NashuaPats
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I never did either, after cameraplacementgate I chalked it up to incompetence, a new commish dealing with his first big story and completely bungling it and letting public outcry drive the penalties.
But between this 'scandal' and the Jets 'penalty' for a clear-as-day tampering charge I just don't see any other explanation. Based on past precedence the Jets should have lost a pick and swapped picks with the Pats somewhere, it's just plain as day based on the prior penalties. And the '11 of 12 footballs 2 psi low' report, I mean that was never, ever corrected. People in the NFL offices knew the real numbers, knew the insanity that was going on in the media, and watched Belichick and Brady give their Thursday press conferences based on false information. Even then they could have done something. Then they watched Belichick give his Saturday press conference on the same false info, Kraft address the press, allowed the Wells investigation to proceed for two months without ever correcting the narrative that had taken hold of the story.
Something real is going on here, and I don't think it's possible to chalk it up to basic incompetence anymore. There's a real bias at NFL headquarters, from the letter to the Pats that was wrong to the Mort report to Vincent's tweets to the NFL.com tweets to Schefter's twitter battle with Aello (sp?) yesterday; I'm not sure it'll be enough to succeed in court in a defamation suit (if it ever gets that far) but to anyone watching this story closely it's plain as day.
To add to this, at the time the NFL began investigating:
They did not know about the pee break
They did not know about the deflator text
They did not know about transient curves
They had no reason to doubt Anderson's memory of which gauge he used
The average football measured 11.49 per the gauge Anderson used which is exactly what the IGL dictates.
I understand the initial surprise at the ball measurements, but by Monday morning if not Sunday night, they had to have known about the IGL.
There was no reason whatsoever to be suspicious of any wrong doing. Zero. Nada.
There is a reason they decided to open an investigation that had nothing to do with air pressure.
There was a reason they leaked false information.
There was a reason they lied to the Patriots about the psi measurements.
There was a reason they chose Exponent as their science consultant.
I don't know what that reason or reasons are. But it had NOTHING to do with footballs. It was purely vindictive.
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