Florio: Pash ordered PSI readings “expunged” in 2015
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I wonder if the spreading of sports betting throughout the country in the intervening years would lead to a more thorough investigation by the federal government than a butthurt senator from Pennsylvania, if this incident happened present-day. I'm not under the illusion the result changes, but the course of discovery would lead to much laughter and further exposure of the league office as unfit for managing a Wendy's.
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I'm not entirely sure what you are getting at here, but I think you are mixing up your scandals. Specter's ire was aimed at Spygate, he was dead before Deflategate happened.
Edit; and in either case I think the Senate wasting time investigating this kind of stuff is silly. It is frustrating as a sports fan, but it is fucking sports.
All this does is make my arguments stronger when I'm arguing with dumbasses about the veracity of the Patriots Dynasty. It's not going to move the needle, jsut give me more fodder to throw mack at people.
The Pats vindicated themselves after both Spygate and Deflategate (Framegate anyone???). They did it the best way possible by winning, and spectacularly. Undefeated regular season after Spygate and Super Bowl win for Deflategate (both immediately afterward and the season of Brady's four game suspension). That's the real proof.
Unless they come up with a tape of Goodell cackling his evil scheme like a Bond villain, anything else put forward for truth at this stage in the game isn't going to change anyone's minds.
The Pats vindicated themselves after both Spygate and Deflategate (Framegate anyone???). They did it the best way possible by winning, and spectacularly. Undefeated regular season after Spygate and Super Bowl win for Deflategate (both immediately afterward and the season of Brady's four game suspension). That's the real proof.
Unless they come up with a tape of Goodell cackling his evil scheme like a Bond villain, anything else put forward for truth at this stage in the game isn't going to change anyone's minds.
Yes I am mixing it up, thanks for the correction. Agreed about the waste of time it would be for the Senate.
And, FWIW, Specter's comments about Spygate came when PA-based Comcast was in a dispute with the NFL over the terms for carrying NFL Network.
Absolutely none of this is any sort of surprise.
They were out to get the Patriots. When they got called on their bullshit based on science, they reverted to "the CBA says we can fuck up any player and any team we want." And when they went looking for more evidence to back up their bullshit claims they found none, and then destroyed that evidence so no one could see that they were wrong from the very beginning.
My everlasting image of this farce is Mike Kensil, NFL VP and life-long Jets fan, strutting up and down on the Patriots' sideline during the game (where by rule he was not allowed to be) screaming "You guys are fucked now! You're all fucked!"
This was the same game where a league official stole game-used kicking balls for later resale on the secondary market.
The league is a disgrace. Goodell is a disgrace. Kensil and Pash should have been fired years ago. Troy Vincent, member of the Dolphins' team hall of fame and longtime member of the Eagles, was allowed to fuck with the reputation of the team by being the source for the infamous "11 of 12" information AND was the guy who allowed the Clement TD in SB52 to stand even though by that year's rule it was not a TD ("we want that to be a catch.")
Fuck this league with a fence post.
They were out to get the Patriots. When they got called on their bullshit based on science, they reverted to "the CBA says we can fuck up any player and any team we want." And when they went looking for more evidence to back up their bullshit claims they found none, and then destroyed that evidence so no one could see that they were wrong from the very beginning.
My everlasting image of this farce is Mike Kensil, NFL VP and life-long Jets fan, strutting up and down on the Patriots' sideline during the game (where by rule he was not allowed to be) screaming "You guys are fucked now! You're all fucked!"
This was the same game where a league official stole game-used kicking balls for later resale on the secondary market.
The league is a disgrace. Goodell is a disgrace. Kensil and Pash should have been fired years ago. Troy Vincent, member of the Dolphins' team hall of fame and longtime member of the Eagles, was allowed to fuck with the reputation of the team by being the source for the infamous "11 of 12" information AND was the guy who allowed the Clement TD in SB52 to stand even though by that year's rule it was not a TD ("we want that to be a catch.")
Fuck this league with a fence post.
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Unfortunately nothing beats the product they put out there from a sports/competition perspective. YMMV obviously but the season was ridiculously entertaining and the playoffs have been even better. It is the only sport where I can watch full games involving teams I don't care about. The league sucks but the product is better than it ever has been.
Football good. NFL bad. I'm sure if you've asked it before you know the answers you'll get.
Just want to point out that this is a great analogy.
Also, let's let this drop before we lose some international signing bonus pool or something.
I cant argue with that or the below. I loved the NFL from the early 1970s until 4 years ago.
Yes, and I don't enjoy the college game as much but it has filled the need for me once I decided the NFL cared about nothing but the NFL.
