Deflate-Gate: Here We Go Again

Just to point out the obvious:

This ball thing is terrible and the Patriots must be punished severely!

As both teams dealt with the freezing temperatures, Fox cameras showed sideline attendants using heaters to warm up game balls, which is against league rules. NFL vice president of officiating Dean Blandino said Monday morning on NFL Network that officials warned both the Vikings and Panthers not to heat up the balls during Sunday's game, and would remind teams this week not to heat game balls.

"You can't do anything with the footballs in terms of any artificial, whether you're heating them up, whether it's a regular game ball or kicking ball, you can't do anything to the football," Blandino said. "So that was noticed during the game, both teams were made aware of it during the game and we will certainly remind the clubs as we get into more cold weather games that you can't do anything with the football in terms of heating them up with those sideline heaters."

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http://espn.go.com/blog/minnesota-v...of-game-ball-incident-during-panthers-vikings

Using 4 lineman formations is deception, and Bill was basically cheating. This has never happened before!

And while we don't know for sure which NFL team Belichick was referring to, we did come across a play that may have been a root of their motivation. Back in Week 6, the Detroit Lions traveled to Minnesota to play the Vikings. At 8:59 of the third quarter, Detroit deployed a personnel group that actually featured six offensive linemen, but the formation is nearly identical to what the Patriots did on Sunday with their four offensive linemen set.

The Lions flexed an offensive lineman out between two receivers, similar to what the Patriots did with Shane Vereen. In both cases, these players were ineligible receivers based off of alignment (note: any player that aligns on the line of scrimmage but is covered up by another receiver is ineligible).

On the other side of the formation, the Lions had two receivers aligned outside but off of the line of scrimmage, making the right tackle an eligible receiver, much like Michael Hoomanawanui was for the Patriots while on the left side of the line.

As far as route concepts go, much like the Patriots did, the Lions sent four of their receivers vertically up the field (including the right tackle on a seam route, a la Hoomanwanui) and kept the ineligible receiver behind the line of scrimmage.

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http://espn.go.com/blog/new-england...ther-nfl-team-used-four-offensive-linemen-set

We're in the Super Bowl, who gives a crap how we got there. Approaching 900 comments on meaningless crap.

sb1 said:

First of all, you are assuming that if anything nefarious happened it came as an order directly from Bill. There is no evidence at this time of that.

I have a very hard time seeing a first ballot HOF lock, hopefully 4-time SB champion head coach, known as one of the best of all time, a man who is very aware of legacy and the history of the game - would be willing to put all of those accolades in jeopardy by resorting to those tactics and blatantly cheating....

And not just cheating, doing it after taking a lot of grief for Spygate.

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It's just my opinion. I think if anything like that was happening, it is my opinion, nothing would take place without BB knowing.

He has already put all those accolades in the past in jeopardy. It was against the rules to continue Spygate, and he did. It was blatant. The fact it was blatant disobedience is why he was punished.

PatriotSeven said:

Actually we have had credible sources that said just that. Now you are just flat out in denial.

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Credible sources said what? The nfl is investigating. That's all that's known.

You are taking mindless conjecture and jumping to conclusions to sights unseen.

Logically bel I chick might have decided to cheat in a cost benefit analysis. Therefore he did. You're a lunatic.

SVN said:

And after the owner called him a schumck for doing it the first time, one would think BB would do it again ? Its ridiculous.

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Publicly. How do you know what he told him privately? It's BB's job to take the fall. You don't actually expect Kraft to condone it publicly, do you?

He called him a shmuck? The horror! Where was the assurance? Punishment from Kraft? What moves did Kraft make to make sure it would never happen again? He was a shmuck. He got caught and made our franchise look bad.

Lets face facts. Goodell has had a vendetta against the Pats since the day he took office. He blew the camera gate situation out of proportion with the help of or because of the NYC media. He now has a ticklish situation involvimg his beloved Jets and what better way to alleviate the pressure than to feed the media a non story about the bad old Pats. Don't forget that Irsay owes the POS one from the lenient treatment he received after his incident involving controilled substances. Why Kraft continues to support the POS is beyond my comprehension.

kennyb said:

Credible sources said what? The nfl is investigating. That's all that's known.

You are taking mindless conjecture and jumping to conclusions to sights unseen.

Logically bel I chick might have decided to cheat in a cost benefit analysis. Therefore he did. You're a lunatic.

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Per Mike Reiss, that the NFL is investigating the Colt's allegations that the Patriots deflated the balls.

flasox27 said:

Lets face facts. Goodell has had a vendetta against the Pats since the day he took office. He blew the camera gate situation out of proportion with the help of or because of the NYC media. He now has a ticklish situation involvimg his beloved Jets and what better way to alleviate the pressure than to feed the media a non story about the bad old Pats. Don't forget that Irsay owes the POS one from the lenient treatment he received after his incident involving controilled substances. Why Kraft continues to support the POS is beyond my comprehension.

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PatriotSeven said:

Per Mike Reiss, that the NFL is investigating the Colt's allegations that the Patriots deflated the balls.

