#DFG: Canceling the Noise

Is there any level of suspension that you would advise Tom to accept?


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dcmissle

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PedroKsBambino said:
 
One hopes that Silver publishes on this now, because I am confident he does not actually wanted to be associated with the steaming pile of results-oriented junk that Exponent generated.
Too late. He is as a practical matter 538. And his site went full Birther r on this issue ---- the fumbles rate disparity. Yeah, they went there. Nate needs to continue laying low
 

FL4WL3SS

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Folks hoping for NFL communications to be revealed should be careful what they wish for. There's a good chance that Kraft has had several conversations behind closed doors that wouldn't exactly make the Patriots look great.
 
Kraft is in a tough spot because I'm sure there's a lot of skeletons in his closet with respect to communicating with the commissioner and other folks in the league. He wants to support Brady, but like the rest of the league, I'm sure he wants to keep a tight lid on all of the closed door communications.
 

Leather

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With the caveat that it's unlikely:
 
Why would communications between the NFL and Wells include anything having to do with Kraft, except obliquely?  
 

Bleedred

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FL4WL3SS said:
Folks hoping for NFL communications to be revealed should be careful what they wish for. There's a good chance that Kraft has had several conversations behind closed doors that wouldn't exactly make the Patriots look great.
 
Kraft is in a tough spot because I'm sure there's a lot of skeletons in his closet with respect to communicating with the commissioner and other folks in the league. He wants to support Brady, but like the rest of the league, I'm sure he wants to keep a tight lid on all of the closed door communications.
I have no problem with embarrassing Kraft so long as the NFL is further put in a bad light as to this DG fiasco.
 

DJnVa

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Not sure how emails between the NFL and Wells would contain any emails from Kraft...
 

simplyeric

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Bleedred said:
Agreed.  Plus, who gives a shit about the fine?  It's the draft picks that hurt, and those aren't being given back.
 
Only hope is that Goodell gets ousted sometime prior to the next draft, and the incoming commish reviews the case and reverses/modifies it.
 

crystalline

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dcmissle said:
Too late. He is as a practical matter 538. And his site went full Birther r on this issue ---- the fumbles rate disparity. Yeah, they went there. Nate needs to continue laying low
That 538 article was an embarrassment. Two of those guys better hope that article doesn't get read the next time they are interviewing for a analytics or data science job. Because their comments demonstrated a totally superficial understanding of statistics.

I won't go deeper into the 538 article that that, to save us all time.

Edit: I imagine it's similar to how the lawyers feel about Lester Munson talking about labor law. He's someone who went to law school giving a naive opinion he'd know was wrong if he had any real world experience.
 

RidetheSeal

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The full Cromartie quote. Gotta give him credit on this one.
 
“I don’t think he should be suspended,” the Jets cornerback told ESPN Thursday when asked about Brady and his alleged role in Deflafegate.
“In the rulebook, there’s no suspension in the rules. There’s only a $25,000 fine,” he added. “So I don’t see how you can try to lay the hammer down on someone when the rule states for itself there’s no suspension for it. There’s only a maximum fine for $25,000.”
Cromartie continued: “Are we trying to go back to the Spygate and get more from that? Or are we just leading back to us, saying ‘Well, I have full control of everything. I made the rules as it goes, rather than follow the rules of what’s already been written.'”
Chromate said that when it comes to Deflategate, Goodell and his actions send an ominous message to the rest of the NFL.
“Nobody’s safe,” Cromartie said. “Nobody’s safe no matter who you are. Roger is going to do what he wants to do. It don’t matter what the rules say. He’s going to make his own rules as he goes. And it shouldn’t be like that. But at the end of the day, we as players gave him the freedom to do whatever he wants to do. We signed the sheet. So we had our own fault for doing it. We should have been more detailed. We shouldn’t have rushed into things. We should have pushed it to another month and a half and made the owners lose money, and then you go from there.”
 
http://itiswhatitis.weei.com/sports/newengland/football/patriots/2015/08/06/antonio-cromartie-jumps-to-tom-bradys-defense-rips-roger-goodell/
 

tims4wins

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If Goodell and Wells and the NFL have nothing to hide, then they should be perfectly fine with releasing all of their communications regarding the investigation, including the emails that Pash was involved in. In fact if everything was on the up and up then any communications involving Kensil, Grigson, Vincent, etc. should all be released as well. Nothing to hide, right guys?
 