When you call a league "fuckers" and say they should get fucked by a fence post but continue to watch it, it raises questions about what WOULD it take to walk away?
It isn't racism. It isn't sexual assault. It isn't "scandals" like Deflategate, it isn't concussions, it isn't getting into bed with politicians.
What would it take?
Obviously Deflategate is not like the others, but if those haven't driven someone away,what would?
Just like music/movies/tv shows good. Entertainment companies bad. With long histories, and recent instances, of racism, misogyny, and corruption. We all hold our noses and rationalize for the things we like and are entertained by. Let's not pretend boycotting any one of them is a particularly noble stand(not saying you are doing this, just pivoting off your post).
I personally have a much bigger problem with the NCAA than the NFL. Denying the players the ability to monetize their college careers, particularly those who will never go on to play at the next level, is far worse than anything the NFL did or does, in my opinion. At the pro level at least the players are being paid.
The NFL as an organization is odious but I'm able to compartmentalize, and at least the players indirectly benefit from my eyeballs and dollars.
The opposite. The past 5+ years have laid bare that people will believe whatever the fuck they want to believe as long as they have a scintilla of evidence to hang that belief on and other people telling them to believe it. The weight of opposing evidence does. not. matter.
Deflategate was a canary in a coalmine for the 2016 election and everything that came after. It doesn't matter if something is obviously bullshit; for 40+% of the American population, if something fits a preferred narrative, that's what they'll go with and they will stop paying attention with their judgment intact once it becomes irksome. I was concerned about Deflategate not so much because it harmed the Patriots, but because it was a horrific exercise in yellow journalism and powerful people not caring about the truth because it was more fun to watch Brady and the Pats squirm. It went all the way to federal "the weight of ball tampering is compelling if not overwhelming" judge Danny Jets-Fan Chin.
It was a disgusting display, all around.
The ones who will never go on to play professionally are the ones who are super fortunate to be playing for free college and training. The ones who are stuck playing for a year or two for peanuts because of the NBA/NFL's age limit...they're the ones with a beef.
Anyway, if you only spend your time and money on entertainment when the entertainers AND their financial backers all align with you politically and morally...you're going to be really bored.
I don't, I watch the NFL after all. To the extent I have more interest in the NFL than the NCAA is just because I don't really have a college team, but I don't begrudge anyone who watches either. My post was in response to Lose who has rationalized watching college over the pros, neither organization is virtuous.
As obsessed with justice as I often am, and I take seriously that DeflateGate was a function mostly of sour grapes against the Patriots success by other owners and some league officials and also retaliation against Brady has quietly always been a solid union guy and major part of lawsuits against the league…
I find that, with the passing of the years, whenever I think of DeflateGate, I think less of the league being bullshit—Brady and the Patriots’ talent has long since been vindicated—but how much I had to reassess downwards my already low opinion of both scientific literacy and journalism in this country.
I mean, many have brought up the absurdity of people’s ignorance of the ideal gas law, to say nothing of not applying their own real life experiences to the issue, but remember how long it took the media to stop saying the balls were 2 pounds lighter? And people just mindlessly repeating it as against lived experience? And I just heard it again on one of the national cable news channels covering Brady’s retirement.
Seriously: WTF? I just remember thinking: This is really, really bad, and I didn’t mean the league’s bullshit.
Edit: Dammit @Leather .
Edit2: Or should I say, “You’re with me, @Leather ?
I find that, with the passing of the years, whenever I think of DeflateGate, I think less of the league being bullshit—Brady and the Patriots’ talent has long since been vindicated—but how much I had to reassess downwards my already low opinion of both scientific literacy and journalism in this country.
I mean, many have brought up the absurdity of people’s ignorance of the ideal gas law, to say nothing of not applying their own real life experiences to the issue, but remember how long it took the media to stop saying the balls were 2 pounds lighter? And people just mindlessly repeating it as against lived experience? And I just heard it again on one of the national cable news channels covering Brady’s retirement.
Seriously: WTF? I just remember thinking: This is really, really bad, and I didn’t mean the league’s bullshit.
Edit: Dammit @Leather .
Edit2: Or should I say, “You’re with me, @Leather ?
To take it a step further, I wish the media would discuss why the PSI range even exists, and what advantage there is to having "under-inflated" balls. We know Aaron Rodgers like balls over 14 PSI. We know that you can't throw a fully deflated football. We also know that when you buy a Wilson NFL football, it says on the box, ideal performance at 12.5-13.5 PSI. Gee, I wonder where the NFL got their "rule" from? None of it makes any sense whatsoever in terms of trying to gain a competitive advantage. Forget the ideal gas law, science, etc. Why does the PSI of the ball matter to the competitive product?
