Florio: Pash ordered PSI readings “expunged” in 2015
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I think your timeline is wrong, because the NFL issued the original suspension way in advance of the cell phone being destroyed. Remember, Brady was suspended prior to the 2015 season. But they got an injunction or whatever it was that pushed further court proceedings to the following offseason. It was only in the offseason before 2016 that the cell phone thing happened or came to light, I think.
So while you are correct that while ultimately the only reason Brady got suspended was because of the cell phone thing, that's not why the process got going in the beginning, and it's not why the NFL ordered the ORIGINAL suspension.
Like Spygate, people believe the Pats were punished for a certain thing, but what they ended up getting punished for was actually different. Brady was suspended for non-compliance, not for deflating footballs.
How do you think they got the balls from the 13 PSI they came packaged in down to the legal low limit of 12.5 PSI? They deflated them half a PSI. That was part of their jobs. It was also perfectly legal. It’s why they were making deflate jokes in their texts. John Q Public thinks any sort of deflation is illegal, but it’s not.
IIRC, the cell phone being destroyed was part of the Wells report and thus part of the original penalties.
Every time Nye or Tyson show up on a TV screen for any reason, I say out loud "fick that guy". Whoever is there invariably asks me "wtf why".
Tyson spoke recently at some zoom thing at my wife's work, and she asked me about if I knew of him. I told her that he was one of the smartest people alive and a jackass...and that she should attend.
We're both wrong. It was destroyed in 2015 during the investigation, but was not part of the Wells report. Goodell used it as reasoning for the original suspension.
Edit: can't believe I am going down this rabbit hole yet again
https://www.sbnation.com/nfl/2015/7/28/8805315/tom-brady-suspension-appeal-denied-nfl-deflategate-roger-goodell
On or shortly before March 6, the day that Tom Brady met with independent investigator Ted Wells and his colleagues, Brady directed that the cell phone he had used for the prior four months be destroyed. He did so even though he was aware that the investigators had requested access to text messages and other electronic information that had been stored on that phone. During the four months that the cell phone was in use, Brady had exchanged nearly 10,000 text messages, none of which can now be retrieved from that device. The destruction of the cell phone was not disclosed until June 18, almost four months after the investigators had first sought electronic information from Brady.
Who knows what these corrupt assholes would have done with his phone data. Destroying the phone was the right call.
I think that was essentially the only mistake Brady made in this whole process. I understand why he did it. We later learned that Brady's personal correspondence got leaked on things not related to Deflategate. We all have reasons for why we wouldn't want someone to go through all our messages. Even if we don't have anything personally damning about us, we may have private conversations with others that THEY want kept confidential.
Who knows what they'd have found on Brady's phone had he turned it over. If he had deleted any texts, then NFL investigators would have seen that his phone records indicate texts to number XYZ, but those texts had been deleted from Brady's phone. Do we really think that they wouldn't STILL conclude that Brady was hiding something? Of course they would.
But interestingly, in 2010 Brett Favre was under investigation for illicit texts to Jenn Sterger. The NFL wanted to see his texts and he refused. And so...
"Commissioner Roger Goodell has fined Minnesota Vikings quarterback Brett Favre $50,000 over the Jenn Sterger fiasco, the league announced Wednesday.
However, Favre wasn't found to have violated league policy with regards to Sterger: He was fined for failing to cooperate with the league's investigation.
FOXSports.com first reported that Favre was going to be fined.
The NFL issued a statement, noting that Favre "was not candid in several respects during the investigation."
The release stated Favre was fined for "his failure to cooperate with the investigation in a forthcoming manner.""
From: https://www.foxsports.com/stories/nfl/favre-fined-50k-in-sterger-mess
So Favre did the exact same thing - kept his texts from the NFL. And Goodell fined him 50k. Brady keeps his texts from the NFL, and receives a four game suspension (and the loss of millions of dollars) and the Patriots lose draft picks.
Seems equitable.
Destroying the cell phone looks bad (and yes, I understand why he did it and that it may not actually be evidence of guilt). Of course, to the degree it is evidence of guilt that same rationale makes Pash destryong the PSI data a guilty act as well in a beautiful parallel.
Yup. They would have used anything in there to ruin his image even more. Embarrassing stuff would have clearly been leaked. Brady and his advisors made the right call on this one.
They told him everything would be kept confidential and two months later we learned that Gisele wanted a grey pool cover instead of a white one. Brady and Yee knew damn well the NFL couldn't trusted to keep his personal business private.
The league also apparently told Brady he'd suffer no punishments if he threw the two Dorito Dinks under the bus and claimed that they deflated the balls without his knowledge or permission. They were willing to ruin the lives of two innocent guys just to throw their weight around because they knew nothing of science. Brady rightfully told the league to go fuck itself in regards to that offer.
