No NFL fan should be ok with this…

NashuaPats said:

I honestly cannot believe this is happening, not in my country. That innocent until proven guilty concept has been thrown out the window, at least in the NFL. No one should be ok with this. Yet, 31/32 people are cheering. I feel like I'm in the twilight zone. I wish I knew my history better. Does this most resemble fascist Italy, communist Russia, communist China, or Nazi Germany... or perhaps the movie Idiocracy? I don't know, but I'm disgusted and saddened. I just can't believe this is happening for real. No one should be ok with this.

Click to expand...

RE/ history: well yeah I'd say that "Idiocracy" is the closest comparison, given that millions of people will not actually be murdered in state-sponsored purges, systematically starved, or baked in ovens as a result of this (admittedly unfair) treatment of Tom Brady.

I was with ya up to a point....but I don't think you have to invoke Hitler to make your argument that this is an unfair sports ruling.

Froob said:

The repeat offender is the worst part of it, spygate was on BB and the team and in the Wells report both the team and BB are deemed innocent. Also why did Suh lose his repeat offender status after 2(or was it 3?) seasons while Patriots kept theirs for 8 years. If the same logic applied to the Jets they would have been hit BIG time for repeat offender for tampering again (2nd off season in a row) with Revis. We'll lucky in a weird way BB wasn't suspended (not that he deserved it though obviously) and I understand Saints fans are pissed about Payton. That was crap. Can't even appeal coaches' punishments. Man if there's one thing Goodell does well is his propaganda machine. Convinced everybody he did Pats a favor destroying the tapes when he boned us bad. Tapes were shown on TV and nothing but cheerleaders and coaches waving to the camera.

And yeah you're right about the CBA. Players badly miscalculated. By nature owners have the upper hand because they still get the TV contract money (and they're billions of course). But, still.....NBA and MLB (dunno about NHL) have much much much better CBAs.

Click to expand...

One thing I didn't know until recently -- Goodell didn't actually receive an expansion of powers at any point, he simply interpreted them far more broadly than his predecessors.

Supposedly, Tagliabue and everyone before him has had the same set of rules governing him since the late 60s. Goodell's just run amok.

lillloyd said:

One thing I didn't know until recently -- Goodell didn't actually receive an expansion of powers at any point, he simply interpreted them far more broadly than his predecessors.

Supposedly, Tagliabue and everyone before him has had the same set of rules governing him since the late 60s. Goodell's just run amok.

Click to expand...

That evidence change was awful though. Regardless of what people think Ben did or didn't do (I won't get into that) the fact of the matter is he was not charged with anything. Should be up to the team to punish the player if they are not charged with a crime (although in Ray Rice case there's clear evidence of a crime). Do you remember when he started pushing the "I don't care if you did a crime, you get punished for being in a situation where it could be perceived you did something" I mean wtf...guy has some serious issues. I'm ashamed Kraft calls him his friend.

Froob said:

The repeat offender is the worst part of it, spygate was on BB and the team and in the Wells report both the team and BB are deemed innocent. Also why did Suh lose his repeat offender status after 2(or was it 3?) seasons while Patriots kept theirs for 8 years. If the same logic applied to the Jets they would have been hit BIG time for repeat offender for tampering again (2nd off season in a row) with Revis. We'll lucky in a weird way BB wasn't suspended (not that he deserved it though obviously) and I understand Saints fans are pissed about Payton. That was crap. Can't even appeal coaches' punishments. Man if there's one thing Goodell does well is his propaganda machine. Convinced everybody he did Pats a favor destroying the tapes when he boned us bad. Tapes were shown on TV and nothing but cheerleaders and coaches waving to the camera.

And yeah you're right about the CBA. Players badly miscalculated. By nature owners have the upper hand because they still get the TV contract money (and they're billions of course). But, still.....NBA and MLB (dunno about NHL) have much much much better CBAs.

Click to expand...

