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

VectorPrime · Jun 13, 2015

cmasspatsfan said:
God, I wish Tags was still running this operation instead of the Boob we have.
Look what Tags has to say about off field talk in the Saints case, apply it here to the " deflator texts"

If one were to punish certain off-field talk in locker rooms, meeting rooms, hotel rooms
or elsewhere without applying a rigorous standard that separated real threats or “bounties” from
rhetoric and exaggeration, it would open a field of inquiry that would lead nowhere.

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/sports/nfl/Tagliabue-decision-bounty-appeal.pdf

Spygate, let alone deflategate, would have never happened and the Pats would probably have won 5 Super Bowls by now since they didn't have to deal with this crap.

Jackson 2 · Jun 13, 2015

LJRomanoff said:
If Goodell's house does get blown down - i.e., if he's no longer commissioner before next year's draft - the picks are back in play. I don't think that's likely but it remains possible.

It must be nice to live in the Enchanted Kingdom...

Jackson 2 · Jun 13, 2015

LJRomanoff said:
If Goodell's house does get blown down - i.e., if he's no longer commissioner before next year's draft - the picks are back in play. I don't think that's likely but it remains possible.

How hard is it to understand that 31 NFL owners, the fanbases of 31 NFL teams and about 90% of the American public now think Roger Goodell is doing a great job lately? No longer commissioner before next year's draft? Is he terminally ill and only you know this? Holy ****, you must also believe in the freaking tooth fairy...

supafly · Jun 13, 2015

Jackson 2 said:
How hard is it to understand that 31 NFL owners, the fanbases of 31 NFL teams and about 90% of the American public now think Roger Goodell is doing a great job lately? No longer commissioner before next year's draft? Is he terminally ill and only you know this? Holy ****, you must also believe in the freaking tooth fairy...

Yeah, I'm not sure how this became the popular thought here, but it was 100 percent wrong from the get go. I'd be surprised if more than 1-2 owners weren't on board with the thought that Goodell has done a good job; after all, it's all about the almighty dollar, and he's helped to increase league revenue and the global brand in dramatic fashion. Hell, just the concussion settlement alone was an enormous victory for Goodell and the 32 owners, as I believe that they all pitched in somewhere around 25m dollars per team. If I remember correctly, they were concerned that it could've been at least 10 times that amount.

Unfortunately, I think the only time that he was really anywhere near "on the ropes" may have been after the Ray Rice fiasco, and even then I'm not sure if it was anything close to what's been suggested.

Tunescribe · Jun 13, 2015

NashuaPats said:
ESPN and most of the rest of the sports media are busy discussing Lebron's penis

JoeSixPat · Jun 13, 2015

It's all too late folks - the NFL Competition Committee has already re-written the Laws of Physics to ensure they can find the Patriots guilty

aluminum seats · Jun 13, 2015

Jackson 2 said:
The draft picks ARE over.

Yeah, please. I'm more optimistic than you about Brady's appeal, but the idea that maybe the Pats will get their picks back is loco.

Koma · Jun 14, 2015

juny said:
oh how would i love to hear tagliabue's unfiltered opinion on this mess

Especially when you consider his handling of the situation AJ Feeley was complaining about last month (a Patriots well-worn practice was used during a game): "Hey, you guys, cut that crap out. Seriously, I don't want hear about anything like that again."

RayClay · Jun 14, 2015

Tony Cahncuhd said:
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.

It's not a revelation, but it is done at a level of precision that has to garner some respect, due to the credentials of the authors, especially compared to the slapdash science of the tobacco and asbestos apologists Wells hired.

ThatllMoveTheChains!!! · Jun 14, 2015

JoeSixPat said:
It's all too late folks - the NFL Competition Committee has already re-written the Laws of Physics to ensure they can find the Patriots guilty

The NFL’s owners unanimously passed Resolution D-3, in which the deflation spotters in the press box at each game now have the ability to directly contact the officials on the field and call for a timeout if a ball shows “obvious signs of deflation or is clearly deflated” and it becomes apparent that the ball will remain in the game.

The league promises to apply this rule evenly just like it does every rule.

TheBostonStraggler · Jun 14, 2015

supafly said:
Yeah, I'm not sure how this became the popular thought here, but it was 100 percent wrong from the get go. I'd be surprised if more than 1-2 owners weren't on board with the thought that Goodell has done a good job; after all, it's all about the almighty dollar, and he's helped to increase league revenue and the global brand in dramatic fashion. Hell, just the concussion settlement alone was an enormous victory for Goodell and the 32 owners, as I believe that they all pitched in somewhere around 25m dollars per team. If I remember correctly, they were concerned that it could've been at least 10 times that amount.

