Am I being paranoid and pessimistic to notice that...

Deflategate has kept the NFL in the sports news right when the NBA Finals and draft, NHL finals and draft, and College World Series are all happening? During the NFL "dry time", in the heart of the baseball season?

Isn't this essentially what Goodell is paid to do? Hype the product and keep everyone talking about it?

If so, regardless of the outcome of the case, hasn't he already won?

Is this why Kraft "capitulated" (it isn't a capitulation if it is in your own best interest).

Or should I take off the tin foil hat?

Mods, feel free to merge to an appropriate thread if there is one.

makes sense to me i do't think Kraft has anything to do with it but the league office does

A lot of ppl have suggested this

Who knows

Could deflategate be a marketing scheme? i don't see why not.

Right now I think they're thinking " ME AND MY BIG MOUTH!"

This was absolutely a marketing gimmick from the beginning. A good guy vs bad guy build up to a sporting event is a proven winner. They wanted a bad guy, they found one and the Super Bowl became the most watched tv program in history.

Tuck said:

This was absolutely a marketing gimmick from the beginning. A good guy vs bad guy build up to a sporting event is a proven winner. They wanted a bad guy, they found one and the Super Bowl became the most watched tv program in history.

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Nearly every Superbowl becomes the most watched program in history. That's nothing strange.

strngplyr said:

Nearly every Superbowl becomes the most watched program in history. That's nothing strange.

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post hoc ergo propter hoc FTW!

That's true but the point is the league had an interest is promoting a good guy vs bad guy story leading up to the game.

The proof is in the schedule. The schedule was released in April BEFORE the Wells report supposedly was seen by anyone or even typed up. Yet the Patriots scheduled to play the Colts in Game 5? HMMM and now Brady's first game back is against the Colts? Seems to me the 4 game suspension was decided in January and in mind when the schedule was made. Fix was in.

There are cheaper ways to market then letting your organization get sued into the ground by Jeffrey Kessler.. Guy has waited his whole life for these upcoming cases..

Remember when the NFL was not a full time sports attraction?? They even moved up the draft a month to keep the interest going..

This controversy has kept them #1, pure marketing genius.. but sheer idiocy for many.

I don't know what to believe. I think initially they were overzelous (and intentionally sinister) in their quest to crush this team but as they started to see how people and the press reacted, they capitalized on the opportunity.

I think the NFL office had what it wanted from Wells before the schedule came out.

Perhaps the theory as stated in the original post give the NFL too much credit with regards to strategic thinking ability and creativity.

I believe some of the conspiracy theories that people in the NFL office were out to get the Pats and Goodell hired Wells to get the Patriots, but I do not believe they are doing this to keep the NFL top of mind during the slow season.

If this is some kind of bizarre marketing campaign, it was stupid by the League. Not that the tide is changing monumentally, but the media rhetoric has shifted from Brady and the Pats' guilt to the shoddy job that Wells did and how he used science fiction to prove the balls were deflated and how Goodell is a despot who is going to ignore logic and reasoning that the Wells Report is a flawed document that really doesn't prove anything and not give Brady a fair appeal. That isn't good for the NFL especially if the theory that after Deflategate blew up that Goodell had to come down hard on the Patriots as a face saving move.

This is yet another in a long string of controversies that Goodell has successfully allowed to be blown out of proportion and made everyone involved (including himself) look bad. This is not what the NFL wants, but this is what the NFL gets when they have an inept commissioner who is universally hated by everyone except for 28-32 people who happen to control his job security.

betterthanthealternative said:

Perhaps the theory as stated in the original post give the NFL too much credit with regards to strategic thinking ability and creativity.

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Right. Heck, we just saw this past week NFL Minister is Misinformation Greg Aeillo look like a complete idiot b/c he was not aware that the NFL GC Levy put a 4hr limit on TB12's appeal.

While that may not be a fair characterization of how siloed and dysfunctional the NFL Offices are in their operations but with that and other examples of how it has handled discipline, Deflategate, Ray Rice, Spygate (memo as opposed to following process) Bountygate, etc. it sure doesn't leave me to think that they are well-orchestrated, highly collaborative machine.

Tuck said:

This was absolutely a marketing gimmick from the beginning. A good guy vs bad guy build up to a sporting event is a proven winner. They wanted a bad guy, they found one and the Super Bowl became the most watched tv program in history.

Click to expand...

The only problem for the NFL, the bad guy won!

pdangle said:

The only problem for the NFL, the bad guy won!

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And they are going to do whatever they can to make sure it doesn't happen again next year.

pdangle said:

The only problem for the NFL, the bad guy won!

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They can take a trip to Baltimore and bow at the feet of the statue of Ray Lewis, the NFL's version of a good guy.

Five months of keeping the NFL in the spotlight while continuing to drag down the Patriots organization...I'd say it's worked out pretty well if that was their intention.