The repeat offender part really rankles me since haters love to point to the Pats "history of cheating" when that history is wholly determined by how Goodell has chosen to respond to offenses, or in the case of Deflategate, go out of his way to support the prosecution of an imagined offense.

If Goodell treated the Rats' taping from the wrong location in Foxboro in 2006 without permission, or treated Tripgate as the cheating offense it was, then the Rats would no longer claim the high ground of moral superiority when the only reason they are not seen that way is because of how Goodell decided to treat the offenses.

One very biased and flawed Omissioner controls this narrative.

lillloyd said:

RE/ history: well yeah I'd say that "Idiocracy" is the closest comparison, given that millions of people will not actually be murdered in state-sponsored purges, systematically starved, or baked in ovens as a result of this (admittedly unfair) treatment of Tom Brady.

I was with ya up to a point....but I don't think you have to invoke Hitler to make your argument that this is an unfair sports ruling.

Click to expand...

I don't believe I invoked the words of murder, starvation, or putting people in ovens. Rather I was trying to compare a system of finding people guilty of crimes without a fair justice system. There's no need to get so sensitive.

Froob said:

That evidence change was awful though. Regardless of what people think Ben did or didn't do (I won't get into that) the fact of the matter is he was not charged with anything. Should be up to the team to punish the player if they are not charged with a crime (although in Ray Rice case there's clear evidence of a crime). Do you remember when he started pushing the "I don't care if you did a crime, you get punished for being in a situation where it could be perceived you did something" I mean wtf...guy has some serious issues. I'm ashamed Kraft calls him his friend.

Click to expand...

I honestly wonder whether his sheriff role was something he unilaterally pursued, or if this was originally encouraged by NFL ownership as a way to 'clean up' the league. There have been writeups of late suggesting that Goodell has actively pushed to lower the standard for punishment, resulting in the "more likely than not" threshold that's been talked about so much in the Brady case (but which TBH has been used in other cases in years past). It's hard to believe that Goodell, who is an employee of ownership, would go completely out on a limb here without ownership's consent...meaning that ownership is culpable to a degree for letting this genie out of the bottle.

Re/ Roethlisberger, I've been very reluctant to bring this up on this board since the underlying issue in that case is worlds apart from Brady's. But if you compare BountyGate, or the Ben case, strictly in terms of how the league reviewed the case, how the public reacted, and the manner in which punishment was ultimately doled out, there are some key similarities: there was an initial, massive public outcry which threatened the integrity of the NFL brand in some way; there was essentially an uneducated mob reaction on the part of the public, as an incomplete set of unchecked facts and rumors dripped out; there was a desperate but ultimately doomed attempt on the part of the league to arrive at an ironclad conclusion in the absence of a full set of information; and there was a punishment doled out based on evidence that was advertised as "conclusive" when the underlying facts were murky at best, in an effort to make the league appear to the public as "strong on X issue".

Goodell and the league will get their comeuppance if Brady doesn't suit up for the opener. They'll have 2 full weeks of national media coverage harping on the blatant discrepancy between Brady getting 4 games, Hardy getting 4 games, and Rice (originally) getting 1.

NashuaPats said:

I don't believe I invoked the words of murder, starvation, or putting people in ovens. Rather I was trying to compare a system of finding people guilty of crimes without a fair justice system. There's no need to get so sensitive.

Click to expand...

LOL I wasn't being sensitive, just making a joke. Apologies if I've offended.

lillloyd said:

LOL I wasn't being sensitive, just making a joke. Apologies if I've offended.

Click to expand...

Lol, yeah that kind of ticked me off. I guess I was the one being sensitive. No worries.

NashuaPats said:

Lol, yeah that kind of ticked me off. I guess I was the one being sensitive. No worries.

Click to expand...