We don’t let people who don’t like soccer crap all over the soccer forum, because people who watch the sport deserve to have a place to discuss it intelligently. We don’t have a similar blanket rule for BBTL because the NFL has cultural salience in America that soccer doesn’t. For example, you don’t need to follow football to have intelligent opinions about, say, the Brian Flores situation, or the sport’s problem with concussions and the NFL’s handling of that problem, and the NFL is big enough that those issues affect non-fans as well as fans.
This issue, however, is not like those. Your posts are not adding to the discussion. Knock it off.
None of this surprises me. I would have loved to see the leaguewide data they claimed they were going to collect leak. But I'm sure that once the initial results came in and (shockingly) didn't support the NFL's position, that data was locked down tighter than Fort Knox before being fired into the Sun...
And not to pick at scab that's almost a decade old at this point, but "more probable than not at least generally aware" finding the the Wells report settled on was, is and will always been an embarrassment to the legal profession. I'd say the litigation that followed was as well, but that one (in this member of the legal profession's view) is on Congress. Oh, and a Supreme Court that for decades has repeatedly narrowed the scope of all possible challenges to anything arbitration related.
And not to pick at scab that's almost a decade old at this point, but "more probable than not at least generally aware" finding the the Wells report settled on was, is and will always been an embarrassment to the legal profession. I'd say the litigation that followed was as well, but that one (in this member of the legal profession's view) is on Congress. Oh, and a Supreme Court that for decades has repeatedly narrowed the scope of all possible challenges to anything arbitration related.
You said it better.
I live where it gets really cold, and every winter I not only deal with a beeping tire sensor but also people talking about tire pressure (for cars, for fat bikes...) that needs to be adjusted due to the cold. And I want to stop them and say "Ok, so...ipso facto you know footballs would lose pressure in the cold, right?"
Of course I don't because that would be insane and mark me as an asshole.
Exactly this. I was visiting one of my best friends 2 weekends ago, sitting outside in their backyard, when the leaked Brady retirement news hit the wire - he and I both got alerts on our phones. His wife rolled her eyes and tried to explain to me that Brady was a cheater because of deflategate. Nice job completely wrecking the reputation of a guy who did nothing, NFL. It still makes me mad.
The Clement TD should not have counted by the rules of that season as the ball had not stopped moving by the time he got the second foot down before going out of bounds. The call went up for review, and it was reported (and I need to find the source) that Troy Vincent was there as the call was being reviewed and said "We want that to be a catch" and ordered that the TD stand as called.
EDIT: Here is the source
https://boston.cbslocal.com/2018/03/22/corey-clement-super-bowl-touchdown-shouldnt-have-counted-troy-vincent/
The rule hadn't changed yet. The "old language" was actually the rules that were in place for SB52.
Reading this forum, V&N, and others the last few years really made me grateful for the friends and family that I have.
So many people live every day surrounded by ignorant fools. I feel pretty insulated from it and lucky for that.
Not to relitigate deflategate, which was an obvious farce from the beginning (for right or wrong once it got big they decided they couldn't just say "sorry no issue here we just blew physics 101) but one thing I still can't get over from deflategate is that no one seemed to realize "I have a big needle for you this weekend" said by one equipment guy to the other was not damning evidence of a conspiracy to break the rules, but rather an obvious obvious penis joke between massholes.
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And remember, Vincent had played eight years for the Eagles and had been a 1st team All Pro for them in 2002.
And here he was, during a Super Bowl involving the Eagles, invoking a yet-to-be-applied rule to allow a touchdown for the Eagles.
The corruption in the NFL runs very, very deep.
Jesus the CBS Boston article also contains this nugget about how no one cares about PSI. So enfuriating.
But, well, speaking of full-blown scandals, Vincent was also asked by Patrick if the NFL would consider taking away all rules on football preparation. Patrick argued that quarterbacks should be able to prepare the footballs however they want, and that nobody in the world cares about inflation levels or PSI numbers or anything like that.
Vincent, who played a central role in letting the “DeflateGate” story grow completely out of hand in January 2015, agreed wholeheartedly.
“That is something that has been discussed and I think the fans, I think that’s what the fans want,” Vincent said of Patrick’s suggestion. “They want to see their quarterback with the ball in his hand, with an opportunity to score again. Under his terms. Under his likings.”
Vincent continued: “This is what the fans want. They want points and they want to see their star with an opportunity to win the game or to score more points.”