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Yes. So what. Balls deflate somewhat sometimes. Accusation is not proof of wrongdoing.

You're the type of person who says a person wouldn't be accused of a crime if they weren't guilty.

AndyJohnson said:

Why would you say it's possible for us to be caught cheating?

Again, please explain how we would have taken air out of the balls.

And yes it is ludicrous to think that this was done, and if you answer the question you will probably realize that.

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Are you still arguing with that clown? I put him on ignore 5 pages ago.

moejr said:

Are you still arguing with that clown? I put him on ignore 5 pages ago.

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Two weeks to kill, instead of one. By the time it's over, we'll be discussing grass length as a way of cheating

flasox27 said:

Lets face facts. Goodell has had a vendetta against the Pats since the day he took office. He blew the camera gate situation out of proportion with the help of or because of the NYC media. He now has a ticklish situation involvimg his beloved Jets and what better way to alleviate the pressure than to feed the media a non story about the bad old Pats. Don't forget that Irsay owes the POS one from the lenient treatment he received after his incident involving controilled substances. Why Kraft continues to support the POS is beyond my comprehension.

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I don't buy this at ALL and never have. Kraft is one of the most powerful owners in the NFL and we are now the 2nd most valuable franchise behind the Cowboys. Goodell would be out of a damn job, if he was constantly screwing over Kraft's team. Come on guys.

You get on a Jets forum, they say the same ****. That we have Goodell in our pocket. I't's getting silly. Goodell hates us. He loves the Ravens. He loves the Steelers. He loves the Jets. He loves Indy. He loves Peyton. He hates US.

This is fairy tales to make a fan feel better and that the commissioner is always in the OTHER guy's pocket. It's always the OTHER team getting favors. Never ours. We just always get screwed over.

It's a pretty typical way of dealing with these sorts of things, if you can't cope with it. Sometimes we are the victims, and other times we are the bullies. It is what it is. They do have an agenda, and sometimes it goes against you and sometimes for you. But to always think we are the victims, it's just plain delusional.

PatriotSeven said:

Publicly. How do you know what he told him privately? It's BB's job to take the fall. You don't actually expect Kraft to condone it publicly, do you?

He called him a shmuck? The horror! Where was the assurance? Punishment from Kraft? What moves did Kraft make to make sure it would never happen again? He was a shmuck. He got caught and made our franchise look bad.

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Very plausible that Kraft wants to ruin his brand by cheating in stupid ways which don't have a logical way of even helping the team win. Have a great qb with huge hands throw ducks because the ball is underinflated. Brilliant.

Guilty unless proven otherwise.

PatriotSeven said:

Actually we have had credible sources that said just that. Now you are just flat out in denial.

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What credible sources with knowledge of the investigation have said that the league suspects wrongdoing by the Patriots.

Absolutely correct, sir. Time for OL' get along Bob to count his money, chase his bimbo's and leave the running of the team to his son.

flasox27 said:

Lets face facts. Goodell has had a vendetta against the Pats since the day he took office. He blew the camera gate situation out of proportion with the help of or because of the NYC media. He now has a ticklish situation involvimg his beloved Jets and what better way to alleviate the pressure than to feed the media a non story about the bad old Pats. Don't forget that Irsay owes the POS one from the lenient treatment he received after his incident involving controilled substances. Why Kraft continues to support the POS is beyond my comprehension.

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I would tend to think this was Irsay's way of taking heat off his team getting smoked and therefore off himself. Don't forget he had Polian working for him so he learned a thing or two.

Next up: Pats accused of tampering with the Colts Diapers.

JoeSixPat said:

Goodell/The NFL would do well to read your post because it seems like they are considering this as more than just the standard operating procedure

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2015/01/19/nfl-taking-game-integrity-issues-very-seriously/

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.co...h-nfl-investigation-into-under-inflated-balls

Don't fault a fellow Patsfan for reporting the reality that right or wrong Goodell is treating this as a big deal

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First of all it is Florio, and secondly, directly from the article you quoted:

In this specific case, the investigation will focus on whether the balls were properly weighed and measured by officials before the game started, whether anything happened while the balls were in the custody of the referee, and whether anything happened after the balls were given by the referee to the ball attendant.

They appear to be investigating the referees, and at this point it would seem they have not even determined how many balls were under inflated, if any were, and by how much,

But by all means lets be a lynch mob since a reporter thinks it was cheating.

rochrist said:

Well, on Around the Horn, all of them seem to be taking the 'of course they did it' road, citing their many instances of cheating in the past. After all, as one of them pointed out, there was just last week against the Ravens.

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Don't know why this was disliked. All I did was report what they said on the show.

luuked said:

I don't think that the league worries about message boards but they do care about whats in the media news cycle and if what people are reporting (i.e. Patriots are under investigation) would be totally off from what is actually happening (e.g. investigating the ball not focused on Patriots) then they would send out note of that officially (or unofficially via a source) to kill the entire story. They have nothing to gain here..

Anyway.. it is just a weird situation..

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What can they say if they haven't even examined the balls yet?
The game ended at 10PM and today is a Holiday.
Of course they will say 'we are investigatiing' when they have no information.