H78 said:If the Patriots accept any settlement that includes some level of punishment I will wholeheartedly change my current belief that they are 100% innocent.
The basic argument from the Patriots is that they did nothing wrong and the difference in PSI can be explained by the Ideal Gas Law. If that's 100% true and is what they fully believe as an organization, why accept any punishment if you're absolutely certain you did nothing wrong?
That's like getting arrested for robbery, swearing you had nothing to do with the robbery, but accepting a plea bargain for a shortened sentence. You know you had nothing to do with it and thus you're 99.9% certain there's zero conclusive evidence linking you to the robbery. Why accept any deal? You KNOW you're clean so you KNOW there's no concrete proof indicating otherwise. Fight the accusation and let a court prove your innocence.
People settle cases and plead guilty for all sorts of reasons. Why does the robbery suspect accept a deal? Because he has a family at home, and he can do 3 months with a year probation guaranteed, or take his chances that a group of strangers will see the evidence the same way he does. Or maybe the plea ends his legal fees at "merely shitty" whereas a trial would be "crippling." In criminal cases, the person pleading guilty has to admit his guilt; if that's a problem he wont do it. (lets not get into "no contest" pleas).
The bottom line, again, is that intelligent people settle cases *all the time* based on things other than -- and certainly in addition to -- what appear to be the "merits of the case."