Gash Prex

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Eh its a slippery slope because once you "waive" privilege", an argument can be made that you lose it completely.  I'd have to analyze the tangled web regarding this because frankly, for such smart lawyers, they made a huge mess out of the lines of representation.  
 
The reality is that the Wells Report was akin to a Plaintiff hiring an expert to create expert testimony.  In a civil case those "edits" or "revisions" by the attorney would be discoverabe.  Clearly, any edits or changes should have been produced.
 

pappymojo

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Deweys Stache said:
The full Cromartie quote. Gotta give him credit on this one.
 
“I don’t think he should be suspended,” the Jets cornerback told ESPN Thursday when asked about Brady and his alleged role in Deflafegate.
“In the rulebook, there’s no suspension in the rules. There’s only a $25,000 fine,” he added. “So I don’t see how you can try to lay the hammer down on someone when the rule states for itself there’s no suspension for it. There’s only a maximum fine for $25,000.”
Cromartie continued: “Are we trying to go back to the Spygate and get more from that? Or are we just leading back to us, saying ‘Well, I have full control of everything. I made the rules as it goes, rather than follow the rules of what’s already been written.'”
Chromate said that when it comes to Deflategate, Goodell and his actions send an ominous message to the rest of the NFL.
“Nobody’s safe,” Cromartie said. “Nobody’s safe no matter who you are. Roger is going to do what he wants to do. It don’t matter what the rules say. He’s going to make his own rules as he goes. And it shouldn’t be like that. But at the end of the day, we as players gave him the freedom to do whatever he wants to do. We signed the sheet. So we had our own fault for doing it. We should have been more detailed. We shouldn’t have rushed into things. We should have pushed it to another month and a half and made the owners lose money, and then you go from there.”
 
http://itiswhatitis.weei.com/sports/newengland/football/patriots/2015/08/06/antonio-cromartie-jumps-to-tom-bradys-defense-rips-roger-goodell/
 
My favorite jet. 
 

tims4wins

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Gash Prex said:
Eh its a slippery slope because once you "waive" privilege", an argument can be made that you lose it completely.  I'd have to analyze the tangled web regarding this because frankly, for such smart lawyers, they made a huge mess out of the lines of representation.  
 
The reality is that the Wells Report was akin to a Plaintiff hiring an expert to create expert testimony.  In a civil case those "edits" or "revisions" by the attorney would be discoverabe.  Clearly, any edits or changes should have been produced.
 
Hence, it was not independent.
 

Eddie Jurak

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One of the weird parts of the $500,000 non-cooperation fine to the Patriots is that it was based on Tom Brady's failure to turn over relevant communications.

Other than that, I don't think Wells raised any instances of failure to cooperate.

But aren't issues such as turning over personal communications governed by the CBA, and thus not in the Patriots' power to address? Isn't that why a separate disciplinary process was followed for the team and the player?

That penalty has always struck me as way out of bounds, perhaps even an attempt to undermine the CBA.

On the other hand, I'm sure Ole' Rog would love to de KRaft $500,000 per document leaked on wellsreportcontext.com.
 

HowBoutDemSox

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Eddie Jurak said:
One of the weird parts of the $500,000 non-cooperation fine to the Patriots is that it was based on Tom Brady's failure to turn over relevant communications.

Other than that, I don't think Wells raised any instances of failure to cooperate.
I thought it was for not producing McNally for yet another interview?
 

ifmanis5

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tims4wins said:
If Goodell and Wells and the NFL have nothing to hide, then they should be perfectly fine with releasing all of their communications regarding the investigation, including the emails that Pash was involved in. In fact if everything was on the up and up then any communications involving Kensil, Grigson, Vincent, etc. should all be released as well. Nothing to hide, right guys?
And their cell phones.
 

joe dokes

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Is it possible that EVEN IF the NFL wins the court case "Because the CBA allows Goodell to act in this manor" that the judge Still slams him?
 