Cheers bud, no worries. You guys have been great to me whenever I've been on this board, the last thing I want to do is act like a misbehaving house guest.

lillloyd said:

The Saints got the rawest deal of them all, IMHO. I'm on record here as saying the underlying 'crime' in DGate is way, way overblown....But IIRC the Saints actually had less than average personal foul penalties as a team that year. Yet they had a guy suspended for 8 games (Hargrove) for 'obstruction', and Payton got the entire year when the league acknowledged he had no knowledge of the bounties. Could you imagine the outrage here if BB was suspended under the "ignorance is no excuse" standard applied to the Saints?(!)

Click to expand...

It was worse than other fans remember. We pretty much lost top drafts for 2 years. New guys had to coach, and leaders on D were gone. Giving a huge advantage to other teams in our division. Destroyed our CAP as the Saints tried to buy guys to replace the lost talent,leadership, and drafts. Killed morale. Wrecked a promising team, and created the worst defense for 2 seasons. We are still trying to come back from this.
We dont have the power of big market teams like NE. No way we could fight, and I think they knew that.

• Williams DC was suspended indefinitely, and was banned from applying for reinstatement until the end of the 2012 season at the earliest.
• Payton was suspended for the entire 2012 season, effective April 1. He is the first head coach in modern NFL history to be suspended for any reason.
• Loomis was suspended for the first eight games of the 2012 season.
• Vitt, who had been tabbed as a possible candidate to serve as interim coach in Payton's absence, was suspended for the first six games of the 2012 season.(This did not automatically disqualify Vitt from serving as interim head coach per se, as his suspension was not effective until the regular season; the suspension terms allowed him to coach the team through training camp and the preseason, then return during Week 7. The Saints announced they would implement this scenario for 2012.)
• tackle Anthony Hargrove was suspended for eight games.
• Saints defensive end Will Smith was suspended for four games.
• Former Saints linebacker Scott Fujita (then with the Cleveland Browns, now retired) was suspended for three games.
• Saints were also fined $500,000—the maximum fine permitted under the league constitution.
• Goodell also stripped the Saints of their second-round draft picks in 2012 and 2013 (their first-round pick in 2012 had already been traded to the New England Patriots, and therefore could not be taken away; after the penalty; the Saints' first pick in the 2012 NFL Draft is a third-rounder)

We really hope NE the best. It would break our hearts to see Brady not play. The charges are wrong, maybe you can change things.

What's up Pherein? All we hear up here is "science doesn't exist and Brady is guilty of not turning over a cellphone Wells never asked for so , all Patriots are cheaters and should be incinerated"

As one of YOUR chief proponents and one of THE most vocal supporters of Vilma's case in federal court, tell me...what do you make of this "well, if the ref testified he used the NFL logo gauge then there was NEVER any deflation of anything BUT the NFL says he used another less accurate gauge so the Patriots are cheaters and America agrees"

Is that about it out there in the rest of the country? Do I now have to fear for my life if I wear a Pats cap while out for the night in the French Quarter?

Hey wow Joker how are you man ? Cell phone is Bradys personal property, and no Corp has the right to ask for your personal Cell. If my Corporations or the NASA ask me for my personal cell, ID tell them to kiss something or break it. Im kind of dumb founded they ask for Bradys cell.

Yeah well Vilma tried, I remember you supporting that, and getting your errr bum kicked in forum for doing so, lol. Also you said what was happening was nuts, and way over the top.
Brady doesnt know a thing.. or why hes being zerod in on.. we believe that. Never seen Brady lie or any reason to question his character, so we wont. Bradys always been a good friend to brees and a good man. He doesnt deserve this treatment by the NFL. ITs sad.

I think maybe some mistakes were made infating a few footballs, um so what. The big mistake was RG infating this as a problem. A simple email would have solved it. There is not doudt in NO that RG has it out for NE.

lol, you kidding you know how we admire your fans and team. Remember the papers when we won that game ? "Best fans in the world NE" and SP preaches we need to be more like BB as a team. Dude youll be accepted with open arms , lol , we will be so happy to see your true fans of football back, you never made fun of us when we sucked for 43 years, we remember that. Wear them with pride.