deflate 3 footballs. Again, I believe there were 3 footballs that had the low PSI numbers. Why would he stop at 3 footballs? I don't have a good answer for that. Maybe he heard someone outside and got spooked so he stopped. Maybe a message came through telling everyone to report to the field asap because the NFCC game had finished. The NFCC game went into OT, so the AFCC start time was in flux until the NFCC game abruptly ended. Given 1 & 2, 90 seconds is a reasonable timeline for deflating 3 footballs.

By themselves, none of these three data points are a big issue. But taken together, they make me wonder. I'm not saying there was any sort of nefarious plot. I doubt anyone on the team ever cared about PSI. However, I could see a scenario where Brady intimated that when the weather is crappy, he likes the footballs to be a tad softer to better grip them. I could see the equipment staff taking that info and making it inclement weather SOP to set the footballs to like 11 PSI and figuring that was fine because A) close enough, and B) no one has ever cared or enforced PSI rules (and why would or should they?). I don't think it was ever a coordinated effort, which is why it never showed up in texts. I'm sure Brady never asked anyone to take PSIs out of footballs. But I could see a scenario where it was just understood that inclement weather = let's try to make Brady's life easier by providing him with a football that's a bit easier to grip. (And yes, this is as much of a fictitious narrative as anything else. I'm just trying to make sense of data points 1, 2 & 3).

Teams should be able to play with footballs at whatever PSI they want, because who cares? The league never proved their case, so screw them. Wells acted in bad faith. Fans never gave a damn about PSI until NE was involved. All that is true, but there's still some stuff that doesn't add up for me (unless again, a reasonable defense has been provided for these data points and I missed them.)
El Jeffe, I guess you were not a regular reader of the Deflategate threads or the Well Report in Context?

Regarding #1: As Bowhemian noted in a post after yours, attaching an expectancy of high precision to the pressure gauges is not merited right from the start. Add in the officials clumsily trying to execute the pressure readings in an unprecedented and tense halftime procedure with the likes of Kensil breathing down their necks. The Patriots footballs were also measured before the Colts ones and were exposed to different conditions during the first half of the game.

Regarding #2: the pre-game routine was disrupted by the earlier game running long. The NFL ordered a delay to the start of the Pats game. The extended time may have led to McNally having to answer "nature's call" when he did. Per league gameday rules, he was instructed to never let the bag of footballs out of his sight, so into the toilet they went.

Regarding #3: essentially irrelevant given the circumstances noted regarding your #1.
 
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tims4wins

PN23's replacement
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Jul 15, 2005
37,059
Hingham, MA
Saying that there has been no long lasting effect (@Phil Plantier ) is BS even if the lost first rounder had already retired. The Pats are without their third round pick in the 2021 draft because of the “multiple offender” angle of the Bengals incident last year.
 

themuddychicken

New Member
Mar 26, 2014
80
1. It's been a while, but IIRC, there were like 3 footballs that were legitimately low and low on both gauges. Lower than what they should have been based on the air temperature. The AVERAGE of the footballs were fine (for the gauge that the referee specifically remembered using), but there were a a few individual footballs that were out of the expected range on both gauges. That in-and-of-itself isn't nefarious, but it's odd.
FYI, Exponent added a constant to the Ideal Gas Law which just coincidentally served to make it harder for the balls to hit the allowed range. If you remove that constant and don't second guess the refs on which gauge they used then every single ball fell within the allowed range.

Their reason for adding this constant was under the guise of using Indianapolis's balls as a control, which sounds good on first blush. Controls are good right? Then you remember that the Ideal Gas Law is a freaking scientific Law and it doesn't need any control added by hacks who massage data until it says what their client wants it so say. Foxboro Stadium doesn't magically alter physics within it.

Indy's balls sat there heating up for 10 minutes so of course when they were measured that had lost less PSI than NE's. That standard (10 minutes of heating up) was then applied to NE's balls, which were measured immediately without the opportunity to heat up.

For some reason barely anyone talked about this at the time, and it has mostly been forgotten since.
 

pappymojo

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Saying that there has been no long lasting effect (@Phil Plantier ) is BS even if the lost first rounder had already retired. The Pats are without their third round pick in the 2021 draft because of the “multiple offender” angle of the Bengals incident last year.
The first round pick that they lost would have been under contract for the 2018 super bowl that they lost to the Eagles.
 

BaseballJones

ivanvamp
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Oct 1, 2015
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FYI, Exponent added a constant to the Ideal Gas Law which just coincidentally served to make it harder for the balls to hit the allowed range. If you remove that constant and don't second guess the refs on which gauge they used then every single ball fell within the allowed range.