Unfortunately, I think the only time that he was really anywhere near "on the ropes" may have been after the Ray Rice fiasco, and even then I'm not sure if it was anything close to what's been suggested.

I agree Supa. I don't like it

but I agree.

The only place I would slightly disagree is the owners view of Goodell. I suspect more than a few only think he has done enough to remain commissioner. It is trus revenue is king, however, my gut tells me (I do not have actual facts to back this up

) that more than a few owners think the NFL's growth was inevitable, and more than a few have unspoken angst toward Goodell.
Bottom line is politics. I do not think an owner will openly display prolonged defiance toward Goodell without the backing of a whole lot of other owners willing to do the same. For example Kraft from now on will say "Goody is a swell egg" to media even though he will always harbor some resentment (I suspect Jones, Snyder, Benson, Davis may not be too far off that same feeling). Goody has too much capricious power to risk defying him without a good chance of succeeding (in other words it ain't happening).

supafly · Jun 14, 2015

TheBostonStraggler said:
It is true revenue is king, however, my gut tells me (I do not have actual facts to back this up ) that more than a few owners think the NFL's growth was inevitable, and more than a few have unspoken angst toward Goodell.

It will be interesting to see if/where the line in the sand is drawn between increased market growth in a "real" sport and 1980s-type WWF wrestling. At this point in time, I'm feeling like we're all fans of the Iron Sheik and we just have to embrace the hate. One could argue that the NFL likes it that way, as it will continue to drive up their reality show type atmosphere by making every weekly matchup a bigger deal than it already was, thus increasing media attention, ratings, interest, revenue, etc.

When Mark Cuban first made his comments about "hogs get slaughtered," I initially felt as though they were backed by jealousy, but now I'm beginning to wonder. Of course, I'm of the belief that if it ain't broke, don't fix it. As we know, Roger Goodell doesn't share that same line of thinking.

RayClay · Jun 14, 2015

supafly said:
It will be interesting to see if/where the line in the sand is drawn between increased market growth in a "real" sport and 1980s-type WWF wrestling. At this point in time, I'm feeling like we're all fans of the Iron Sheik and we just have to embrace the hate. One could argue that the NFL likes it that way, as it will continue to drive up their reality show type atmosphere by making every weekly matchup a bigger deal than it already was, thus increasing media attention, ratings, interest, revenue, etc.

When Mark Cuban first made his comments about "hogs get slaughtered," I initially felt as though they were backed by jealousy, but now I'm beginning to wonder. Of course, I'm of the belief that if it ain't broke, don't fix it. As we know, Roger Goodell doesn't share that same line of thinking.

Thanks for the tip, that's a great insight by Cuban.

"Cuban joins the NFL's coaches and players who, generally speaking, hate the idea of mid-week regular-season games. The largest and most obvious concern from teams is the fact that players can't adequately recover from the previous week. And coaches don't have enough time to study opponents' film and prepare a solid game plan.

Players and coaches understandably don't like the idea. But commissioner Roger Goodell and the league seem to love it for obvious reasons: more nationally televised games equate to more mulah — for everybody.

NFL fans, for the most part, love the idea, too. More football is a beautiful thing, right? Wrong, Cuban says.

"They're trying to take over every night of TV," Cuban said. "Initially, it'll be, 'Yeah, they're the biggest-rating thing that there is.' OK, Thursday, that's great, regardless of whether it impacts [the NBA] during that period when we cross over. Then if it gets Saturday, now you're impacting colleges. Now it's on four days a week. ...

"It's all football. At some point, the people get sick of it."

Is Cuban concerned about the NFL television ratings' affect on the NBA's? Maybe. But his opinion on the NFL's seemingly uncontrollable popularity is interesting. Cuban's comments — combined with the public's exponentially growing safety concerns about the sport of football — present legitimate questions regarding the league's future.

Think of it this way: People love to eat food, so a smart individual invented the buffet.

But one can only eat so much. Steak is delicious, but if you eat it every day it eventually becomes intolerable."

http://www.sportingnews.com/nfl/sto...ell-tv-network-thursday-night-football-league

Of course owners are going to lust after the bucks and worry about other stuff later. Hopefully, in dealing with this scam, we destroy his credibility enough to get rid of him and he's replaced by someone sensible, like the previous commissioners, who'll milk the cow while taking care not to kill the golden goose [I love mixed metaphors}.

