Shaughnessy can be a huge prick but I'm not sure that was what he was saying here:lexrageorge said:I'm not going to post the link, because you all know where you can find it. But today Shank/CHB is saying the punishment will be worse than that handed out to the 1919 Black Sox. He's basing this on the words of an unnamed "expert".
He seems to pretty clearly saying that people are overreacting and that those people might include the Commissioner.Officially speaking, the NFL’s executive vice president, Troy Vincent, will hand out the punishment(s), but we all know this is commissioner Roger Goodell’s call. And it’s a huge one. I heard some “expert” on TV Friday say that Goodell’s ruling on Patriot sanctions would be a bigger deal than Kenesaw Mountain Landis’s decision to ban eight White Sox players for life after they conspired to throw the 1919 World Series.
Wow. Fallout from deflating footballs is now a bigger deal than fixing the World Series? We are certainly in uncharted waters.
Bellhorn said:Thanks. I certainly agree that if incorporating a realistic SD to the hypothetical 12.5 average makes a meaningful difference in the p-value assigned to the final readings, that would be a pretty ridiculous error on their part. I'll defer any further comment until I've had a chance to look at the report.
troparra said:Absolutely not. See sentences 2 and 3 of the Wells report executive summary.
That article absolutely rules.Dr. Gonzo said:More Probable Than Not Colts Played With Under Inflated Footballs
http://www.coldhardfootballfacts.com/content/wells-report-more-probable-than-not-colts-played-with-under-inflated-footballs/33495/
Here's the other story uncovered in the Wells Report you've NOT been told: 3 of 4 Colts footballs checked at halftime weighed in under 12.5 PSI by one of the two officials measuring them. Then, they suddenly stopped checking. The other 8 Colts footballs simply, and conveniently, went unchecked.
Here's the Wells Report table showing the PSI of the 4 Colts footballs weighed at halftime as it appears on Page 8. Blakeman and Prioleau are the two NFL officials who measured the balls.
Why did NFL officials check only four Colts footballs instead of all 12?
"Only four Colts balls were tested because the officials were running out of time before the start of the second half," reads the Wells Report on Page 7.
Hmmm ... pretty interesting. A Patriots ballboy can run into a bathroom and quickly deflate to exact specifications 12 gameballs in 1 minute, 40 seconds. But NFL officials didn't have time to check eight Colts footballs in 15 minutes of halftime, in an operation intended to uphold the integrity of the league.
Great point. Brady gets suspended for being generally aware of deflated footballs. The refs, having been tipped off, were also generally aware, especially when McNally went missing for a minute or two.judyb said:So, integrity of the game doesn't prevent them from allowing half the AFCCG to be played with footballs they believe have been tampered with, but it forces them to suspend Brady for being generally aware while somehow allowing the NFL to manage to drag this all out long enough that the suspension can't be overturned on appeal until after he's already missed 2 games. Meanwhile, the Pats lose those games to the Steelers and Bills and those additonal Steelers and Bills wins are the only thing that prevents the Bengals or Ravens and Dolphins or Jets from making the playoffs. Integrity of the game!
It was tongue in cheek in this ongoing theater of the absurd.MarcSullivaFan said:If Garropolo looks amazing, he is not getting traded. Brady is 38. QBs are the most valuable commodity in the NFL, and the Pats have G under control through 2017.
I actually have been thinking about the parallels between this and the Black Sox scandal - certainly not in severity, of course. Throwing World Series is about a quintillion times worse than playing with soft footballs. But I think Tom Brady and Shoeless Joe Jackson are interesting analogues.lexrageorge said:I'm not going to post the link, because you all know where you can find it. But today Shank/CHB is saying the punishment will be worse than that handed out to the 1919 Black Sox. He's basing this on the words of an unnamed "expert".