Yeah the cell phone thing was contrived to make him look guilty and to justify the suspension. I think the whole thing was to satisfy the egos of the other owners. They wanted The league to nail the Patriots for something
What does “destroying” a cell phone mean?
I think Brady’s only error was the press conference, in that if they did try to get the balls to as low a PSI as legally possible (12.5) he should have just said so. But nothing would have made a difference with the media/public at large. I mean Borges made fun of him in that press conference because obviously Brady should be able to notice that one football is two pounds lighter than another - he talked about how baseball players can notice the difference in bats that weigh a couple ounces less but Brady couldn’t notice two pounds. What a moron.
What does “destroying” a cell phone mean?
I think Brady’s only error was the press conference, in that if they did try to get the balls to as low a PSI as legally possible (12.5) he should have just said so. But nothing would have made a difference with the media/public at large. I mean Borges made fun of him in that press conference because obviously Brady should be able to notice that one football is two pounds lighter than another - he talked about how baseball players can notice the difference in bats that weigh a couple ounces less but Brady couldn’t notice two pounds. What a moron.
Umm, do they think the texts were IN the phone? They still could’ve asked Brady to submit redacted copies of his text logs showing all communications with certain numbers/persons.
The "destruction of Brady's text messages" never made sense to me, since the league was in possession of texts from every other league employee or Patriots employee, and therefore had any texts that Brady sent to those people. So, while it may have been possible Brady was texting his friends and family about this stuff (doubtful), it's not like there's a secret second set of text messages to Patriots employees that the league never got its hands on.
Also, I believe Stephen Gostkowski also didn't turn in his phone and received exactly zero penalty.
That’s correct. I already mentioned how when Favre refused to turn over his phone he just got a 50k fine. But he at least was the subject of the investigation. When Ghost refused he got no penalty at all.
Consistency, thy name is NOT the NFL.
Consistency, thy name is NOT the NFL.
Still proud that we (Rev, a few others and The Difference) made this at the time...
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzKMcYCYIKM
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzKMcYCYIKM
Maybe I take too simplistic a view of deflategate, but in my mind, deflategate became an unwinnable case once the Mortensen(through Vincent) tweet went out. The tweet went out, with the prodding of the NFL. The tweet was false, and Mortensen didnt take it down for many months after it became clear and acknowledged everywhere that the tweeted information was incorrect. Mortensen later said the reason he didnt take it down, even though he knew the information to be incorrect was that he didnt know how to delete a tweet. Of all the horsesh^t back and forth nonsense that went on in this length battle, to me, this was the most outrageous. Nonetheless..
THE CBA gave Goddell unilateral power to determine fact from fiction, guilt from innocence, who testifies and who doesnt, what evidence comes in, and what the finding is, and the nature of the punishment. This was unchecked power. Goddell was never ever ever going to say, our bad, we stared all this with the misinformation, we apologize, we acted too quickly in releasing that information to Mort. It was all going to be cover the league from the moment the tweet hit the airwaves. From that moment on, the case was never again going to be about the facts, needles, the balls, air gauges, ideal gas law, how balls react in temperature changes. It was about whether the courts confirmed that Goddell had the authority to wear all the legal and moral hats in the case. The courts said he did. Ballgame over.
THE CBA gave Goddell unilateral power to determine fact from fiction, guilt from innocence, who testifies and who doesnt, what evidence comes in, and what the finding is, and the nature of the punishment. This was unchecked power. Goddell was never ever ever going to say, our bad, we stared all this with the misinformation, we apologize, we acted too quickly in releasing that information to Mort. It was all going to be cover the league from the moment the tweet hit the airwaves. From that moment on, the case was never again going to be about the facts, needles, the balls, air gauges, ideal gas law, how balls react in temperature changes. It was about whether the courts confirmed that Goddell had the authority to wear all the legal and moral hats in the case. The courts said he did. Ballgame over.
IIRC, Brady and Yee offered to make available a log of Brady's text messages to team employees, etc.; the log would basically contain everything having access to the phone would except that his personal text messages would be redacted. And the NFL and their stooge law firm rejected the offer. Should also note that no player is obligated in any way, shape, or form to turn over their cell phone to the NFL.
Brady destroyed the phone by the time of his appeal. He, like most sports and entertainment celebrities, routinely would destroy his old phone to prevent old text messages and other files from being released. The carrier reimbursement for the phone trade in is just not worth it for him, given that even erased data can sometimes be retrieved. And getting a new phone is not a crime. But, of course, the mediots and even the judges locked into that fact, as none of them could possibly figure out why a celebrity would not want every aspect of their personal lives exposed to the entire world.
Remember, a huge part of the league case was that a 60+ year old man wearing multiple layers of cold weather gear spent exactly 60 seconds in a bathroom before heading to the field.
And he was able to remove all the balls, deflate them by an average of 1 PSI, and replace them all back in the duffle in that time.
