What bothers you the most about all this?

The hypocrisy.

I believe this whole episode was manufactured by the pro-parity extremists to provide a pretext for bringing the Pats back to the mean. The hypocrisy (and irony) arises when the league impugns the team's integrity in the name if "the integrity of the game" for a cause that eliminates the integrity of the game.

shmessy said:

Tim Graham‏@ByTimGraham
NFL escorted draft hats into Radio City Music Hall w/special cases 2 yrs ago. Left AFC Championship balls unattended.




Christopher Price @cpriceNFL
To be fair, though, those were REALLY nice hats.

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Thats how the balls will now be taken out to the field, in plexiglass cases.

RobAllan said:

What bothers me most is there's no going back. The league has slowly been changing under the current commissioner, but I used to hold out some hope that eventually the product would return to some recognizable form and climate.

Now this is simply not possible. My impression of the league is permanently changed. My interactions with other fanbases have changed forever as well. Personally, I can't enjoy the sport anymore. It is a source of frustration and turmoil that provides too little reward for that investment.

I have watched my last NFL game. And I hate that. I thought breaking up with baseball was a unique thing that happened in my life, but now I have a pattern. This will also prevent me from committing to watch other sports as replacements. ("Fool me once...")

Roger has robbed me of something I've enjoyed my whole life (sports.) And I simply can't get it back. I also don't want to.

No going back. That's what bothers me most. I won't ever be able to see professional sports as anything more than a dog and pony show ever again.

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For me first it was the Bruins because of the refereeing (the to many men on the ice penalty against the bruins in 7th game of the 1979 stanley cup game) Then it was the Red Sox ineptness also 1979. Then it was the Celtics because the sucked for two decades. Now its football because honestly the way the league is run who knows if the games are fixed or not. I wouldn't put it past this commissioner to rig the games to get a certain matchups, especially for the Super Bowl.

Well, in general, I'm bothered by the whole "pandering to envy" thing. Envy is one of the seven deadly sins for a reason and is arguably the most senseless and destruction one of them all.

Specifically, the thing that bothers me the most is how dysfunctional the NFL is. It look like giving the commissioner such wide discretion in meting out punishment was a really bad idea (particularly with this commissioner who seems to relish abusing his authority). It looks like the NFL desperately needs some true neutral deciding disciplinary matters with some procedural safeguards other than the "kangaroo court" methods they are using now.

It would be nice if there were some better guidelines for penalties so it isn't "Mr. Toad's Wild Ride" if a team is found to be in violation.

It's hard to take this league seriously when the commissioner's former team gets a $100k penalty for crystal clear contract tampering (while prior penalties mandated pick swaps). Meanwhile, Pats get fined $1M, lose 2 picks, and their HOF gets a 4 game suspension for supposedly violating a rule with a suggested penalty of $25k.

The intitial thing that tipped this off was the claim by the Colts that the Pats footballs were soft in the earlier game in Indy. Meanwhile, McNally who is supposedly the guy who deflates the balls, was a thousand miles away chowing down some Buffalo wings while watching the game at a bar in NH.

The 2nd thing that kicked this off was the Colts testing an intercepted ball that they measured at 11.45 which is exactly what it should have been. Except the NFL idiots did not remember their grade school science and the relationshio between temperature and air pressure.

These two initial catalysts were complete bunk from the start. Everything since has been a clumsy witch hunt made up of poorly controlled tests and experiments and interpretations of friendly banter. Such utter incompetence and stupidity.

There was never any reason to suspect the Patriots of wrong doing in the first place.

Brewskies said:

There is a lot of that to go around on both sides.

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Troll says what

I just read about the Greg Hardy 10 game suspension. The thing that bothers me most is that with TB at 4 games, beating your girlfriend up repeatedly is only 2.5 times worse than possibly maybe having been "generally aware" that some air got let out of a football.

Here is what bothers me most: Since I was a boy, the NFL has been a place of escape from the crap of real life. Now, the crap of real life has made "enjoying" the NFL even more stressful than the stress I'm trying to escape!

That now we have to hear A.J. Feeley's opinion on all of this crap.

