Roger Goodell has no plans to apologize to Patriots if they’re cleared in Deflategate probe

Kraft CAN'T defend the Spygate accusations because GOODELL destroyed the tapes. Kraft got played like a rube at a Nebraskan carnival.

rlcarr said:

Ivan was the one implying that owners don't have full access to league office investigations: "Spygate was a league office investigation, this one is not, Kraft will have full access to all of the findings."

I'm asking why, if Kraft didn't have full access to the Cameragate investigation, we should think he will have full access to this one. It's being paid for and co-run by the league office, after all.

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I never said the owners have no access to the investigation and findings of the league office, I'm merely saying there's a difference between the league office investigations and those done by outside investigators, if Kraft had wanted the findings of the Spygate investigation he could have demanded them, and if the Browns, Falcons and others wanted the investigative findings of the league office they could have had them as well, the difference in those investigations and sanctions was that they all admitted doing it so the point was moot and what they would really be questioning is the sanctions. Bountygate and Deflategate are different because the franchises were challenging the league as to the merit of their investigations, and as we saw with Bountygate not only were the specifics of the investigation published, as they were with The Martin case, but in the case of the Saints they were used to overturn penalties. The Wells investigation will be published and the Krafts will have every right to scrutinize it and challenge the findings and any sanctions if they were imposed, which I obviously believe won't happen.

What's a Deflategate ?

I've heard of VHS, the Rubik's cube, Edison, the Civil War, dinosaurs...

It

Gumby said:

This is the media strategy the Clintons perfected, get a moronic (applicable here) or suck up media outlet to ASK THE WRONG QUESTION, (or if that fails simply answer the question as if they asked the wrong one and bank on lack of follow up); then provide your answer as if you are pure as driven snow.

Not apologize for a sting, not apologize for leaks-defamation, but rather 'apologize for investigating': (getting up on high horse) 'respond with self-righteous indignation"

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It's called straw man. It's a very popular logical fallacy.
It up there with post hoc ergo propter hoc (correlation vs. causation); cherry picking/Texas sharpshooter; appeal to authority; appeal to emotion; etc. I noticed most haters favor these (and many many others) when sh*tting on the Patriots.

Goodell is going to announce that they've changed the rules so the balls will be measured and recorded after being at field temperature for 2 hours.
So the effect will be 'the patriots followed the letter but not the intent of the law' and will be labeled as cheaters by the world.

He's not going to say 'the Patriots do what every other team did, and had no understanding of PSI changes just like the NFL head office had no understanding'

Just give us the findings for crying out loud. At this point I could care less what they are. I've adopted Chris Long's view of the Patriots: "The Patriots are really good at two things: winning football games and not giving a **** what you think about them." I no longer give a damn what anybody thinks they know, or concludes, including an outside investigator. I saw how hard the Patriots worked last year to get to, and win, the Super Bowl. That's good enough for me.

Joker said:

Kraft CAN'T defend the Spygate accusations because GOODELL destroyed the tapes. Kraft got played like a rube at a Nebraskan carnival.

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Exactly. After that it became Goodell's word vs Kraft's and the Patriots word was treated as dogshit by the public at that point. And we had already admitted that we had broken the rule, as inconsequential as it was, so there was no going back. This time we did nothing wrong by any letter of the book.

Also that "investigation" was all done internally in the league office. I expect Kensil was about to do the exact same thing this time with the whole "investigation will be done in a few days" rumors that were circling in those early days. Kraft recognized he was going to be f***ed, again, and did what he didn't do last time and actually demanded some degree of impartiality.

This investigation is different. The 110 days for this vs. the 2 for Spygate make that blatantly obvious.

