Deflating deflategate --[Mod Edit] AEI Opinion Piece in NY Times

This makes Kraft's cowardliness harder to swallow.

What a facking piece of crap.

Hercules Rockefeller said:

Bill Nye the Science Guy does not have a Master's Degree in any scientific field. He has a Bachelor's Degree. There are thousands of high school science teachers that have a more impressive background scholastically in science.

He is a happy fun person who wears a bow tie and looks like a cartoon, so dumb people think he's smart when he wears a lab coat and goggles.

He describes himself as an avid swing dancer. He wears a bow tie. Bill Nye is by no means an expert in anything other than how to get famous without any real credentials.

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He's a comedy actor. He developed the science guy character in a sketch comedy show based in...wait for it...Seattle.

Nye began his professional entertainment career as a writer/actor on a local sketch comedy television show in Seattle, Washington, called Almost Live!. The host of the show, Ross Shafer, suggested he do some scientific demonstrations in a six-minute segment, and take on the nickname "The Science Guy".[15] His other main recurring role on Almost Live! was as Speedwalker, a speedwalking Seattle superhero.

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his WIKI

RayClay said:

Kraft is a staunch Democrat and contributes as such. AEI is a conservative think tank.

http://www.businessinsider.com/obama-romney-donations-nfl-contributions-woody-johnson-2012-9?op=1

If you want to play the Kevin Bacon game with a tremendously connected multi billionaire, you could pretty much find evidence to support anything.

That's an alphabetical list showing who owners donated to, no idea why Woody Johnson name in the link. Probably a conspiracy.

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Kraft is no democrat. trust me - he's a republican. giving a few thousand dollars to obama means nothing.

JayNM said:

This makes Kraft's cowardliness harder to swallow.

What a facking piece of crap.

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Yep. If he stuck with it, even rhetorically, it could bolster our case. At least we were fighting back and it was noticeable and loud. Then he capitulated, making us look guilty. That did more damage than any outside voice could have.

RayClay said:

Bush think tank?

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I know what you mean. An oxyMORON if I ever heard one.

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.co...-institute-calls-ted-wells-report-unreliable/

This report could give Commissioner Roger Goodell the “new information” needed to disregard the findings of the Wells report, concluding that the evidence did not point to tampering on the day of the AFC title game — and in turn that Brady deserves no punishment. To reach that conclusion, however, Goodell will have to admit that he hired an investigator who did a poor job. Which would mean that Goodell did a poor job in hiring Ted Wells.

Which could mean that Goodell will give no credence to the findings of AEI.

While the points made by AEI are hardly new, they now have a degree of credibility that makes the work hard to ignore. The real question moving forward is how hard will the Commissioner work to ignore them?
[/quote[

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SVN said:

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.co...-institute-calls-ted-wells-report-unreliable/

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The interesting thing is that this same group was used to overturn the Bounty rulings in court. So it seems like it would be hard for Goodell to say they're incorrect considering they were a voice that proved HIM incorrect a couple years ago.

Mike the Brit said:

I'm certainly disappointed in Mr Kraft's failure to respond to gross injustice in a brave and defiant fashion. But being more angry at that failure than "at Goodell, the Colts, and all the rest of the NFL and its fans" -- the true perpetrators of the injustice -- is blaming the victim. Why that should be is to me, at least, bizarre.

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Brady has been by far the greatest victim of this thing, not Kraft. Every Pats fan, in spite of all the attack by the media, has stood behind Brady armed with nothing but the belief in Brady's integrity and the knowledge that pressure decreases with temperature. When the sham that is the Wells report came out, it further galvanized support for Tom Brady among the fan-base, especially with the context website that the Patriots published. But then what did Kraft do as the authority that should have been fighting on Brady's behalf? He said he didn't want to continue the "rhetoric" and how he loved being a member of the owners' club. He repeatedly uses the words "for the good of the league" in the same way that Goodell uses "integrity of the game" - as a device to justify any action.

His backing down didn't just make him a victim, it made him a roadblock on the path to justice because we at the very least would hope that he would at least fight for the Patriots out of self-interest of preserving his team's reputation if not for preserving the "integrity of the game". When Kraft capitulated, don't you think he at least owed the fan base that continues to fight his fight at least a better explanation for why he did so? Or are we supposed to believe that the organization did conspire to cheat and therefore we as fans should stop fighting on his team's behalf?

robertweathers said:

I wonder who provided the grant to perform this study. American Enterprise Institute keeps the identity of their donors anonymous.

John V. Faraci
Chairman
International Paper

Robert K. Kraft
Chairman
International Forest Products

Faraci sits on the BoT for AEI

Those paper guys are a tightly knit group.

Hmmm.

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Kraft is a staunch Democrat and contributes as such. AEI is a conservative think tank.

http://www.businessinsider.com/obama-romney-donations-nfl-contributions-woody-johnson-2012-9?op=1

If you want to play the Kevin Bacon game with a tremendously connected multi billionaire, you could pretty much find evidence to support anything

I just don't think this gets any legs. Had it come out next weekend before Brady's appeal, maybe. But I can't see much traction being gained on Twitter and ESPN is dead quiet. This will unfortunatley die a quiet Friday news dump death.

