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

betterthanthealternative said:

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?

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AEI doesn't do these types of studies without someone/something issuing a grant to fund them.

We can speculate for days who might be picking up the tab for this.

I'll start with the NFLPA.

betterthanthealternative said:

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 attorneys 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!

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robertweathers said:

AEI doesn't do these types of studies without someone/something issuing a grant to fund them.

We can speculate for days who might be picking up the tab for this.

I'll start with the NFLPA.

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I think we are on the same page.

Rob0729 said:

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.

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To me, the smoking gun against Wells is the "more probably than not" and "was at least generally aware" terms that is the long-standing NFL criteria. He expressly (and foolishly) used the code for his employer in the public report.

Even a non-Legal Eagle as I would not do such a patently obvious thing. That will be a major point in any legal case that may come up. He was serving his boss's meal made just the way he likes it. Someone like Kessler will roast the Wells Report on that.

vyrago said:

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

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Same as Neil DeGrasse Tyson the Jets fan who was also caught in a bold faced lie in January.

Reiss did a great job attacking the wells report with the recent aei piece in the Sunday ESPN blog post. I hope this attack of the report gains momentum

juny said:

Reiss did a great job attacking the wells report with the recent aei piece in the Sunday ESPN blog post. I hope this attack of the report gains momentum

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He's the Patriots ESPN reporter.

It needs to be done by someone national without that moniker.

Florio has been hitting it and that's good. Now let's see some momentum......

Not worth a new thread and it is DeflateGate related so I'll stick this note, from a Herald article today, in here:

http://www.bostonherald.com/sports/...triots/2015/06/red_alert_to_all_patriots_foes

'Rodgers lets the air out

Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers did a Q & A with the Press-Gazette and naturally was asked a few Deflategate-related questions. One dealt with whether he felt deflating the balls below the prescribed limit affected the integrity of the game. In a roundabout way, Rodgers said it did.

“Peyton (Manning) a few years back, I believe he was one of the guys that talked to the rules committee about being able to use footballs we use in practice. That’s important,” he said. “But I think there should be a minimum level of inflation and maybe not a maximum level. A ball that’s under-inflated you’d think would be easier to catch.

“I’ve heard some people say it’s easier to hold when you’re running with the football. I like a ball that’s inflated to the high range of the legal limit, because I have big hands and a strong grip. I’ve voiced my frustrations about . . . obviously when we submit a ball it’s within the range, and when we get the ball back on gameday, you can tell air has been taken out. That’s frustrating. Why would we practice with footballs that aren’t at the proper levels you’re going to use in the game? That’s my issue with that.”'

Wow! Did Rodgers just say that it is cheating to deflate a football but not if you over inflate it?

Self-serving douchebag much Rodgers?

I am sickened by how quickly this story has fizzled out on social media. Kraft should have had an investigation going concurrently with Wells to protect against a hatchet job. Too little too late now.

shmessy said:

He's the Patriots ESPN reporter.

It needs to be done by someone national without that moniker.

Florio has been hitting it and that's good. Now let's see some momentum......

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Dan wetzel of Yahoo sports tweeted about AEI report and believes its conclusions but no column.

Rob0729 said:

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.

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If Brady introduces the AEI article as evidence in court, then the NFL can demand AEI reveal their report's sponsor, which may be troublesome.

1 in 300. Those are the chances that the Patriots deflated any footballs at all, if Walt Anderson used the logo gauge in his pregame checks, which is what he remembers doing.

1 in 300
vs.
"more likely than not"
which is 1.01 in 2.

Hey, Wells was only off by a factor of 150!

betterthanthealternative said:

I think we are on the same page.

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Yep. Someone paid for this research and it wasn't the NFL.

Not sure if folks are aware of this but the same two guys- Kevin Hassett and Stan Veuger who wrote this study also authored the "Bountygate" study.

Either NFLA or Winston & Strawn (Kessler's firm) is my bet

shmessy said:

Same as Neil DeGrasse Tyson the Jets fan who was also caught in a bold faced lie in January.

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At least DeGrassie Tyson retracted. He should have stuck to astrophysics and stayed away from thermodynamics. http://tinyurl.com/mzmlear

shmessy said:

Same as Neil DeGrasse Tyson the Jets fan who was also caught in a bold faced lie in January.

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Neil DeGrasse Tyson initially messed up the science when calculating the effect temperature would have on the footballs. Then when called out on it, he doubled down on his greater point that temperature could not explain the deflation. He was wrong and it should have been very embarrassing for such a renowned phsysicist. Belichick proved to have a better mind for science than both Bill Nye and Tyson... at least on this point.

Tony2046 said:

I know that this is wishful thinking BUT if this gets to court and it is recognized that the Wells report is fraudulent and therefor Brady's suspension is dropped, wouldn't Goodell face pressure to drop the fines and penalties as well?

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It will be interesting to see how that plays out.

shmessy said:

To me, the smoking gun against Wells is the "more probably than not" and "was at least generally aware" terms that is the long-standing NFL criteria. He expressly (and foolishly) used the code for his employer in the public report.

Even a non-Legal Eagle as I would not do such a patently obvious thing. That will be a major point in any legal case that may come up. He was serving his boss's meal made just the way he likes it. Someone like Kessler will roast the Wells Report on that.

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Wells' case is based on a "preponderance of evidence" or meaning "more likely than not" that Brady did something. The NFL has the "Burden of Proof" in stating what he did.

We can all agree that the Wells report is very weak in that regard with several flaws in it's logic and conclusions.

The interesting thing about the AEI report is that it raises the bar of the facts. The AEI work (IMO) is positioned as "clear and convincing evidence" which is a notch above a "preponderance of evidence".

If you go back and look at the AEI work on "Bountygate" Kevin Hassett and Stan Veuger presented the situation and case in very matter of fact terms.

This has NFLPA and Winston & Strawn fingerprints all over it.

blackglass3 said:

I am sickened by how quickly this story has fizzled out on social media. Kraft should have had an investigation going concurrently with Wells to protect against a hatchet job. Too little too late now.

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When are we going to accept that, as Patriots fans, we lost the media and PR battle during Spygate? It's a battle we're never going to win. In the eyes of the vast majority of people outside of Patriots Nation, we're cheaters. Period. End of story. Give it up.

All that matters now is Goodell's assessment of the risks of allowing this case to be taken to Federal Court if he doesn't reduce Brady's suspension to zero games.

After that, all that will matter is how a judge views the entire matter.

The opinions of 90% of mediots and the imbeciles who hang on their every word are a lost cause and don't matter at all.

raduray said:

If Brady introduces the AEI article as evidence in court, then the NFL can demand AEI reveal their report's sponsor, which may be troublesome.

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Even if the report can be tied to a particular donation (and I'd be very surprised if the people who are clever enough to have plotted this would allow their fingerprints to be anywhere near it...but it's not impossible), at worst it could be embarrassing. Otherwise, the science is what will carry the day.

shmessy said:

Same as Neil DeGrasse Tyson the Jets fan who was also caught in a bold faced lie in January.

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Saw this at Esquire.com:

What do you call Neil deGrasse Tyson pouring champagne all over his naked chest? An astro-fizzy-tits.

Rob0729 said:

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:



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.

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Bottom line: R. Stokoe Goodell backed himself into a corner and had to decide, "It's either them or me." So he hung the Patriots out to dry figuring he could defy Kraft knowing that he had the 31 other owners on his side. Kraft is such a colossal wimp for how he handled this.