#DFG: Canceling the Noise

[soxhop411]

Mark Daniels ‏@MarkDanielsPJ  4m4 minutes ago
"With the Logo gauge, 8 of the 11 Patriots footballs are in the Ideal Gas Law range"

 

[Revkeith]

If that's true that Wells/NFL refused to conduct the interview solely because McNally/whoever couldn't have their lawyer there, that drastically weakens their "didn't cooperate" case.

 

[Ed Hillel]

Goodell is going to make the team fine worse for leaking these documents, at which point Kraft will go to court. Is that what's going to happen? 

 

[Kenny F'ing Powers]

One thing the Wells report and the Patriots' response can agree on: Jastremski and McNally aren't funny.

 
Shutup, Dorito dink.

 

[Ed Hillel]

Honestly, I would have rejected that request as well.

 
There should be another party in that room to make sure what is recorded is what was actually said. The Patriots would be insane to allow anything otherwise.

 

[DJnVa]

WOAH
 
http://wellsreportcontext.com/

 

Dude, you were CRUSHED by 6 minutes. Look upthread. Disappointing showing my friend.
 
And it's "WHOA"

 

[Kenny F'ing Powers]

Goodell is going to make the team fine worse for leaking these documents, at which point Kraft will go to court. Is that what's going to happen? 

 
Hey, Wells challenged Yee to release records. It's been broughten.

 

[Average Reds]

https://wellsreportcontext.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/pash_correspondence1.pdf
 
 
mike freeman ‏@mikefreemanNFL  30s30 seconds ago
More internal documents. Damn. https://wellsreportcontext.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/pash_correspondence1.pdf …

 
If Goldberg's letter is accurate, Ted Wells has some serious credibility problems. 
 
What an incredible, self-inflicted wound this is for him.

 

[MiracleOfO2704]

This doesn't seem like the actions of an owner that will quietly take his punishment and wait to go all Machiavelli on the commissioner. If this was a rogue Jonathan move, Bob needs to shut it down yesterday. If Bob's in on it, then all sense of measured resistance is gone and he's embracing his role as Al 2.0.

 

[jsinger121]

 
Hey, Wells challenged Yee to release records. It's been broughten.

 
Exactly. Wells did a lousy job and the NFL brought this on themselves. Now Kraft wants to embarrass Wells and the league.

 

[Harry Hooper]

Goodell is going to make the team fine worse for leaking these documents, at which point Kraft will go to court. Is that what's going to happen? 

 
My early read is I think it's more that Kraft decided he was never going to court, so decided to embarrass the crap out of the NFL

 

[dcmissle]

 
There should be another party in that room to make sure what is recorded is what was actually said. The Patriots would be insane to allow anything otherwise.

This is what I was responding to:

"Patriots counsel requested to be present during interviews of such League personnel. That request was rejected."

League personnel. What right do the Pats have to be in on the interviews of the officials, for example?

 

[nighthob]

People keep saying this, but it isn't true. Exponent goes into this on pages 52-55 of their report. The Patriots' balls, for the most part, are roughly in the range predicted by the ideal gas law assuming they were gauged outside at halftime, but we know they weren't gauged outside at halftime. As time goes on, the temperatures of the balls rises, which increases the pressure. Specifically, balls 9, 10, and 11 are difficult to explain (as are balls 2 and 4, which are low even assuming the logo gauge was used). That doesn't mean tampering, but it's false to say assuming the Logo Gauge accounts for the entire discrepancy.

Except that if you read that section you find that they reverse engineered the starting the temperature of the balls based on the pressure of the Colts balls as they were measured. Which as was mentioned several thousand times in the monster thread leads us to the absurdity of someone cranking up the heat in the empty locker room. So, yes, the physicists that have torn the science to shreds retain considerably more credibility than the engineering firm that argued, with a straight face, that oil spills don't harm the environment.

 

[PBDWake]

My favorite part finally gives potential context to the "Deflator" comment. Apparently the Patriots standard procedure on receiving footballs is to deflate them at least twice before putting them to game specs, presumably to ensure that the ball is up to snuff.

 

[jsinger121]

This doesn't seem like the actions of an owner that will quietly take his punishment and wait to go all Machiavelli on the commissioner. If this was a rogue Jonathan move, Bob needs to shut it down yesterday. If Bob's in on it, then all sense of measured resistance is gone and he's embracing his role as Al 2.0.

 
Robert signed off on this along with Jonathan I bet. This is a team effort.