YOUGOTMOSSED said:

Well, in general, I'm bothered by the whole "pandering to envy" thing. Envy is one of the seven deadly sins for a reason and is arguably the most senseless and destruction one of them all….

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I'm not a fan of the Herald for many reasons but they got this right:

There's a lot that bothers me. But perhaps the biggest thing is that it's so stupid. If the NFL really cared about the inflation of the balls, the QB's would not be allowed to customize them as Eli Manning does in that article. The one and only reason this is an issue is because it's BB and the Pats and the league is paranoid about them. When you look at the fines levied against the teams warming balls on the sidelines and compare it this clusterf**k, it's completely out of proportion and based solely on public reaction (which I believe they have drummed up.)
I know I'm an idealist, but it really is about truth and fairness for me.

It bothers me most that people keep saying on TV, radio, in print

"Well, this is just what you get because of spygate. It is a cheating culture up there in Foxboro and they do not deserve the benefit of the doubt."

If anything, the spygate issue & the Patriots response THEN VS. NOW tells you that this is something else altogether.

There is no way Kraft, Brady, and the Patriots are fighting this to THIS EXTENT unless they know that they are completely innocent.

Think back to 2006-2007: They did not deny the spygate allegations for one single second.

They said “This is what we did, this is the wording of the rule that made us think it was OK to do it that way. But we now know that we were completely wrong. We are sorry, we fully accept the harsh punishment, and we won’t do it again”. Kraft even called BB an idiot, taking a risk on rule interpretation with so little to gain.

The spygate reaction is NOT your response, though, when NFL executive and ex-Jet Mike Kensil smugly sets up a “gotcha” operation driven by in part because he doesn’t even understand that footballs naturally lose pressure as they cool down, or that you don't measure pressure in footballs by "weighing them"

It’s scorched Earth time now, Mr. Goodell.

For that reason, everyone should see the difference. It is not subtle in the least.

Something that's going to bother me in the future:

Within the next two or years, some middling team like the Rams or the Titans will be caught doing something similar. Either the TV cameras will catch some team personnel inflating or deflating a ball on the sideline or the officials will notice something or another team will complain to the league.

Instead of hammering that team, Goodell will fine the team $50k and suspend the low level employee involved (who will be let go by the team). The head coach and owner will say it was a one time thing by a rogue employee and the media will cease digging, act like it's no big deal and have a few laughs at the expense of the employee who was let go.

Joey007 said:

This has been my favorite sport since a young age, and has been my passion my whole life.

And now it's becoming this political mess in which we have to be talking about the courtroom more than the football field. It's sad we've even gotten to this point. We're supposed to be talking about our rookies and how they look in camp right now. We're supposed to be talking about some undrafted FA and how he will make the roster this year.

But no. It's this garbage. And Goodell is ruining something I've been very passionate about over my lifetime

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i agree 100% joey007.been a fan since the days of chuck fairbanks and a season tix holder since kraft bought the team.cant wait til we start talking about OTA's.

Tunescribe said:

Here is what bothers me most: Since I was a boy, the NFL has been a place of escape from the crap of real life. Now, the crap of real life has made "enjoying" the NFL even more stressful than the stress I'm trying to escape!

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And now the crap of real life is an escape from the NFL lol

Well many things tick me off about this. But, I think the thing that gets me the most is the "sanctimony" and fake outrage from talking heads and other fan bases (although I am learning to tune out the other fan bases, and write it off to just jealousy). The hypocrasy of former players, coaches, etc too who in my opinion should look at their own and teams' transgression back when they played or coached (you hear me Shannon Sharpe, John Elway, Don Shula, Jerry Rice, Troy Aikman and a few others). There is an old saying, whenever you point a finger at someone, there is always THREE fingers pointing back at you.

I guess another thing is all the "piling on" to Brady and the Pats by former (and some current players). It is very easy (and as far as I am concerned) very cowardly for them to pile on. I guess to an extent I can see current players not saying much, or getting their hits in per se'. I guess they feel it is safe to do so, since it is en vogue right now and placates to the masses. But, I think in their cases, they may fear the heavy hand of Der Comm-i Czar Rog-Jet coming down on them, if they support Brady. I think deep down many of them feel this is wrong, but can't say so publicly. I would imagine a number of owners are also deep down wondering, right now it is the Patriots could it be me next week?