Mike the Brit said:

I'm certainly disappointed in Mr Kraft's failure to respond to gross injustice in a brave and defiant fashion. But being more angry at that failure than "at Goodell, the Colts, and all the rest of the NFL and its fans" -- the true perpetrators of the injustice -- is blaming the victim. Why that should be is to me, at least, bizarre.

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If it were about blaming the victim, I'd agree with you. Since it's not, your position ("Why that should be is to me, at least, bizarre.") isn't really applicable.

Ross12 said:

The interesting thing is that this same group was used to overturn the Bounty rulings in court. So it seems like it would be hard for Goodell to say they're incorrect considering they were a voice that proved HIM incorrect a couple years ago.

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Very reason he is too proud to get proven wrong again.

TommyBrady12 said:

Kraft is no democrat. trust me - he's a republican. giving a few thousand dollars to obama means nothing.

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Why wouldn't I trust someone who makes statements based on nothing?

Kraft has contributed far more to Democrats than Repubicans. He's also contributed to the Democratic National committee, he's a past President of the Newton Democratic City committee and was planning to run as a democrat for State Congress, but was dissuaded by family concerns and the suicide of a close friend who was a politician.

If you want to dispute any of that let me know, there's tons of sources.

I honestly don't know if this report makes me feel better about the whole thing or worse.

TommyBrady12 said:

I thnk that the AEI report was saying the colts' overnflated footballs were due to the fact they were measured 13 minuted after they entered the referees' lockerroom. they were allowed to reach equilibrium before the pats' balls were.

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This report is nothing earth shattering. I'm glad they did it, but each of its observations have been discussed here in length many times since January. The only thing that makes it special or interesting is that it was published by a well known (if not necessarily always highly respected) think tank.

Overinflation and warming in the locker room are not the only way to explain the different pressures, either. The original temperature at which the Colts balls were inflated (indoors/outdoors) also matters. A ball that started off cooler would lose less pressure. Plus the fact that the Colts balls were drier (much less time on the field in the second quarter, protected in a waterproof garbage bag, versus the mesh bag that the patriots used) matters. A dry ball warms up much quicker, and in fact, a wet ball can actually cool further (temporarily, until it dries) due to evaporation.

In sum, I'm glad AEI published this as it will serve to communicate and inform a few more people about what really happened, but it's no big revelation. No new information, insights or analyses were presented and several important factors like the effect of rain and diff temp at inflation were ignored.

Jackson 2 said:

God, I hope you're right and I'm wrong. But, all of the signs, subtle as they are, suggest to me otherwise.

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The more Roger resists using common sense the easier the appeal will be. His only hope of saving face is to reduce Brady's suspension to 1 game and a 50K fine. He could get away with saying "Yes, it's a bit more than Favre but I am sending a message about co-operation with the league." But, IMO, the PA wants this to go to court to regain some sense of balance and accountability between the NFL and NFLPA.

I too started wondering about the sponsorship for this piece of work as soon as I saw it in the NYT. It is possible that it was done out of general funds, as a marketing tactic (how many of you now know about AEI who didn't before?). Or as a freebie by the authors, in their "spare" time, to draw attention to themselves.

But it is far more likely that someone wrote a check for this. We can speculate, but we'll probably never know.

Given that the authors are the same folks who kicked the NFL's butt on the Saints bounty case, I wouldn't be surprised if Brady's attorney's sponsored this. It would be a relatively inexpensive contribution to the legal case. They'd probably launder it a bit, by having a friend of a friend write the check, but that's just an issue of mechanics.

Speculation is fun!

This is the most significant development yet in the war to get out the truth.

Talk about a double-whammy for Wells, Goodell and the NFL! The report was released by the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute on Friday and is the subject of a feature article in the left-leaning New York Times Sunday Review (available online to subscribers today). No one else out here seems to have picked that up yet.

Goodell himself came under attack from the left during the Rice and Peterson debacles. In many ways (both subtle and obvious), his supporters at that time tried to portray Goodell as a martyr to "political correctness."

Now, the AEI, a major voice of the "center-right" (more right than center to many of us), has completely trashed the report he will be defending 10 days from now. Even if your politics trend "center-left," as do mine, the AEI is respected across the political spectrum for its scholarship and integrity.

This is a serious problem both from the perspective of science and educated public perception for the NFL and Goodell. It is also a major embarrassment for Wells. Couldn't happen to a nicer group of people, IMHO.

And, BTW, events like this don't happen by accident. Some powerful people with serious political "pull" made this happen. The AEI and the New York Times don't combine their efforts on very many issues.

Hmm I am wondering if this study was encouraged by back channels in the NFL as a scapegoat...

1960Pats said:

Sadly, any new reports are useless.

Once Kraft did the about face and played Cave For Cash with Goody, the damage was done. And it's irreversible.

That's why no matter how many billions Kraft is worth, his opinion isn't worth 2 cents to me.

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This is far more than a "news report." This is a big deal.

And, none of us will likely ever know who, but somebody with a lot of money and a lot of pull was behind the AEI and the NY Times combining forces.