Their reason for adding this constant was under the guise of using Indianapolis's balls as a control, which sounds good on first blush. Controls are good right? Then you remember that the Ideal Gas Law is a freaking scientific Law and it doesn't need any control added by hacks who massage data until it says what their client wants it so say. Foxboro Stadium doesn't magically alter physics within it.

Indy's balls sat there heating up for 10 minutes so of course when they were measured that had lost less PSI than NE's. That standard (10 minutes of heating up) was then applied to NE's balls, which were measured immediately without the opportunity to heat up.

For some reason barely anyone talked about this at the time, and it has mostly been forgotten since.
I wrote all about this precise point.
 

jaytftwofive

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Jan 20, 2013
1,182
Drexel Hill Pa.
I see the words "Bob Kravitz" and am instantly reminded of why I'll root against the Colts in every game they play from now until the end of time, no matter the opponent. Fuck that franchise and their "little-brother-complex" media market.
I'll root for them now against the Steelers and Ravens.
 

jaytftwofive

New Member
Jan 20, 2013
1,182
Drexel Hill Pa.
https://sports.yahoo.com/10-year-old-kid-won-science-fair-proving-tom-brady-cheater-184439991.html
I hope this little twerp enjoys the NFCCG.

(I know he ate crow later)

As for the antisemitism issue with Deflategate, I am positive that back in the summer of Deflategate we had a pretty extensive go-round with this issue and the more general anti-New England-liberals element in the national hostility to the Pats. I'm not going back through those threads myself, but it is there. I think it is accurate critique too: part of the hatred of the Pats is wrapped up in only thinly veiled other hostilities, including antisemitism.
Because Kraft is Jewish?
 

SoxVindaloo

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Titletown of the Aughts
I, too, have long posited that the collective decision to embrace the schadenfreude at the expense of understanding the truth that was at the heart of Deflategate was a canary in the coalmine for Trump and Q. The parallels are obvious to anyone who cares to look for them. Indifferent people waved it away because it was "just football," but what they ignored was that a lot of people care very, very, much about NFL football.

The quick-hit misinformation, amplified by social media, the exploitation of the audience's aversion to critical thought and science, the ad hominem attacks. It was all there.
This is a brilliant take and indeed a sad shape of things to come. I read this behind the paywall and will concur he is furiously trying to cover his ass ahead of the documentary. This is no moment of personal reflection.
 

Hoya81

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Wasn't it the Ravens coaches and players who ratted to the Colts and Kravitz about it from the game the week before??
Ted Wells also interviewed Dean Pees and the Ravens ST coach for reasons that were never explained.
 

Harry Hooper

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I forget the Dean Pees link for Wells. Maybe it was to get corroboration from a former Patriots coach about information supplied by the Pats?

The Ravens ST coach had made the initial complaint about his team's kicking balls being messed with during the division round game. As it turned out one of the NFL employees had been stealing game-used footballs, and this is what actually caused the complaint against the Patriots by the Ravens.
 

wiffleballhero

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In the simulacrum
Because Kraft is Jewish?
I also wouldn't discount the large majority of other NFL owners being quite happy to stick it to the "pompous Jew" up in New England. I know from first-hand knowledge that Kraft was vilified by some powerful owners purely because he was Jewish.

Yes, and the conversation was started upthread by RG33. Owners. And I think the media and fans get their signals and then it is dog whistled down stream, but as such things go, it is not that easy to substantiate. But the relentless need to see the Pats as cheating, and therefore the league's more than complicity in trying to 'tarnish' their own greatest dynasty has always seemed troped to me. What is the motive for this? I don't know, but I think it is worth considering that the hostility to the Pats is not just normal sore loser syndrome. There have been plenty of dynasties before that don't get this treatment. Indeed, in football, other good teams get the opposite as their cheating is just given the "boys will be boys" routine (insert 'your team cheats' link here). And, btw, we're in the middle of a conversation in which we are working through the idea of Patriots Paranoia being a precursor for Qanon, et al. I'll only add that to the extent this is an element of things, it is wrapped up in an obvious wider resentment that the greatest dynasty in football comes from Massachusetts. For lots of America (the god, guns, football parts of the landscape) its like having NASCAR dominate by a some guy from Cambridge.

I don't really need to keep on with this. I see it as a dog whistle, from the top of the league on down and I suspect I'm not going to find some Parler page that lays it all out explicitly, so I'll let it go.
 

Van Everyman

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BaseballJones

ivanvamp
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Oct 1, 2015
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Not to pick on anyone in particular, because I was in agreement at the time with this post, but:

38059

I was in agreement that this was a silly thing, that Colts fans were being ridiculous, and yet.... even though BB wasn't suspended, Brady was, they lost draft picks, etc. Just incredible, really.
 

snowmanny

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Dec 8, 2005
15,670
“They are Super Bowl Champions...for now”

I mean what fan base ever had to hear something like that from an announcer after winning it all? Infuriating.