Tunescribe said:

Here is what bothers me most: Since I was a boy, the NFL has been a place of escape from the crap of real life. Now, the crap of real life has made "enjoying" the NFL even more stressful than the stress I'm trying to escape!

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This is the best answer, hands down.

I come here to relax and discuss something that I truly love to get away from other stressors, and that opportunity has now been taken away from me. As a matter of fact, the whole postseason and offseason have pretty much been ruined for me.

In the big picture of life, it's really not that big of a deal, but yes--it sucks as far as our love for the Pats goes.

Palm Beach Pats Fan said:

It bothers me most that people keep saying on TV, radio, in print

"Well, this is just what you get because of spygate. It is a cheating culture up there in Foxboro and they do not deserve the benefit of the doubt."

If anything, the spygate issue & the Patriots response THEN VS. NOW tells you that this is something else altogether.

There is no way Kraft, Brady, and the Patriots are fighting this to THIS EXTENT unless they know that they are completely innocent.

Think back to 2006-2007: They did not deny the spygate allegations for one single second.

They said “This is what we did, this is the wording of the rule that made us think it was OK to do it that way. But we now know that we were completely wrong. We are sorry, we fully accept the harsh punishment, and we won’t do it again”. Kraft even called BB an idiot, taking a risk on rule interpretation with so little to gain.

The spygate reaction is NOT your response, though, when NFL executive and ex-Jet Mike Kensil smugly sets up a “gotcha” operation driven by in part because he doesn’t even understand that footballs naturally lose pressure as they cool down, or that you don't measure pressure in footballs by "weighing them"

It’s scorched Earth time now, Mr. Goodell.

For that reason, everyone should see the difference. It is not subtle in the least.

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To expand on that, Spygate is given as a precedent to now hold everything they do with suspicion. If Deflategate is upheld, unlikely since the Pats are challenging it legally, then Deflategate will be another precedent.

I think BB had a reasonable interpretation of the taping rule, but because an antagonistic Rat fan commissioner gets to be judge, jury and executioner, it was dismissed and he gets to create the precedent.

The Rats have done more to have a shady past established if there was an honest person in position of the final arbiter.

The Pats are suspected of cheating because of their past, the Pats have a cheating past because a biased judge established it as such. It's a vicious circle that the league created.

I love hating stuff. But this is beyond.

I can't even place "things that bother me" in the right order. I guess it would be the realization that people are willing to blindly believe anything regardless how ridiculous it is - as long as it's anti-Patriots.

Uncle Rico said:

Lots of good answers here but I'll goo with this:

Total lack of sense of proportion.

So this is all about fairness and a level competitive field.

Let's pretend that Brady ordered these guys to lower the balls to below the legal limit specifically during before the AFCCG (nothing I've seen proves this — if anything he wanted the balls at the lowest legal limit).

How much does that really affect the competitive balance? Does it affect the outcome of a play or game more than, say, blatant pass interference? Holding? Tackling someone at the knees and ending their season? I don't this so, not even close. And yet those instances of "cheating" are penalized in mere yards.

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The difference with this kind of offenses is meant to be that they are premeditated and involve a conspiracy at an organizational level. The effect on competitive balance is meant to only affect the punishment, which should also be related to how much the offense contravenes the spirit of the game. So something like the Bounties used by the Saints, once proven, fits into this. That I can see, as well as a bunch of probables, and one guy calling himself the 'deflator' in texts seems to be the key for Wells to make this into a team-wide conspiracy penalized as if it is the highest level of cheating.

As to the original question, what bothers me most about this, and the other uNdeniably-Farcical-League 'investigations' is that they can be judge, jury and executioner without even the appearance of justice. For all I know, there was something illegal occurring here, but so far as I can see, there has been no real proof of guilt. If nothing else comes out of this mess, its that this whole process of investigation has to be changed. Preferably without Goddell and his 'corrupters'.