Something along the (overly) simple lines of....
 
"While I cannot find a violation of the CBA to invalidate them, the  assumptions about Mr. Brady or the Patriots alleged tampering of footballs and punishment handed down are so outlandish as to be unbelievable.  With that said I must sadly rule in favor of the NFL and uphold their findings and punishment. I apologize for this railroad Job Mr Brady. Its totally undeserved."
 
I know judges have alot of leniency and I assume could "make a point" even if they did not believe in the actual finding. 
 
Do judges do this?
Would it change the public perception?
 
The situation doesn't arise all that often, but within that limited context it's not *that* rare for a  judge to say something like "I am constrained by precedent to find 'x'," or "If the court were writing on a clean slate, it might decide differently."  That said, the mine run of judges would likely avoid it altogether and go with something like, "even if a review of the evidence shows that deflation is unlikely to have occurred; that Mr. Brady's involvement is even less likely; and that the League's refusal to control media leaks was a reprehensible lapse -- all subjects on which the court offers no opinion -- this court's review is limited to x, y, and z."
 
I remain of the view that *nothing* will change public perception. To repeat what I said a few hundred thousand pages ago----the average NBA fan thinks Ainge bit Rollins.
 

j44thor

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tims4wins said:
Eddie, I think a BIG part of the non-cooperation was not producing McNally for a final interview.
 
I don't think you can call it a final interview hence why they stopped giving them bites at the apple after four interviews.
They were likely going to continue interviewing McNally until he said something they could use or until NE refused to let them continue with interviews so that they could find them at fault for something.
 

tims4wins

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j44thor said:
 
I don't think you can call it a final interview hence why they stopped giving them bites at the apple after four interviews.
They were likely going to continue interviewing McNally until he said something they could use or until NE refused to let them continue with interviews so that they could find them at fault for something.
 
True, fair point
 

Harry Hooper

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cornwalls@6 said:
Yeah, it actually is. Seems to me there was much more public criticism of Goodell from players for some of his heavy penalties and fines and suspensions for personal fouls, and during Bountygate, among other instances. Not sure why this case differs, other than the parties involved, i.e., a team and its best player, who have been dominating on the field for 15 years. Hence the pettiness, and short-sighted stupidity I referenced in my original post. This kind of arbitrary, draconian discipline can, and has been, used against other players besides TB. I would think that would motivate more of them to speak out. Surprised and disappointed that hasn't been the case.
 
 
You do recognize that Brunell and his still-playing brethren want the accusations against Brady to be true.
 

ifmanis5

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Harry Hooper said:
You do recognize that Brunell and his still-playing brethren want the accusations against Brady to be true.
Which is insane since usually the Brethern Of The QB stick together no matter what. None of them called out Favre or Ben all that much that I can recall.
 

rodderick

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j44thor said:
 
I don't think you can call it a final interview hence why they stopped giving them bites at the apple after four interviews.
They were likely going to continue interviewing McNally until he said something they could use or until NE refused to let them continue with interviews so that they could find them at fault for something.
The fact that Wells was aware of the "deflator" text when he interviewed McNally and didn't even bring it up tells me he had already come to a conclusion that he was guilty and didn't even want to give McNally the chance to explain himself. In that sense, I can only surmise that following interviews would mostly be used to fish around for anything they could spin into an admission of wrong doing.
 