 

[theapportioner]

I think it's more that Kraft decided he was never going to court, so decided to embarrass the crap out of the NFL

 
Yeah, I think this is all PR/scorched earth tactics. Guessing he thought that court would have a remote possibility of success.

 

[Harry Hooper]

Except that if you read that section you find that they reverse engineered the starting the temperature of the balls based on the pressure of the Colts balls as they were measured. Which as was mentioned several thousand times in the monster thread leads us to the absurdity of someone cranking up the heat in the empty locker room. So, yes, the physicists that have torn the science to shreds retain considerably more credibility than the engineering firm that argued, with a straight face, that oil spills don't harm the environment.

 
 
It also still doesn't factor in the wetness of the balls and effects on ball PSI.
 
 
 
Addendum: This is a good bit going at Exponent:
 

Exponent also conducted a series of experiments to evaluate the impact of environmental conditions on the air pressure of footballs. Among other things, these experiments attempted to replicate the likely conditions and circumstances on game day and the results recorded by the game officials at halftime.
During the course of play — where the Patriots had far more offensive plays than did the Colts, the Patriots footballs were subject to far more use, more crushing multiple times under hundreds of pounds of player weight, more exposure to the rain, etc. Also, the consultants did not use any footballs in their simulations that were subjected to the type of actual football game preparation as the balls at issue — the Patriots personnel were never asked to replicate that process, the Patriots facilities were never used in the simulation, and actual game play usage was not replicated. The well-worn footballs used in the simulations had already been subjected to vigorous game day play and were no longer in the same condition as the footballs used in the first half of the AFC Championship Game. Where fractions of psi are critical to an analysis, greater precision should be expected.
 

 

[Kenny F'ing Powers]

I love this part:
 

We learned last night from Ted that the issue of how League personnel handled the pursuit of the low psi issues, including whether there were inappropriate prejudgments and unfounded presumptions of wrongdoing, selective leaks of information and misinformation, failure to correct obviously misreported information, and the like, are not part of what the Paul Weiss firm has been asked to investigate. I understand that the League has opted to investigate those matters internally.

 
So, it's exactly what we thought.
 
Anything Patriots: Wells Report.
 
Anything NFL/Colts: Internal investigation. 

 

[MuppetAsteriskTalk]

Goodell is going to make the team fine worse for leaking these documents, at which point Kraft will go to court. Is that what's going to happen? 

 
I think Kraft is looking to somehow goad the league into doing something that allows them to challenge this outside the confines of the league. 

 

[nolasoxfan]

 
Scott Isaacs ‏@ScottIsaacs  7m7 minutes ago
Patriots team attorney Dan Goldberg just released a review of the Wells Report... we are digging through it now http://wellsreportcontext.com/  #wcvb
 

Unexpected, to say the least.  I’m not sure I understand the rationale to release at this point in time.  Seems to me that both sides are more interested in PR.

 

[DJnVa]

At this point I probably resign as trial counsel for the NEP on the disciplinary matter because somebody -- Jonathan? -- has just blown my opportunity to get the sanctions reduced on appeal -- which would have constituted victory in this case.

 
 
Can you expand on this?
 
You think this release negates the chance to win on appeal?

 

[BroodsSexton]

This is amazing.  If I believed in conspiracy theories, I'd say that Kraft and Goodell were in cahoots to generate continued media attention.  Any ink is good ink.  God.

 

[Average Reds]

I love this part:
 
 
 
 
So, it's exactly what we thought.
 
Anything Patriots: Wells Report.
 
Anything NFL/Colts: Internal investigation. 

 
That's what I was driving at.
 
Ted Wells either stated or strongly implied in his conference call the other day that his charter was to investigate the entire issue.  Now we find out that is simply untrue.
 
Whether Wells is technically a liar or not, he stated bluntly that there was no sting effort.  And now it appears that he didn't even try to investigate this issue.

 

[soxhop411]

Mark Daniels ‏@MarkDanielsPJ  3m3 minutes ago
"NOT A SINGLE TEXT REFERS TO DEFLATING FOOTBALLS TO A LEVEL BELOW REGULATION, TO DEFLATING FOOTBALLS AFTER THE REFEREE’S INSPECTION" #CAPS

 

[notfar]

Jeff Pash is a semicolon abuser, holy god. https://wellsreportcontext.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/pash_correspondence1.pdf

 

[Hoya81]

Skimmed the whole thing.