Interestingly, the Black Sox were never made to vacate their 1919 American League Pennant. I mentioned a few days ago that I think vacating titles is stupid - something happened there, and vacating a title means we're going to pretend that nothing happened. We are supposed to pretend that the Tour de France was raced for 7 straight years without a winner, or that the entire 2004 NCAA football schedule produced no national champion? You'd have to have a '72 Olympic Basketball type of controversy to justify such an action (which is interesting in its own right, because the Soviets are still held as rightful gold medal winners from that Olympics).dcmissle said:Ok, so who gets the lifetime bans? Other than the two guys?
And I suppose Shank is saying title will be vacated?
wilked said:People have lost their minds.
1 game suspension would be immediately appealed and the NFLPA would have an excellent case.
'Generally aware' of something that may or may not have happened. A suspension has no basis, no precedent, and won't stick
The Logo Gauge was used to set the pressure of two balls to 12.50 psig (representative of the Patriots) and two balls to 13.00 psig (representative of the Colts). From each set (corresponding to each team), one ball remained dry while exposed to the game temperature and the other was wet. In this scenario, the game temperature and the halftime measurement temperatures were set to the same values (for the same reasons) as the experiments done with the Non-Logo Gauge (48°F for the game and between 72 and 73°F for the halftime measurement temperatures). However, the pre-game temperature was set at 67°F because this was the only temperature that allowed the Colts balls to subsequently reach their average pressure during the simulated Locker Room Period. Any pre-game temperature that was higher than 67°F resulted in the Colts balls reaching the Game Day halftime average pressure later than 13.5 minutes into the Locker Room Period.
http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2015/05/10/pressure-gauge-discrepancies-undermine-wells-report/dcmissle said:Florio is like a metronome. Cannot link to it, but check out lead piece on pressure gauges undermining the report.
ivanvamp said:That article absolutely rules.
There is a level of Pat hatred out there that is almost hard too fathom. I live in suburban NJ and many of my bar-buddies are Jets/Giant fans and for the past week I've had to address the Tuck rule, Spygate, ineligible receivers and now Deflategate with the central theme being the Pats always bend and then break rules.They cheat.Gorton Fisherman said:I've noticed that same kind of reaction from non-Patriots fans and "casual" sports fans -- you can't bring up anything remotely favorable or exculpatory about the Pats, no matter how sober or rational, without them becoming increasingly angry and eventually flipping their shit. In fact, the more sober/rational your point is, the faster their shit flips. Stepping back from my irritation with this entire situation, its really a fascinating phenomenon. Maybe there should be a college psych class created about that.
I've been thinking about this for the last few days and glad to see someone in the press going down this line of questioning.dcmissle said:Florio is like a metronome. Cannot link to it, but check out lead piece on pressure gauges undermining the report.
Gorton Fisherman said:Curran is a sane voice in a world gone mad:
http://www.csnne.com/new-england-patriots/tom-brady-deflategate-reaction-now-race-to-be-most-ridiculous
dcmissle said:We're in the very weird position of needing TB discipline to most effectively shred this thing.
The lights will be brightest and the podium the biggest if he is involved.
Looks like we'll get that, but I would pass.
I hear you.Bleedred said:A lot of the folks I hear (Adam Jones yesterday) are willing to concede that the science is flawed...but that it doesn't really matter. Given the text messages; the "deflator" comment and that Brady lied about knowing who McNally is, it's enough to show there was some sort of nefarious goings on. I don't agree...but that's where a lot of people are heading.
I don't get why they'd have one more QB than normal. They don't cut down from 90 until after that and they always have extra camp arms.dcmissle said:Me too and have already begun thinking about how TB suspension would impact next few months. We orobably would not get a ruling ion an appeal before Aug 15. That's how these things go.
So:
One more QB on the roster than they would otherwise carry.
JG gets worked like a mule in mini-camps, training camp, and so forth.
Anything else?