Super Nomario

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rodderick said:
The fact that Wells was aware of the "deflator" text when he interviewed McNally and didn't even bring it up tells me he had already come to a conclusion that he was guilty and didn't even want to give McNally the chance to explain himself. In that sense, I can only surmise that following interviews would mostly be used to fish around for anything they could spin into an admission of wrong doing.
He wasn't aware of it, though, according to the report. That's why Wells wanted a 2nd / 5th interview with McNally.
 

djbayko

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joe dokes said:
I remain of the view that *nothing* will change public perception. To repeat what I said a few hundred thousand pages ago----the average NBA fan thinks Ainge bit Rollins.
No, the average fan has no clue what the hell you are talking about. Who is Rollins and why did the Celtics GM bite him? ;)
 

Shelterdog

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Super Nomario said:
He wasn't aware of it, though, according to the report. That's why Wells wanted a 2nd / 5th interview with McNally.
 
Every lawyer in the thread was pretty skeptical of that claim. 
 

djbayko

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rodderick said:
The fact that Wells was aware of the "deflator" text when he interviewed McNally and didn't even bring it up tells me he had already come to a conclusion that he was guilty and didn't even want to give McNally the chance to explain himself. In that sense, I can only surmise that following interviews would mostly be used to fish around for anything they could spin into an admission of wrong doing.
When did this become fact?
 

Eddie Jurak

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I recall at the time that they had the text, but hadn't found it before his final interview. (In retrospect, Pats really should have just produced him, much as Brady should have just forked over his phone and sent a forensic copy to TMZ to save Goodell's minions the trouble of having to leak it).

But I thought the Pats did try to offer cooperation on the McNally point, via phone interview or having Pats interview him or some such.
 

HowBoutDemSox

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Super Nomario said:
He wasn't aware of it, though, according to the report. That's why Wells wanted a 2nd / 5th interview with McNally.
But he did have it in his possession, correct? It's nobody's fault but Paul Weiss' that he wasn't aware of it.
 

crystalline

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HowBoutDemSox said:
But he did have it in his possession, correct? It's nobody's fault but Paul Weiss' that he wasn't aware of it.
Dang contract attorneys doing doc review. Should have had an associate do it.
 

Stu Nahan

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Gary Myers on WFAN: "I don't think Brady did anything...The NFL manipulated the transcript (of the appeal hearing)."
 

edmunddantes

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But now that you've seen how the NFL construes actual testimony into their little snippets, I don't think Wells, NFL, et al deserve any benefit of the doubt when they say "X happened or Y said this".
 
So I'm not sure what I believe when it comes to what McNally said, didn't say or Kraft and Patriots.
 
Remember the whole "urinal vs stall" debacle that everyone still harps on? "He didn't even know if it had a urinal or stall! Come on, he was deflating in there"
 
Maybe McNally did know, but answered in a twistable way or like with Brady the NFL/Wells simply just wipe it away (I find un-credible he didn't talk about anything other than super bowl preparations)
 

rodderick

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Super Nomario said:
He wasn't aware of it, though, according to the report. That's why Wells wanted a 2nd / 5th interview with McNally.
He already had McNally's and Jastremski's texts. It seems naïve to me to believe "ctrl + f deflat" wasn't the first thing they did with that information.
 

OnWisc

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simplyeric said:
 
Only hope is that Goodell gets ousted sometime prior to the next draft, and the incoming commish reviews the case and reverses/modifies it.
There'd probably need to be another scandal for him to be gone that fast. No matter how badly this thing tailspins for the league, I don't imagine the owners want to see the headlines calling them out for giving Rog a pass when he botched a domestic abuse situation and then shitcanning him over a air pressure controversy.

If the owners decide it's time for Rog to go, it'll be slowplayed so as not be seen as a reaction to one particular situation. Unless, of course, something as serious as the Rice situation crops up again here soon and he fucks that up. Then he's out the door.
 

Eddie Jurak

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rodderick said:
He already had McNally's and Jastremski's texts. It seems naïve to me to believe "ctrl + f deflat" wasn't the first thing they did with that information.
Well they might have done "ctrl + f needle" first. Or maybe "ctrl + f defalt", which came up dry.
 

Harry Hooper

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Eddie Jurak said:
Well they might have done "ctrl + f needle" first. Or maybe "ctrl + f defalt", which came up dry.
 
 
On a slightly related note, I haven't read the whole transcript yet, but there are typos all over the place, such as "now" for when "know" was said. You don't catch that with spellcheck, folks, You need a few sets of eyeballs to actually go over the material.
 