Biggest points:

1. McNally turned over his phone, no texts from Brady.
2. Brady got McNally's nickname wrong (Burt instead of Bird)
3. Agreement between Pats and Wells that McNally would be interviewed once, offered alternatives, got no response from Wells

 

[Silverdude2167]

Maybe they decided the best way was to show how much of a farce this is. If these documents continue to show what they have briefly, I think a strong case can be made in the media that there is absolutly no grounds for any of the finds/punishment.
 
Adding context to the texts has already changed the tone of what people considered the "smoking gun".

 

[Kenny F'ing Powers]

I know it's been said before, but I still love this:
 
 

MR. ANDERSON SPECIFICALLY RECALLS THAT HE USED THE LOGO GAUGE FOR THESE PRE-GAME MEASUREMENTS (pg. 52). (This is the only recollection of Mr. Anderson that the report rejects.) Therefore, the Logo gauge numbers are the correct numbers to use for halftime psi. The investigators did rely on those Logo gauge halftime psi numbers in dealing with the Colts footballs. Using that gauge, all the Colts footballs were within regulation. That justified the officials not adding air to them. However, when assessing the Patriots footballs, the investigators reject Anderson’s best recollection that he used the Logo gauge pre-game, and instead look to the larger psi drop that is shown by the lower psi, non-Logo gauge.

 
Again, this is stuff we already know, but when it's put so simply:
 
Anderson says he used the logo gauge for pregame. At halftime, they use the logo gauge to validate the Colts footballs are properly inflated. When the logo gauge validates the Patriots footballs are fine, they choose to go with the non-logo gauge because...because.
 

Mr. Anderson’s recollections are adopted by the investigators for the pre-game psi numbers. His recollection that he used the Logo gauge pre-game is the premise of the investigators’ justification for League officials not reinflating Colts footballs at halftime. But his recollection of which gauge he used pre-game is rejected when assessing the psi drop for the Patriots footballs. There is no rationale for this flip-flopping on whether Mr. Anderson’s recollections were correct. And it is clear that the investigators, not happy with his recollections on this point, pushed the issue so he would state that, despite his best recollection, it was “possible” he used the other gauge.

 

[cornwalls@6]

His franchise/pride and joy has been dragged through the mud for 4 months now, and then hit with an outrageously over the top penalty, based on what is becoming increasingly clear, a biased, sloppy, hatchet-job of an investigative report. National reputational damage has been done.  Why wouldn't Kraft & Co. come out swinging? What is the downside?  

 

[PBDWake]

My favorite part finally gives potential context to the "Deflator" comment. Apparently the Patriots standard procedure on receiving footballs is to deflate them at least twice before putting them to game specs, presumably to ensure that the ball is up to snuff.

 
Oops. Apparently they address this directly later. Seeing as I go. I'll spoiler the wall of text addressing that and the espn comment.

Spoiler

There was a second way that Mr. Jastremski and Mr. McNally used the term “deflation” or “deflator” which the report disregards. The Wells investigators had the May 9, 2014 “deflator”/espn text string in their possession several weeks before their full day, four lawyer-staffed interviews with each of Mr. McNally and Mr. Jastremski. They came to the interviews with laptops, documentation and had obviously prepared extensively for each interview. They never asked either of them about that May 9 “deflator”/espn text. Perhaps that is not surprising since the word “deflator” appears in only ONE text from among many hundreds of texts that were made available to the investigators. The Report then takes this one word, in this one text, and uses it throughout the Report as a moniker for Mr. McNally. Is this true objectivity? Further, when they sought their additional interview with Mr. McNally, they never candidly said they had overlooked this text and therefore wanted Mr. McNally back for another interview to ask him about it. They never asked Mr. Jastremski about it in his interview. Had they done so, they would have learned from either gentleman one of the ways they used the deflation/deflator term. Mr. Jastremski would sometimes work out and bulk up — he is a slender guy and his goal was to get to 200 pounds. Mr. McNally is a big fellow and had the opposite goal: to lose weight. “Deflate” was a term they used to refer to losing weight. One can specifically see this use of the term in a Nov. 30, 2014 text from Mr. McNally to Mr. Jastremski: “deflate and give somebody that jacket.” (p. 87). This banter, and Mr. McNally’s goal of losing weight, meant Mr. McNally was the “deflator.” There was nothing complicated or sinister about it. If there was any doubt about the jocular nature of the May 9, 2014 texts, a review of all the texts between these two men that day would dispel it:
12:21:46: JM “Whats up dorito dink”
12:22:53: JJ “Nada”
12:22:53: JM “Whens the pong party….im on fire”
12:23:10: JJ “Omg”
12:23:34: JM “Bring it”
16:29:48: JM “You still with your women”
16:29:59: JJ “Yup”
16:33:21: JM “You must have her [omitted out of respect to Mrs. Jastremski]”
16:34:39: JM “You must have a picture of her [omitted out of respect to Mrs. Jastremski]”
16:36:31: JJ “Omg”
16:37:16: JM “You working”
16:37:53 JJ “Yup”
16:39:40 JM “Nice dude…jimmy needs some kicks….lets
make a deal…come on help the deflator”
[After Mr. Jastremski does not respond for several minutes, Mr. McNally sends a follow-up text.]
16:47:15 JM “Chill buddy im just f****n with you….im not going
to espn….yet”
The “espn” reference in this string of jocular texts was part of their banter and related to the “new kicks.” Mr. Jastremski had made it clear to Mr. McNally over time that his (Jastremski’s) boss would not be happy with him were he to give away sneakers to Mr. McNally. That fact is quite explicit in a number of their texts. (p. 82 — after texting about possibly getting Mr. McNally sneakers and apparel, Mr. Jastremski writes: “unless Dave [his boss, Dave Schoenfeld] leaves the room tomorrow then it’ll wait till next week”). Getting sneakers or apparel for his friend Mr. McNally, in short, meant Mr. Jastremski would have to do so behind his boss’s back. They teased each other about whether Mr. Jastremski would get in trouble for giving him sneakers. The May 2014 McNally text reference to “not going to espn” follows his request for “new kicks,” and was Mr. McNally’s way of saying, in substance: “Hey, don’t worry about whether giving me those sneakers will get you in trouble — I’ll never tell.” The Wells investigators had this text long before their interviews with Mr. McNally and Mr. Jastremski. Had they asked Mr. McNally or Mr. Jastremski about this text when they interviewed each for a full day using four lawyers, they would have learned this.