"Why did he bring the balls into the bathroom?!?!"
Why do I bring my laptop bag into the bathroom at work when I'm on my way out to the car? Because while it's unlikely, I'd rather take no chance that it gets fucked with/stolen vs. having to explain why I couldn't take the most basic precaution against that happening.
I've been involved at the NFL level in game ball preparation. Every single QB wants the footballs done up differently so that they are comfortable throwing the ball. Some want them brushed down and some don't, some put special oils or even shaving cream to make the leather feel a certain way, and yes some like the balls more inflated or less inflated. This story was complete and utter BS from the start from my view because I know the processes and seeing people that have no idea what they're talking about trying to explain it is quite funny to me.
My favorite part was the reliance on the ref's memory of Indianapolis's PSI readings in one paragraph (because he is a professional and thus his memory unimpeachable), and then in the next paragraph relying on that the same ref's memory being faulty regarding the gauge used (because otherwise the data wouldn't fit the conclusion).
This is fascinating, thank you.
Unrelated question, what's your position on Doritos?
That article doesn’t state that Vincent was present during the review nor does it contain a “We want that to be a catch” quote.
My partner's brother is a middle school science teacher, and the news that got to him wasn't about cold-related shrinkage, but was simply "the patriots cheated!" and I think that's really as far as anyone thought. He didn't even consider that it may have been a teachable moment for his class, but just a vague sports cheating scandal.
Welp, I dare say that held up over time. I mean, Jesus Christ… nice work, man.
And thanks for posting that—I had totally forgotten about that; just saved the link.
@DennyDoyle'sBoil Canaries indeed.
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Remember who didn’t mess it up, though?
Fucking @TomRicardo , that’s who!!
I remember him screaming to high heaven that Tyson and Nye were doing it wrong and he showed his work too and he was dead to rights.
I can’t quite recall if it was that they were using relative pressure instead of absolute pressure (thereby implicitly assuming that the ambient pressure in the stadium was 0) or relative temperature scales instead of absolute temperature scales (thereby implicitly assuming that, for example, freezing in Celsius was the absence of heat)… or it might have been both?
Anyway, TRic was spot on from jump.
And while that’s a neat feather in his cap, it’s not a great look for, like, I dunno, “the big picture.”
A ton of people got it right. But at the end, no one cared because they had a narrative they liked better. It really was the prologue to what was to come…
Yup yup. IIRC, Carnegie Mellon came in hor and heavy, and then MIT a day or two later, and once those heavy weights were in the ring, the balance tipped… among the scientifically inclined anyway. And even people like SI ran it.
Which is why I see it as so impossibly fucked up. Putting aside how many high school and college students should have known it, the sheer number of academics—grad students and professors—actively working on current projects at the time must have been substantial; this wasn’t some kind of esoteric secret.
Hell, the NFL and ownership is pretty connected—maybe call NASA and see if anyone working in any of the space craft programs has had occasion to think about the relationship between changing temperature and pressure and such?
I haven’t seen this mentioned, but IIRC, when the NFL announced they would be doing pressure checks on balls the next season they also said they would not be releasing results. How would it even be possible that they didn’t know the answer by then such that they would need to do the checks? That people let the idea of checks without reported results slide…?
I don’t expect everyone in the country to be proficient in science. But this was a big story—arguably too big, given the disproportionate weight we put on sports (Says the guy who ran herd on the DG Legal Thread…
)—and it should be clear that, given the settled nature of the actual science, we had lots and lots and lots of people that would know how this actually worked……and yet, look at the state of “opinion” today.
But even more so: The NFL knew they could pull this off, and they did.
Sure, but CMU had 2 importan distinguishing features:
1. It was based in Pittsburgh, enemy territory, so couldn't be accused of homer-ism the way MIT (for instance) could.
2. It's where I went to school.
(CMU also came out with their analysis pretty early on during the proceedings).
Ha! Well, I’m pretty sure that they beat MIT to the table by 48 hours or so and, despite what the nation may think, I bet it comes up there from time to time.
Actually, at some point they said they were still determining “how” to release the results, which suggests that they planned to. I think it was in a Tom Curran article. Will try to find.Yup yup. IIRC, Carnegie Mellon came in hor and heavy, and then MIT a day or two later, and once those heavy weights were in the ring, the balance tipped… among the scientifically inclined anyway. And even people like SI ran it.
Which is why I see it as so impossibly fucked up. Putting aside how many high school and college students should have known it, the sheer number of academics—grad students and professors—actively working on current projects at the time must have been substantial; this wasn’t some kind of esoteric secret.
Hell, the NFL and ownership is pretty connected—maybe call NASA and see if anyone working in any of the space craft programs has had occasion to think about the relationship between changing temperature and pressure and such?