Ivan said:

I never said the owners have no access to the investigation and findings of the league office, I'm merely saying there's a difference between the league office investigations and those done by outside investigators, if Kraft had wanted the findings of the Spygate investigation he could have demanded them, and if the Browns, Falcons and others wanted the investigative findings of the league office they could have had them as well, the difference in those investigations and sanctions was that they all admitted doing it so the point was moot and what they would really be questioning is the sanctions. Bountygate and Deflategate are different because the franchises were challenging the league as to the merit of their investigations, and as we saw with Bountygate not only were the specifics of the investigation published, as they were with The Martin case, but in the case of the Saints they were used to overturn penalties. The Wells investigation will be published and the Krafts will have every right to scrutinize it and challenge the findings and any sanctions if they were imposed, which I obviously believe won't happen.

Feel free to show where an independent investigator was brought in and their findings and report weren't published, I can't come up with one.​

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I beg to differ with your conclusion about access to the report. The reason there was an independent investigation of the bountygate fiasco was that penalties imposed on players not teams have the right of review per the CBA. Penalties imposed on teams are solely under the authority granted to the commissioner by the owners. This investigation despite allegations to the contrary is an internal investigation lead by Pash of the league office assisted by Wells. The report will be delivered to Goodell as the CEO of the league who is the client. Any further distribution in any format to the owners, media and public is at his discretion which I doubt will expose any detrimental conduct by the League office. Please keep in mind that the powers to punish teams based his discretion rather than based on evidence was delegated to Goodell by the owners including Kraft who was one of his strongest supporters. In fact the only truly independent investigation done on behalf of the owners as clients was the investigation of the Rice fiasco in which the real powers in the League, Mara and Rooney presided over the whitewash done by Mueller. After their participation in the destruction of the camera placement tapes, I doubt that they will be willing to pressure Goodell to release anything detrimental to the Shield now.

Joker said:

Kraft CAN'T defend the Spygate accusations because GOODELL destroyed the tapes. Kraft got played like a rube at a Nebraskan carnival.

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The worst ****ing part is people think Goody did us a favor by destroying the tapes. Makes me want to strangle people right through my monitor.

VectorPrime said:

Exactly. After that it became Goodell's word vs Kraft's and the Patriots word was treated as dogshit by the public at that point.

Also that "investigation" was all done internally in the league office. I expect Kensil was about to do the exact same thing this time with the whole "investigation will be done in a few days" rumors that were circling in those early days. Kraft recognized he was going to be f***ed, again, and did what he didn't do last time and actually demanded some degree of impartiality.

This investigation is different. The 110 days for this vs the 2 for Spygate make that blatantly obvious.

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I disagree it was never Goodell's word versus Kraft's word in Spygate. Kraft completely submitted to Goodell's ruling and threw BB under the bus along with the Patriot's reputation. Keep in mind it was BB that Kraft called a schmuck not Goodell. Hopefully, this time around, he realizes to whom he owes his loyalty.

flasox27 said:

I disagree it was never Goodell's word versus Kraft's word in Spygate. Kraft completely submitted to Goodell's ruling and threw BB under the bus along with the Patriot's reputation. Keep in mind it was BB that Kraft called a schmuck not Goodell. Hopefully, this time around, he realizes to whom he owes his loyalty.

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He called him a schmuck because he technically did break a rule. A brand new silly inconsequential rule but still, a rule. He did it most likely because he was a bit arrogant about the whole thing and he knew every other team was ignoring it too. And that started the whole mess. That's why Kraft called him a schmuck. Because he sat down with Bill and asked point blank "FFS why couldn't you have just followed that f***ing memo? All this crap that we are now going through for a 0% advantage in anything? You schmuck." Because his little bit of arrogance gave Goodell an opportunity to go crazy and there was little Kraft could do about it. Kraft, whether he was right or wrong, believed that he couldn't come out and say "well yes Bill technically broke a rule BUT" without making things worse. Obviously in retrospect it was the wrong call.

Goodell should be interested in "protecting the shield" from getting sued by the Krafts. The family's brand has been damaged (how many people know think that the Patriots are "cheaters?"), likely as a direct result of the deliberate and malicious leaking of information known to be false. The resulting damage could well extend to all of the Kraft's businesses, not just the Patriots. RG's hubris could end up costing the other owners a lot of money.