 

[ivanvamp]

WOAH
 
http://wellsreportcontext.com/

 
I'm about 20% done with this read but it's incredible.  It's absolutely shredding the Wells report.  Good lord.

 

[soxhop411]

Mark Daniels ‏@MarkDanielsPJ  1m1 minute ago
"In short, if officials lost track of the location of game footballs, it was not because Mr. McNally stealthily removed them."

 

[Harry Hooper]

This is amazing.  If I believed in conspiracy theories, I'd say that Kraft and Goodell were in cahoots to generate continued media attention.  Any ink is good ink.  God.

 
 
That does kind of work. How much is Vince McMahon getting paid by the NFL for scripting this?

 

[Average Reds]

The old saying is that if you try hard enough, you can get a Grand Jury to indict a ham sandwich.
 
I feel like we witnessed a rigged Grand Jury proceeding and now we're watching the ham sandwich fight back.

 

[soxhop411]

The old saying is that if you try hard enough, you can get a Grand Jury to indict a ham sandwich.
 
I feel like we witnessed a rigged Grand Jury proceeding and now we're watching the ham sandwich fight back.

SO this is good for Brady?

 

[Harry Hooper]

I know it's been said before, but I still love this:
 
 
 
Again, this is stuff we already know, but when it's put so simply:
 
Anderson says he used the logo gauge for pregame. At halftime, they use the logo gauge to validate the Colts footballs are properly inflated. When the logo gauge validates the Patriots footballs are fine, they choose to go with the non-logo gauge because...because.
 

 
Eh, personally I wouldn't have gone all-in on which gauge was used.

 

[DJnVa]

I like this:
 

 because Brady preferred the footballs be at 12.5 he must really have wanted them even lower
 

 

[Silverdude2167]

 
Eh, personally I wouldn't have gone all-in on which gauge was used.

Why not? If you believe Walt when he tells you the amount of air in the balls why not believe him when he tells you which gauge he used?

 

[Ed Hillel]

Skimmed the whole thing.

Biggest points:

2. Brady got McNally's nickname wrong (Burt instead of Bird)

 
Is this the justification Wells used to say Brady lied about not knowing him? I don't have access.

 

[OCST]

 
Guessing he thought that court would have a remote possibility of success.

 
Or the lawyer reviewing the report for Kraft didn't talk to/think about the lawyer preparing Brady's appeal, in the rush to get stuff out.
 
The interests of NEP and Brady are closely aligned, but they are not identical.  They are not the same party - you could even say that the best defense for Brady and the team could be to blame each other, if it came to that.
 
Also, Brady's appeal is not in the same venue as whatever-it-is that Kraft's attorney is doing (which seems to be the court of public opinion, as of now).
 
I love the aggressiveness of Kraft's move, but I might have waited a bit, so as not to step on TB's appeal.