That right there is classic NFL shenanigans. In one moment, when it’s convenient for the league, a certain “offense” can be painted as a felony, even though there are no rules on the books for such “offenses.” A moment later, it doesn’t matter at all. Who cares, really? Fans want points. That whole two-year-long, multi-million-dollar quest to try to paint the greatest quarterback of all time as a cheater? It’s in the past. The future? People want points.
The fact that nobody from the NFL had any basic knowledge of simple science before launching that dogged pursuit of Tom Brady? Irrelevant.
But, well, speaking of full-blown scandals, Vincent was also asked by Patrick if the NFL would consider taking away all rules on football preparation. Patrick argued that quarterbacks should be able to prepare the footballs however they want, and that nobody in the world cares about inflation levels or PSI numbers or anything like that.
Vincent, who played a central role in letting the “DeflateGate” story grow completely out of hand in January 2015, agreed wholeheartedly.
“That is something that has been discussed and I think the fans, I think that’s what the fans want,” Vincent said of Patrick’s suggestion. “They want to see their quarterback with the ball in his hand, with an opportunity to score again. Under his terms. Under his likings.”
Vincent continued: “This is what the fans want. They want points and they want to see their star with an opportunity to win the game or to score more points.”
That right there is classic NFL shenanigans. In one moment, when it’s convenient for the league, a certain “offense” can be painted as a felony, even though there are no rules on the books for such “offenses.” A moment later, it doesn’t matter at all. Who cares, really? Fans want points. That whole two-year-long, multi-million-dollar quest to try to paint the greatest quarterback of all time as a cheater? It’s in the past. The future? People want points.
The fact that nobody from the NFL had any basic knowledge of simple science before launching that dogged pursuit of Tom Brady? Irrelevant.
Obviously we all here knew that this was utter BS. Anyone with a serious desire for reality knew that this was utter BS. This just gives us more evidence (E5 is right that it's not like Florio is offering multiple named sources, but rather one unnamed source, which is automatically shakier) for that. Either Florio is lying about having this source, or lying about what the source said (neither of those seems likely) or there was an actual source actually saying that. And the source is either right or wrong. And if wrong, either the source didn't know it was wrong (thus a mistake that Florio just ran with anyway) or he did know it was wrong (and thus was an outright lie). Possible. But given all that we know about the NFL and their processes and the fact that they kept the numbers hidden, I think the most reasonable conclusion is that in fact, this source is real and is speaking truth on this. It's the simplest explanation consistent with the facts at hand.
Now to his caveat that Jastremski and McNally's texts seem to indicate that something fishy is going on....
If Florio believes the Patriots were exonerated by the actual data - that is, the NFL study showed that the Patriots' footballs were 100% consistent with what science says they should have been at - then what, exactly, was the "fishy" thing going on that Jastremski and McNally were code-speaking about? Does Florio or anyone else have any desire to actually investigate THAT? I doubt it. He's just assuming that they're manipulating the balls, which still feeds into the narrative and feeds into the NFL's claim that Brady "more likely than not knew about a scheme to deflate footballs". So even though Brady was exonerated...he wasn't?
Rubbish.
Now to his caveat that Jastremski and McNally's texts seem to indicate that something fishy is going on....
If Florio believes the Patriots were exonerated by the actual data - that is, the NFL study showed that the Patriots' footballs were 100% consistent with what science says they should have been at - then what, exactly, was the "fishy" thing going on that Jastremski and McNally were code-speaking about? Does Florio or anyone else have any desire to actually investigate THAT? I doubt it. He's just assuming that they're manipulating the balls, which still feeds into the narrative and feeds into the NFL's claim that Brady "more likely than not knew about a scheme to deflate footballs". So even though Brady was exonerated...he wasn't?
Rubbish.
One of the things I most vividly remember about defaltegate was Neil DeGrasse Tyson getting the gas law formula wrong, and declaring that the Patriots' numbers were a statistically significant outlier. He eventually admitted error but then sort of covered the explanation in a little bit of bullshit -- having to put in a dig at the Patriots on the way out (though also admitting they won the game fairly.)
We were so deep into it at the time that we kind of focused on the things that were natural to focus on -- that he was wrong and that the whole premise of which numbers to use was fucked from the start. Remember that there were two different gauges used and the disparity only was present if you assumed that one gauge but not the other was the one used to take the half time readings. The most damning part of the Wells report to me has always been it's offhand and footnoted conclusion that is largely obscured on page whatever of a thousand pages that the ref who did the measurements (Walt Coleman) remembered using the gauge that gave the not nefarious results. But Wells simply concluded without much else that he was "mistaken."
