Deflate-Gate: Here We Go Again

zomg the deflated ball makes it easier to throw and catch! Patriots are cheaters! BB and Brady are tarnished!

But they have gloves that are perfectly legal to wear that make it easier to throw and catch...

AndyJohnson said:

Wait. You are calling Spygate cheating? Seriously. Wow, this explains a lot.


So do you have video of seeing the ball boy stick a needle in the ball?
Can your conviction be overturned when we actually know what happened?

You seriously cannot be a Patriots fan.

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Yes. It was cheating. And I accept it for what it was. You want to brainwash yourself so you can continue pulling for the Pats in all their honest glory because perhaps it goes against your personal principles and it's how you cope. Not all fans need to do that. I can live with dirt and still love the Pats. After all you don't really love anyone if you don't take the bad with the good.

realtime said:

Then why aren't Edelman and the other players following the same script?

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Because they aren't the head coach and the things they say carry different weight and get scrutinized way less?

rlcarr said:

Exactly. I don't buy the "Well, BB broke the rules with Cameragate, so why are you so sure he wouldn't break the rules here?" argument.

With Cameragate there was a lot of ambiguity and greyness and so a lot of room to convince oneself that one wasn't actually breaking the rule to keep on taping.

There's no such ambiguity here. The football-handling protocol is very black and white -- no one can screw with the balls once they've been given pre-game to the refs.

While I do believe BB looks for every edge, it is hard for me to believe he'd cross a clear line like that, both in terms of how he respects the game of football and because of the incalculable damage he'd be doing to both his and the team's reputations if he was found out.

If it turns out NE was playing shenanigans with the ball, I will be very angry and disappointed. It will only validate the Cameragate haterz (who while still loud had been increasingly being looked at as dismissable whiners as the years have worn on and the Pats have continued to be great). And I'd question if BB would or should survive it in New England.

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The bolded part needs repeating. If Kraft wasn't such a corporate guy, Spygate would have been much different. Put another way, if he was akin to an Al Davis, Roger Goodell would have ended up paying the salary of for the continued work of our camera guy as well as publicly saying "filming of signals is legal, all team do it, we set out a gray area rule limiting the area filming can take place, we should have been more specific, we apologize to the Patriots" (well, maybe not quite that far but you get the picture).

(side note to RLCarr. Regarding your avatar, is that the captain of a spaceship? the pic reminds me of a animated sci fi show I watched as a kid).

PatriotSeven said:

Yes. It was cheating. And I accept it for what it was. You want to brainwash yourself so you can continue pulling for the Pats in all their honest glory because perhaps it goes against your personal principles and it's how you cope. Not all fans need to do that. I can live with dirt and still love the Pats. After all you don't really love anyone if you don't take the bad with the good.

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So much fail here.. Wow

PatriotSeven said:

Yes. It was cheating. And I accept it for what it was. You want to brainwash yourself so you can continue pulling for the Pats in all their honest glory because perhaps it goes against your personal principles and it's how you cope. Not all fans need to do that. I can live with dirt and still love the Pats. After all you don't really love anyone if you don't take the bad with the good.

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It wasn't cheating there. Your just an idiot straight up

so, let me get this straight.

1. All sorts of things can cause balls to deflate including weather etc. During the course of a game if Officials dont like the feel of a ball they can take it out of play.

2. Those balls are looked at the week after the game to determine why they deflated.

3. The officials check the balls prior to the game and before each snap.

4. The NFL confirms they are going to investigate why the balls were deflated. No mention of whether there was "intent" by the patriots.

5. a butt-hurt Indy beat writer and notorious pats hater florio spin it as the "patriots are being investigated for intentionally deflating the balls" and the media runs with it because it is sensationalism.

I really dont see how you can deflate a ball prior/during the game, and im not sure how the NFL or anyone can "prove" the patriots intentionally deflated the balls. And, If the balls were deflated, didnt the colts use the same balls? wouldnt they have the same advantage the patriots did?