Not even the fans of Pete Carroll’s USC team didn’t have to hear it, and they lost their title.
 

Leather

given himself a skunk spot
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Jul 18, 2005
28,451
Not to pick on anyone in particular, because I was in agreement at the time with this post, but:

View attachment 38059

I was in agreement that this was a silly thing, that Colts fans were being ridiculous, and yet.... even though BB wasn't suspended, Brady was, they lost draft picks, etc. Just incredible, really.
I remember being horrified when this starting leaking out because it should have been obvious to everyone here that went through Spygate that it was going to be a Very Big Thing.

Maybe it’s because I’ve lived outside of New England for the past 20 years, but the simmering resentment and suspicion, however unwarranted, toward the Patriots by huge swaths of every other teams’ fandom made it immediately clear to me that people would jump on this without hesitation and exploit it with fucking glee.
 

BaseballJones

ivanvamp
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Oct 1, 2015
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I remember being horrified when this starting leaking out because it should have been obvious to everyone here that went through Spygate that it was going to be a Very Big Thing.

Maybe it’s because I’ve lived outside of New England for the past 20 years, but the simmering resentment and suspicion, however unwarranted, toward the Patriots by huge swaths of every other teams’ fandom made it immediately clear to me that people would jump on this without hesitation and exploit it with fucking glee.
Yeah. At first I thought it was silly because...I mean.....REALLY? "Deflating footballs"??? But then it didn't take long for this to get traction and be a serious thing, and then yeah, I was like holy crap this is gonna be a problem.
 

Nator

Member
SoSH Member
I remember being horrified when this starting leaking out because it should have been obvious to everyone here that went through Spygate that it was going to be a Very Big Thing.

Maybe it’s because I’ve lived outside of New England for the past 20 years, but the simmering resentment and suspicion, however unwarranted, toward the Patriots by huge swaths of every other teams’ fandom made it immediately clear to me that people would jump on this without hesitation and exploit it with fucking glee.
Christ almighty, it was the lead story on the national fucking news broadcasts during that week. In what world does that happen for any other team except for maybe the Cowboys?

Also, what ever happened to that shitbag Kensil? Didn't he get shipped off to be the NFL Ambassador to China or something? I would love to see him get grilled about his role in this whole thing.
 

Bergs

funky and cold
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Jul 22, 2005
21,613
So...has anyone watched this documentary yet? Is it work the $5?
I watched it last night. I learned nothing new about Deflategate itself, but it is a well-put together summary of the complete bullshit that was the entire process. It didn't bother with some bits it could have, but it was a pretty damning indictment of the NFL. Of course, I'm biased, but yeah, I'd say it's worth $5.
 

JokersWildJIMED

Blinded by Borges
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Oct 7, 2004
2,742
Yes, there was that odd duality of the harsh penalty for Spygate having to be evidence of major violations, but yet somehow not being harsh enough.
Given the harshness of the penalty for Bountygate, there was a feeling (ridiculous as it was) around the league that the Patriots had gotten off easy with Spygate, and especially that Belichick should have been suspended. Deflategate was the league's (and Belichick's detractors) opportunity to right that wrong. Combine that with the jealousy and hatred of the Pats by all the usual suspects and you get the cluster that was Deflategate.
 

Leather

given himself a skunk spot
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Jul 18, 2005
28,451
Given the harshness of the penalty for Bountygate, there was a feeling (ridiculous as it was) around the league that the Patriots had gotten off easy with Spygate, and especially that Belichick should have been suspended. Deflategate was the league's (and Belichick's detractors) opportunity to right that wrong. Combine that with the jealousy and hatred of the Pats by all the usual suspects and you get the cluster that was Deflategate.
Which, of course, is absurd given that Spygate was a violation regarding the location of the cameraman, not that filming was per se a rules violation. But that basic fucking distinction was completely ignored by the NFL and media once things spiraled out of control because they worried they'd look weak and foolish if they admitted that maybe they overreacted.

Goodell could have very easily achieved his objective and also extinguished the lingering stink of the incident if they had quickly, and assertively, clarified that the penalty was stiff *not* because of any competitive advantage the filming may have given the Patriots, but because it was sending a message that repeat rule breakers, regardless of the underlying offense, would be dealt with harshly. Instead they kind of ducked and smirked and then had that stupid press conference where they played the tapes and then destroyed the, which again reinforced the idea that the issue was the tapes themselves and not the violation of the rule regarding location of filming.