So what is a team to do if the refs give you the footballs at 16psi? You're not allowed to tamper with them after they've handled them. But the balls were given to you outside the correct range.lambeau said:I agree with Ivanvamp--emphasize the Jets game, admit to freaking out over 16 psi balls and demanding it never happen again; unfortunately, the boys appear to have taken it too far...I only meant they should insist on 12.5...I was misinterpreteded.
Exactly, which is why he'll be suspended for "failure to cooperate with an NFL investigation."wilked said:People have lost their minds.
1 game suspension would be immediately appealed and the NFLPA would have an excellent case.
'Generally aware' of something that may or may not have happened. A suspension has no basis, no precedent, and won't stick
Thanks for this. You're right - Chatham nails it. (It will likely mean nothing, but at least there's another smart, sensible voice of reason out there.)RedOctober3829 said:Matt Chatham interview on WEEI this morning. Everyone needs to hear this. Tremendous insight, level headed, and intelligent view.
Better question is what do they do if Brady is indeed suspended for week one?Stitch01 said:I don't get why they'd have one more QB than normal. They don't cut down from 90 until after that and they always have extra camp arms.
Plus he has uncle buck as his twitvatar.RedOctober3829 said:Matt Chatham interview on WEEI this morning. Everyone needs to hear this. Tremendous insight, level headed, and intelligent view.
I agree with this.Ed Hillel said:Exactly, which is why he'll be suspended for "failure to cooperate with an NFL investigation."
j44thor said:Better question is what do they do if Brady is indeed suspended for week one?
Doubt they bring in a vet as that would guarantee his salary for the season, do you go with a rookie backup or perhaps just use edelman?
http://wp.me/p14QSB-9LLjEarlier today, I spent way too much time hunting-and-pecking my way through an item regarding the problems with the two pressure gauges used to measure the Patriots footballs at halftime of the AFC title game. I spent so much time focused on the nuances that I didnt give proper attention to perhaps the most obvious problem of all.
To summarize, the NFL had two air pressure gauges available at the game. One had a Wilson logo on the back and a long, crooked needle. The other did not have a Wilson logo, and a shorter, straighter needle.
The gauge with the logo and the longer needle generated higher measurements of the Patriots footballs at halftime, ranging from 0.3 PSI to 0.45 PSI higher for each of the 11 footballs. If that gauge the one with the logo and the longer, crooked needle were used to set the PSI for the balls before the game began, the measurements from that gauge are the right measurements to rely upon at halftime. And those measurements show that there was no tampering, because most of the footballs fell within the 11.52 to 11.32 PSI range for halftime, as predicted by the Ideal Gas Law.
Referee Walt Anderson, as noted previously, didnt clearly recall which gauge he used to set the pressure in the Patriots balls at 12.5 PSI before the game. Page 52 of the Wells report reveals that it was Andersons best recollection that he used before the game the gauge with the logo and the longer, crooked needle. In other words, Anderson recalls using the gauge before the game that, based on the halftime measurements, leads to a finding of no tampering.
So how did Ted Wells get around the best recollection of Walt Anderson? Wells persuaded Anderson to admit that its certainly possible he used the other gauge. And the company hired to provide technical support for the Wells report concluded based on a convoluted explanation appearing at pages 116-17 of the report that it is more probable than not that Anderson used the other gauge.
In other words, the Wells report concludes on this critical point that its more probable than not that Andersons best recollection was wrong.
Why should Andersons best recollection be doubted? He knew that there was a concern about tampering with the footballs. He presumably was paying more careful attention to the process of getting the balls filled with air before the AFC title game than he normally does.
So which gauge did you use, Walt, realizing that there could be a question later about the inflation of the footballs?
Well, my best recollection is that I used the one with the long, crooked needle.
Is it possible, Walt, that you used the other gauge that was available? You know, the one that for whatever reason measures the air pressure at 0.3 to 0.45 PSI lower?
Well, I dont know about that. . . .
Isnt it possible, Walt?
Well, its certainly possible.