I think this will end up being a whole lot of nothing. The media/fans of other teams cant stand the fact that the Patriots have been successful all these years and are going to their 6th superbowl so they are trying to blow this out of proportion

What I don't get is this: If underinflation makes it easier to pass and catch in bad weather, wouldn't that have favored the Colts? After all, the Colts had no running game, and it was argued that if the Colts won, they would have won on Luck's arm. The only way this could have favored the Pats, perhaps, if they could have guaranteed Brady got the underinflated footballs and Luck got the more inflated ones. Could that have happened? If not, this "scandal" makes absolutely no sense.

I wish baseball season started during the playoffs so these Red Sox trolls would have something else to do.

Archeryaddict12 said:

It wasn't cheating there. Your just an idiot straight up

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That's delusional. And since all you are capable of are personal insults, like a few others on here, when someone has a different viewpoint, there's hardly a point in me continuing arguing with people like you.

Sigh. Brian williams was just all over this with some clown at gillette reporting live. Ive never bashed the league on this board, but they need to put something out. This isnt right and this is a damn good team.

Edit: brain farted and was thinking Peter Jennings. Fixed.

JMC00 said:

So how do deflated balls explain Luck having his worst game as a pro? I mean Colts were using their own footballs right?

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Theyre saying NEs footballs were deflated to supposedly make it easier to throw and catch.

The laughable thing about this whole scenario is speculation that it involes "several balls". How many is several? Why was a kicking ball left out on the field instead of a scrimmage ball? The refs handle the ball on EVERY play, right? Wouldn't it stand reason that the REFS are ultimately culpable for the security of the ball and the games integrity? Did you see some of those balls Brady threw? The duck to Gronk in the EZ was practically travelling end over end. How about that underthrown duck to Edelmen?

Didn't look to me like he was exactly thowing lasers. This is a huge load of overblown crap. Indy fans should be embarressed Kravitz is "representing" them. After scrolling their board most were in agreement. They got flat-out smacked and no ball inflation issue would have meant squat.

Patters said:

What I don't get is this: If underinflation makes it easier to pass and catch in bad weather, wouldn't that have favored the Colts? After all, the Colts had no running game, and it was argued that if the Colts won, they would have won on Luck's arm. The only way this could have favored the Pats, perhaps, if they could have guaranteed Brady got the underinflated footballs and Luck got the more inflated ones. Could that have happened? If not, this "scandal" makes absolutely no sense.

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The Colts use one of "their" balls when they are on offense. If the Patriots had been using a deflated ball, the Colts would not also be using it.

Bella*chick said:

I love how the players are laughing about this and the mensas in here are solemnly wondering about the implications for the HOF.

Seek professional guidance.

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People act strangely on "The Internets". I swear if someone said that shee-at to me in person, I would laugh my arse off in their face

This is totally insane.

That being said I feel like the whole system with the balls is a little silly. Team provides scrimmage balls, league keeps track of K balls, come on. The league should empower the officials to take all the responsibility for the ball(s) in the game. Of course they're too cheap to make their refs full-time employees, so not surprising there. Saw some comments earlier about QBs (TB included) in the past making the case to the league for the teams "working" the balls in and what not. I guess I see why they'd want to, but that doesn't mean the league should let them.

Bella*chick said:

All they are saying is they n=know nothing about it. And the balls felt fine.

If BB comes out and says he categorically denies the balls weren't deflated and then it comes out that one or two was, then what. BB knows a lot of things but I doubt he can recite the exact level of air pressure in every single football at any given time in the game.

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A simple "we would never intentionally deflate a game ball" would work just fine. Or even "we would never instruct anyone on our team to deflate a game ball."

The nfl has to come out and say this is crap, they wouldn't stand for this against any other team

realtime said:

The Colts use one of "their" balls when they are on offense. If the Patriots had been using a deflated ball, the Colts would not also be using it.

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dont the Refs bring the ball out and place it on the field? If they noticed an irregularity the Patriots wouldnt even have a chance to use the "deflated" ball in play

PatriotSeven said:

Yes. It was cheating. And I accept it for what it was. You want to brainwash yourself so you can continue pulling for the Pats in all their honest glory because perhaps it goes against your personal principles and it's how you cope. Not all fans need to do that. I can live with dirt and still love the Pats. After all you don't really love anyone if you don't take the bad with the good.

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Please clearly explain what the Patriots did in Spygate that was "cheating".

I don't think you know what the issue was at all.