BTTA · Jun 14, 2015

I wonder what's next. Is this AEI/NYT piece a single shot, or part of a comprehensive PR strategy that the Brady/NFLPA attorneys are putting together? Might we be seeing a significant article ever few days?

BTTA · Jun 14, 2015

If this is Brady/NFLPA, what's next?

The fact that Wells hired the most notoriously corrupt testing firm in the history of the human race (and that's not being dramatic) has been under-reported and is perhaps the next logical target. Hiring a reporter to do an expose on them (which wouldn't be the first, just the latest) would make sense at this point. It would do two things:

Tie the Patriots and Brady to hundreds of thousands of victims - people with lower IQ and higher aggressive impulsivity (lead) and tens of millions of individuals and families ruined by cancer (asbestors and tobacco), along with their involvement in other heavy metal "testing"
Simultaneously, it ties Goodell and NFL billionaires to the billionaires who pushed all those toxins into the environment, made a fortune on it, and externalized the massive costs onto society and taxpayers.

Rob0729 · Jun 14, 2015

Didn't want to start a new thread, but Mike Reiss has brought up what I have been saying for months. Once this turned into a huge thing, Goodell decided he needed to make the Pats a fall guy and someone significant:

5. When Wells was defending his report and findings that Tom Bradywas at least “generally aware” of wrongdoing in a May conference call, he said, “All of this discussion that people in the league office wanted to put some type of hit on the most iconic player of the league, the real face of the league, doesn’t make any sense.” But here’s the counterpoint to Wells: It makes sense if the alternative was that the league would look like it didn’t know what it was doing in the first place by calling for a full-scale, $5 million investigation on something easily explained by science. So essentially it was bury Brady or bury themselves. Which brings me back to my original point from early May: “I’ve digested the 243-page Wells report multiple times, and with its bias and lack of fairness in certain areas, I truly can’t believe what the commissioner has done to the legacy and reputation of one of the greatest quarterbacks and ambassadors in the history of the game -- all over air pressure in a football and without definitive proof he had anything to do with it.”

http://espn.go.com/blog/new-england...-carroll-university-and-nfls-continue-to-grow

Once this became the lead story on every news broadcast, either Goodell was going to do a fair investigation and make the League look bad (even if they didn't show that it was a sting) or he was going to do a bag job investigation to find the Pats' guilty. He obviously did the latter.

Rob0729 · Jun 14, 2015

BTW, this report will be big if Brady does decide to go to court not to overturn Goodell's appeal, but for a defamation case. AEI didn't come out and say that Wells purposely manipulated the data to get the result they wanted, but they certainly implied it.

If Brady can get enough credible experts to say that any qualified scientist would come to the same conclusions that AEI and the scientist in the Wells in Context that the science doesn't back the Wells Report's conclusion, he can probably prove malicious intent from the League in a defamation case.

The question is whether Brady will go that far, but it does seem increasingly clear that Wells manipulated the science to get a conclusion that the League wanted even though the science says otherwise. AEI is a truly independent source that said that the Wells Report's science is crap and doesn't make sense.

PatsWSB47 · Jun 14, 2015

JoeSixPat said:
It's all too late folks - the NFL Competition Committee has already re-written the Laws of Physics to ensure they can find the Patriots guilty

Laws of physics? They're all still in denial of the law of gravity because they heard Jasrremski's great-great-great-great-great grandson called Sir Isaac Newton "the floater"

vyrago · Jun 14, 2015

NYPatsFan said:
I am looking forward to the day that people everywhere realize that this was never about the facts. The NFL doesn't care about the facts, other teams don't care about the facts and neither do their fans. Facts don't matter in this case so we should all stop posting articles citing facts. We will never change public opinion on this and the Patriots will never receive those draft picks back, nor the $1,000,000.

What will it take? A parade of NFL owners speaking against the Wells report and supporting Kraft and the Pats against Goodell? Not while punishing the Patriots is profitable to them. They are all azzhats.

vyrago · Jun 14, 2015

JDot said:
And how the hell has Bill Nye the science guy got a pass in all this?

That clown went on TV and said Beli was a liar, when it turns out Beli was right.

Do you mean Bill Nye the Seahawks fan? What happened to his scientific integrity?

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

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