Thats how investigations that start with a predetermined outcome and work backward unfold. (Holy crap, I think Im beginning to agree with Don Yee.) And thats why Wells should have concluded based on the scientific evidence that the question of whether tampering occurred in connection with the AFC title game is inconclusive.
Even though he did cooperate.Ed Hillel said:Exactly, which is why he'll be suspended for "failure to cooperate with an NFL investigation."
Earlier today, I spent way too much time hunting-and-pecking my way through an item regarding the problems with the two pressure gauges used to measure the Patriots footballs at halftime of the AFC title game. I spent so much time focused on the nuances that I didnt give proper attention to perhaps the most obvious problem of all.
To summarize, the NFL had two air pressure gauges available at the game. One had a Wilson logo on the back and a long, crooked needle. The other did not have a Wilson logo, and a shorter, straighter needle.
The gauge with the logo and the longer needle generated higher measurements of the Patriots footballs at halftime, ranging from 0.3 PSI to 0.45 PSI higher for each of the 11 footballs. If that gauge the one with the logo and the longer, crooked needle were used to set the PSI for the balls before the game began, the measurements from that gauge are the right measurements to rely upon at halftime. And those measurements show that there was no tampering, because most of the footballs fell within the 11.52 to 11.32 PSI range for halftime, as predicted by the Ideal Gas Law.
Referee Walt Anderson, as noted previously, didnt clearly recall which gauge he used to set the pressure in the Patriots balls at 12.5 PSI before the game. Page 52 of the Wells report reveals that it was Andersons best recollection that he used before the game the gauge with the logo and the longer, crooked needle. In other words, Anderson recalls using the gauge before the game that, based on the halftime measurements, leads to a finding of no tampering.
So how did Ted Wells get around the best recollection of Walt Anderson? Wells persuaded Anderson to admit that its certainly possible he used the other gauge. And the company hired to provide technical support for the Wells report concluded based on a convoluted explanation appearing at pages 116-17 of the report that it is more probable than not that Anderson used the other gauge.
In other words, the Wells report concludes on this critical point that its more probable than not that Andersons best recollection was wrong.
Why should Andersons best recollection be doubted? He knew that there was a concern about tampering with the footballs. He presumably was paying more careful attention to the process of getting the balls filled with air before the AFC title game than he normally does.
So which gauge did you use, Walt, realizing that there could be a question later about the inflation of the footballs?
Well, my best recollection is that I used the one with the long, crooked needle.
Is it possible, Walt, that you used the other gauge that was available? You know, the one that for whatever reason measures the air pressure at 0.3 to 0.45 PSI lower?
Well, I dont know about that. . . .
Isnt it possible, Walt?
Well, its certainly possible.
Thats how investigations that start with a predetermined outcome and work backward unfold. (Holy crap, I think Im beginning to agree with Don Yee.) And thats why Wells should have concluded based on the scientific evidence that the question of whether tampering occurred in connection with the AFC title game is inconclusive.
He still thinks Brady should be suspended until he gives up his emails/phone, but Florio is definitely starting to question Wells' agenda.soxhop411 said:
I think it's more that no NFL official, Goodell/Troy Vincent etc, wants to be forced to own the Wells Report in an appeal hearing and be hammered by Brady's/NFLPA lawyers over the inconsistencies.bsj said:Ive been of the opinion that Florio has been serving as a mouthpiece for the NFL arm for a while now.
The last week he has been essentially serving up statements ripping Brady to shreds, seemingly setting up a punishment.
Suddenly, today, on a dime, he posts this gauge thing...
http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2015/05/10/pressure-gauge-discrepancies-undermine-wells-report/
Wondering if there is any chance the NFL is thinking of going on the slightly softer side and is trying to sow the seed of reasonable doubt with the evidence?
Except for the part where he says "Brady should be presumed guilty at best," whatever that means, until he gives up his texts and emails.tims4wins said:Boom