VectorPrime said:

He called him a schmuck because he technically did break a rule. A brand new silly inconsequential rule but still, a rule. He did it most likely because he was a bit arrogant about the whole thing and he knew every other team was ignoring it too. And that started the whole mess. That's why Kraft called him a schmuck. Because he sat down with Bill and asked point blank "FFS why couldn't you have just followed that f***ing memo? All this crap that we are now going through for a 0% advantage in anything? You schmuck." Because his little bit of arrogance gave Goodell an opportunity to go crazy and there was little Kraft could do about it. Kraft, whether he was right or wrong, believed that he couldn't come out and say "well yes Bill technically broke a rule BUT" without making things worse. Obviously in retrospect it was the wrong call.

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You are certainly right about one thing. It sure was the wrong call. The fact is that BB did not violate any rule but his interpretation of the rule while totally plausible did not agree with that of the POS. Rather than backing BB, he decided for what ever reason to submit to the whim of the dictator and accede as the reputation of the team was destroyed without a word of protest. Then Kraft even after getting royally shafted becomes Goodell's biggest supporter until this fiasco. I guess Goodell and his hench men thought Kraft would not support BB and would submit to another shafting.

Spiral said:

Goodell should be interested in "protecting the shield" from getting sued by the Krafts. The family's brand has been damaged (how many people know think that the Patriots are "cheaters?"), likely as a direct result of the deliberate and malicious leaking of information known to be false. The resulting damage could well extend to all of the Kraft's businesses, not just the Patriots. RG's hubris could end up costing the other owners a lot of money.

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Sorry to spoil your thought but teams cannot sue the league according to league rules.

The fact that players had sanctions overturned in no way changes the fact that the results of the investigation was open for all to see. My point is and had been that Goodell will not be able to take the report and reinterpret it, as was initially suggested, the report will be out for all to see and if there is no evidence of wrongdoing then the Patriots are clear, the league office won't be able to concoct otherwise. You guys keep insisting the league will be able to take the findings and rewrite them, and IMO that's bullsh.t, if they find wrongdoing they can push it as far as they want, if they don't they can't simply fabricate it, which is what has been suggested in these arguments.

flasox27 said:

. I guess Goodell and his hench men thought Kraft would not support BB and would submit to another shafting.

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Kensil certainly did.

flasox27 said:

Sorry to spoil your thought but teams cannot sue the league according to league rules.

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Tell that to al Davis, if he wasn't already dead you could remind him he had no standing for the lawsuit he won.

Just because you agree not to sue ahead of time, doesn't mean you can't. It just means there has to be a level of negligence or willful misconduct and not just a disagreement about procedures to prevent the judge from throwing you out of court.

Gumby said:

Tell that to al Davis, if he wasn't already dead you could remind him he had no standing for the lawsuit he won.

Just because you agree not to sue ahead of time, doesn't mean you can't. It just means there has to be a level of negligence or willful misconduct and not just a disagreement about procedures to prevent the judge from throwing you out of court.

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1) That was 30+ years ago, and the NFL has tightened up the lawsuit waiver language since then.
2) That was an anti-trust claim and federal law makes it hard to waive your right to pursue an anti-trust claim.

Joker said:

Kraft CAN'T defend the Spygate accusations because GOODELL destroyed the tapes. Kraft got played like a rube at a Nebraskan carnival.

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Goodell playing Kraft? C'mon now...

BB squared off vs Goody and got killed. Kraft didn't want to fight over Spygate. He saw the tapes. He also knew going to war vs Goody was bad for league business.

Kraft wanted the matter closed and done with.

robertweathers said:

Goodell playing Kraft? C'mon now...

BB squared off vs Goody and got killed. Kraft didn't want to fight over Spygate. He saw the tapes. He also knew going to war vs Goody was bad for league business.

Kraft wanted the matter closed and done with.

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Thankfully Kraft learned his lesson and isn't taking this sitting down.