Super Nomario

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rodderick said:
He already had McNally's and Jastremski's texts. It seems naïve to me to believe "ctrl + f deflat" wasn't the first thing they did with that information.
Maybe, but you asserted as fact that Wells was aware of the text, which it is not.
 

djhb20

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Gash Prex said:
Eh its a slippery slope because once you "waive" privilege", an argument can be made that you lose it completely.  I'd have to analyze the tangled web regarding this because frankly, for such smart lawyers, they made a huge mess out of the lines of representation.  
 
The reality is that the Wells Report was akin to a Plaintiff hiring an expert to create expert testimony.  In a civil case those "edits" or "revisions" by the attorney would be discoverabe.  Clearly, any edits or changes should have been produced.
No they wouldn't. Expert drafts aren't discoverable no matter who gave suggestions/edits/etc under the "new" federal rules.

And neither are counsel's communications with an expert.
 

mandro ramtinez

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Super Nomario said:
Maybe, but you asserted as fact that Wells was aware of the text, which it is not.
If his investigative team had the text in its possession among the documents produced at the time of their interview with McNally, they would be deemed to have notice of the text if their interview had been a part of litigation. Obviously, what Wells was doing at that time was not litigation but it is pretty weak for his team to argue that they did not know about it when they had it.
 

Harry Hooper

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edmunddantes said:
People do this all the time with the MMQB site. Those aren't King's words. They belong to Andy Benoit, but it is up on King's website. Still big but not as big.
 
 
Hey, if Wells can claim Nate Silver's endorsement of Exponent's analysis, then we can say King wrote that Goodell should lose his job.
 
 
Addendum: After all the trouble for different things he's said on air, wouldn't it be something if ESPN cans SAS over his latest take on DFG?
 

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Super Nomario said:
Maybe, but you asserted as fact that Wells was aware of the text, which it is not.
He had constructive notice and was either actually aware or was to blame for not diligently searching before wasting a non-party's time. Had this been anything but a kangaroo court process (sorry for being offensive to kangaroos) it would have been unlikely that he'd get yet another bite at the apple.

Edit: Can't respond to PMs from my phone, but saw my own mistake and was editing when you PMed. Sorry about that.
 

amarshal2

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tmracht said:
 

Daniel Wallach ‏@WALLACHLEGAL  4h4 hours ago
NFLPA boss DeMaurice Smith asks for court permission to appear as co-counsel for union in Brady v. NFL; he just filed a motion this morning
 
Daniel Wallach ‏@WALLACHLEGAL  4h
4 hours ago
Despite seeking to join NFLPA legal team in Brady, union boss DeMaurice Smith did not participate in Adrian Peterson case. Stakes are higher

NFLPA taking this one to heart.
 
My totally naive take is that this is related to settlement.  If they're going to be coming to a compromise he wants to be involved in the discussions.  If there's no settlement then there's no reason for him to be involved unless they need him for his legal mind.
 
edit: apparently i'm wrong.  should not be posting admittedly naive takes.  carry on.
 

Super Nomario

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Myt1 said:
He had constructive notice and was either actually aware or was to blame for not diligently searching before wasting a non-party's time. Had this been anything but a kangaroo court process (sorry for being offensive to kangaroos) it would have been unlikely that he'd get yet another bite at the apple.
Yeah, and I'm not sure which of these is more damning frankly. If we credit Wells' account of events, that means they identified a relevant date range for "discovery," reviewed the texts, did their interviews, found really nothing ... and then, for some reason, decided to expand the relevant dates and review more data? Why expand the range of dates? Whose call was that?
 

Eddie Jurak

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Super Nomario said:
Yeah, and I'm not sure which of these is more damning frankly. If we credit Wells' account of events, that means they identified a relevant date range for "discovery," reviewed the texts, did their interviews, found really nothing ... and then, for some reason, decided to expand the relevant dates and review more data? Why expand the range of dates? Whose call was that?
Jeff Pash?