 

[nighthob]

To be fair, the Pats may have come to the conclusion that they aren't winning the appeal and so instead they've going to stage a street fight. 
 
Enjoyable in any case.

As far as I understand the NFL's rules the Patriots have no appeal to the NFL's punishment. That's set in stone. What they can do is so damage the league office that Goodell's reign of error comes to a premature end. Right now the owners that have been trying to get rid of Goodell must be masturbating themselves into a frenzy, at this rate I would expect a coup d'etat sometime after a federal judge tosses the Brady suspension into the trash with a strongly worded, and incredibly embarrassing for the league, ruling.

I think it's safe to say that the next commissioner will be cleaning house. So I hope Kensil and Vincent have enjoyed their hour in the sun, because when it's over it's over.

 

[DJnVa]

 
Eh, personally I wouldn't have gone all-in on which gauge was used.

 
I disagree. Disregarding Anderson's recollection (while noting that he apparently remembered the PSI of all 48 balls pregame) in this case is HUGE. Especially when, if you believe him, then there *is no issue*.
 

 

[BroodsSexton]

Also, nice use of social media by lawyers.  It's a major pet peeve of mine that lawyers are so backwards and conservative.

 

[nolasoxfan]

Jeff Pash is a semicolon abuser, holy god. https://wellsreportcontext.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/pash_correspondence1.pdf

“Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've been to college.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country

 

[sodenj5]

Deflating as a term to lose weight? Sounds like something everyone says.

 

[Kenny F'ing Powers]

 
Eh, personally I wouldn't have gone all-in on which gauge was used.

 
That's not the point. They base their entire deflation argument around one gauge for the pregame PSI and the Colts PSI, and an entirely other gauge for the Patriots. If they had used the same gauge - logo or non logo - for all three data points (pre game, colts balls, patriots balls) than either (A) both colts/patriots balls are fine or (B) both Colts/Patriots balls are not. They literally cherry picked the data sets that fit their argument best and were never consistent.

 

[pappymojo]

WHen does Kraft ask for a vote of no confidence in Goodell?

 

[ALiveH]

The fact that no one was publicly punished or rebuked for the leaks by the League leads us to the unfortunate but inevitable ("more than probable") conclusion that the League endorsed & encouraged the leaks.
 
There is some circular reasoning here, but if the scientific evidence & lack of smoking gun had not generally absolved the Patriots of guilt, then the Patriots wouldn't have been nearly so adversarial when presenting their side of the story.  So, I believe in your alternate reality where the Patriots are guilty, Belichick doesn't present the scientific evidence showing (more likely than not) non-guilt, which doesn't lead to Kraft demanding an apology.  I believe in your alternate reality, the whole Patriots strategy is completely different.
 
The punishment for the initial offense should be consistent with previous punishments for the same offense, which ranged from just a warning to a $25k fine.  Maybe if you add up all the instances if there was a general pattern, then you could justify the $1M number.  The "repeat offender" logic is retarded for two reasons: 1) it introduces "double jeopardy" and 2) just about every single team has been involved in some cheating scandal in its history that means just about every team is a repeat offender.
 
The punishment for the cover-up really depends on up to what levels of the organization participated in the cover-up.  If it was just Brady, then a multi-game suspension is probably justifiable.  I think it'd have to show that Belichick / Kraft were "generally aware" or participated in the cover-up to justify the taking of the picks.
 
By far the most devastating aspect of the punishment is the taking of picks.  A decade from now when I'm thinking back to this period, I'll be wondering if the extra 1st round pick from SpyGate (Belichick has a good track record of turning 1st round picks into above average starters) would've made a difference in the two Super Bowls we lost.  I'll also look back on these lost picks from DeflateGate as possibly the difference in 1-2 more additional championships over 2017-2020 (if the team is still good).  It seems obvious to me that the Patriots are mainly just guilty of winning too much in a League that is actively trying to promote parity.

 

[theapportioner]

WHen does Kraft ask for a vote of no confidence in Goodell?

Yeah, I'm wondering what Kraft's endgame is here.

 

[Morgan's Magic Snowplow]

 
I'm about 20% done with this read but it's incredible.  It's absolutely shredding the Wells report.  Good lord.

 
They actually have pretty decent answers regarding the "deflator/espn" texts, which are probably the biggest "gotchas" in the whole investigation.
 
I don't expect much to change about the outcome but I'm glad to see the team at least offering a comprehensive takedown.
 
The biggest loser in all this might be Ted Wells.  We're going to see months of this report getting picked to pieces.