Now, this was a travesty but it also was the shiny object that caused us to miss the bigger picture. NDT is actually a force for good, generally speaking, when it comes to the scientific method and promotion of the idea of rational thought, especially during the pandemic.
But even he was not immune to the forces that are causing so many of the problems that you note, Rev. He's also a celebrity and whether intentionally or not, he allowed the science to be bent toward the more salacious story. And then being slightly less than enthusiastic about allowing it to bend back when he was revealed to have been wrong.
It really was a canary in the coalmine about talking about science.
You could be opening a large can of worms here, @DDB, talking about how scientists and their conclusions can be influenced by narratives.
Hell, Bill Nye the Science Guy (and Seahawks fan) messed up the IGL as well in the wake of the "scandal."
Rooting preferences trump actual science even from the self-proclaimed experts.
Rooting preferences trump actual science even from the self-proclaimed experts.
It was MUCH worse than that. The Wells Report deliberately photographed the two gauges from an angle that made them look very similar, so that their claim that Walt Anderson was mistaken would seem credible. But the actual gauges looked much different, one had a longer and bent shaft and it was obvious they weren't alike at all.
This went beyond stupid conclusions based on science ignorance. It veered into outright deception and fraud.
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Look where the ruler is set on each of the two gauges. They weren't even measuring them from the same spot.
I said this at the time. Deflategate was why Goodell earns his money. It is an example of how good he is at his job. He knocked concussion talk off the front page, almost for good. Destroying the rep of your greatest player? Well worth the cost.
To me, the sociology aspects of deflategate are much more interesting than rehashing what did or didn't occur. It feels like we've just been over all that so much. The Leather and Rev discussion is much more interesting to me.
Deflategate ultimately never was about PSI or what happened on the field. The report is pathetic (and embarrassing) in terms of what it tries to justify on that issue. The reality is that Brady was punished for one simple reason: he destroyed his damn phone and the folks doing the investigation treated that event like a suspect destroying evidence. As context, the same firm that conducted Brady's investigation did the Incognito investigation, which relied heavily on text messages between Martin and Incognito to reach a conclusion. Texts were seen as an important form of communication by the attorneys working on the Brady matter.
When you combine the destruction of Brady's text messages with Jastremski and McNally's texts, the "independent" investigators concluded there must be something there and decided Brady was acting like he broke a rule. By all accounts, Yee screwed up by permitting the destruction of the phone to be an issue. Yee should have made sure that didn't happen in the first place. It was monumentally stupid for Brady to have chucked his phone while this was going on. Doing so gave a former prosecutor who was leading the investigation a reason to believe that there was something there and conclude that Brady must have had a guilty conscience or something to hide.
So everyone can rightfully claim that Defelategate was bullshit, because it certainly was. But that suspension likely does not happen if Brady's phone wasn't destroyed.
When you combine the destruction of Brady's text messages with Jastremski and McNally's texts, the "independent" investigators concluded there must be something there and decided Brady was acting like he broke a rule. By all accounts, Yee screwed up by permitting the destruction of the phone to be an issue. Yee should have made sure that didn't happen in the first place. It was monumentally stupid for Brady to have chucked his phone while this was going on. Doing so gave a former prosecutor who was leading the investigation a reason to believe that there was something there and conclude that Brady must have had a guilty conscience or something to hide.
So everyone can rightfully claim that Defelategate was bullshit, because it certainly was. But that suspension likely does not happen if Brady's phone wasn't destroyed.
I don't disagree. Nor do I think it's a bad thing to point out that scientists are human too and are subject to all the same biases (conscious or unconscious) as non-scientists, even as their professional work demands more objectivity than it does for some others. I just think...it's opening a can of worms.
In a bad way? Seems like it's better to know than not.I don't disagree. Nor do I think it's a bad thing to point out that scientists are human too and are subject to all the same biases (conscious or unconscious) as non-scientists, even as their professional work demands more objectivity than it does for some others. I just think...it's opening a can of worms.
I agree here too. But this principle wouldn't just apply to Deflategate. I can think of other, uh, contentious and current issues in the world where this could be in play. But that's better for V&N and I think I'll just stop right now.
The one big thing people overlook with the “deflate” texts is that NFL footballs come in the box at 13 PSI, and Tom liked it 12.5, the bottom of the legal limit. So, yes, they deflated footballs and, yes, they texted and made dick jokes about that part of their job. Doesn’t mean it was part of some conspiracy to skirt the rules.