I haven’t seen this mentioned, but IIRC, when the NFL announced they would be doing pressure checks on balls the next season they also said they would not be releasing results. How would it even be possible that they didn’t know the answer by then such that they would need to do the checks? That people let the idea of checks without reported results slide…?
I don’t expect everyone in the country to be proficient in science. But this was a big story—arguably too big, given the disproportionate weight we put on sports (Says the guy who ran herd on the DG Legal Thread…
…and yet, look at the state of “opinion” today.
But even more so: The NFL knew they could pull this off, and they did.
https://www.nbcsports.com/boston/new-england-patriots/nfl-still-contemplating-how-it-will-share-psi-data
NFL spokesman Greg Aiello stated in an email Friday morning that, “A determination on how it will be shared has not been made yet.”
That the NFL is only contemplating “how” to share the info and not "if" it will is good news.
The 'how' was Pash shared it with Goodell and then they shredded everything related to it. Maybe they called in the ghost of Ted Wells' reputation as well? But no broader than that.
Pshhhhhh. How about a table posted on your website? Maybe make some graphs in Excel?
Jackasses. It’s all such crap. But while fuck the NFL, this all worked, right?
That's not correct. As is their SOP, the NFL came out with a huge pronouncement about how they were going to collect a whole series of measurements and release the results. Then they retreated from that after the newscams were turned off. When the Commish eventually got called on no results given out, he spun a new fable about how there was never a plan to do a systematic measurement campaign but rather "spot checks."
We studied CM's autonomous vehicle project as part of my undergrad robots program. Groundbreaking stuff. I hadn't heard of the place at the time. 30 years later, my kid is trying to get into their musical theater program. What a school.
One of the many parts that still gets me angry is the actual game results. During the first half when the supposedly pro-Brady illegal balls were being used, Brady was pretty average, nothing special, 17-7 at halftime. In the second half, when supposedly the 'correct' balls were used, the Pats just ran it down Indy's throat, they didn't even need to pass all that much (Brady had 35 total throws for 226 yards) as the Colts couldn't sop the running attack. It became a blowout in the second half. The balls made no difference in that game at all, final score 45-7 with Blount racking up 148 yards on 30 carries. They could have used a brick in that game, would have been same score.
https://985thesportshub.com/2022/02/07/new-deflategate-report-confirms-what-people-with-brains-already-assumed/
“Doesn’t mean nothing happened. The text messages between the seemingly witness-protected John Jastremski and Jim McNally were a smoking gun. But while those were damning, that wouldn’t have been early enough to prove Brady’s guilt beyond all doubt.”
Smoking gun? Of WHAT!?
“Doesn’t mean nothing happened. The text messages between the seemingly witness-protected John Jastremski and Jim McNally were a smoking gun. But while those were damning, that wouldn’t have been early enough to prove Brady’s guilt beyond all doubt.”
Smoking gun? Of WHAT!?
Yeah. I mean, it goes back to, well, lots of things but especially Spygate, where the notion that the Patriots taped the Rams walkthrough is what a lot of people think they were punished for, when that never happened.
Once people decide how to think about something, it's incredibly hard to get them to change their mind when social forces provide incentive not to. In this case, it was fun for *Every other fanbase* to shit on the Patriots and Tom Brady, and so even if someone sitting in their office at 7 PM on a Thursday said "Hey, wait...Carnegie Mellon says that maybe they *didn't* cheat...?" the instant Barb from accounting walks by and goes "Pffft Fuck Tom Brady!" that's the end of that.
It's also why people on SoSH screaming for Brady and Belichick and Kraft to "fight back" and thought that by issuing a counter-study (or whatever) would move the needle at all were always tilting at windmills. The game was over very early in the process, when people saw the "official readings" and learned (for the first time!) that football pressure was a thing and it was possible that softer balls would give the Patriots an unfair advantage. All of that was clearly stupid but it didn't matter. Just like it's clearly stupid that horse de-wormer has nothing to do with treating a virus, but history repeats itself...
Once people decide how to think about something, it's incredibly hard to get them to change their mind when social forces provide incentive not to. In this case, it was fun for *Every other fanbase* to shit on the Patriots and Tom Brady, and so even if someone sitting in their office at 7 PM on a Thursday said "Hey, wait...Carnegie Mellon says that maybe they *didn't* cheat...?" the instant Barb from accounting walks by and goes "Pffft Fuck Tom Brady!" that's the end of that.
It's also why people on SoSH screaming for Brady and Belichick and Kraft to "fight back" and thought that by issuing a counter-study (or whatever) would move the needle at all were always tilting at windmills. The game was over very early in the process, when people saw the "official readings" and learned (for the first time!) that football pressure was a thing and it was possible that softer balls would give the Patriots an unfair advantage. All of that was clearly stupid but it didn't matter. Just like it's clearly stupid that horse de-wormer has nothing to do with treating a virus, but history repeats itself...