Deflategate was more about punishing Kraft than Brady

FrodoBagginz said:

Bob Kraft is the last man the owners should want to punish. Kraft has helped the league make more profit in some deal negotiations.

I guess their jealousy of Kraft's success outweighs everything else. Kraft didn't spend Tax payer money to build Gillette Stadium. Instead he gathered the money privately to build the stadium. He may be a pansy, but Kraft has more integrity and honor than all the other 31 owners combined.

Click to expand...

First part I agree with, second part I don't give Kraft much credit for doing that. He fought tooth and nail to not have to spend his own money to build that stadium. There should be laws against that. Total bs the people pay for stadiums. If they pay for the stadiums, they deserve free tickets to games. Or the tax payers AT LEAST deserve a heavy discount.

What was Kraft punished for? Not being as dumb as the rest of them are?

What do you expect from a bunch of spoiled brats that have been catered to since birth. It's remarkable how similar these owners are to a lot of the 20something millionaires they employ that have been coddled since high school.

Wait, so if the owners didn't want Brady to be suspended because it's bad for tv ratings, shouldn't they be pissed at goodell for not only keeping the suspension, but also for spending tens of millions of dollars to make it stick?

Galeb said:

What do you expect from a bunch of spoiled brats that have been catered to since birth. It's remarkable how similar these owners are to a lot of the 20something millionaires they employ that have been coddled since high school.

Click to expand...

Bingo!

MitchKumstein said:

Wait, so if the owners didn't want Brady to be suspended because it's bad for tv ratings, shouldn't they be pissed at goodell for not only keeping the suspension, but also for spending tens of millions of dollars to make it stick?

Click to expand...

No, them being pissed would be the short term outlook. The owners are thinking long term. If they can make this stick on Brady with the flimsiest of circumstantial evidence, the owners can suspend any player for any reason. With a stick that large, the owners can leverage that during the next CBA and extract hundreds of millions from the players. The owners know we're stooges since we keep slurping up their product. That's why I didn't watch the SB this year. Trying to withdraw from their product.

What is the media going to do when they can't milk this ridiculous story anymore? It's going on year 2 now. I don't buy this for a second. It makes no sense. The sooner this is resolved the better but there is no incentive for any of the parties (NFL, Courts) to wrap this up.

MitchKumstein said:

Wait, so if the owners didn't want Brady to be suspended because it's bad for tv ratings, shouldn't they be pissed at goodell for not only keeping the suspension, but also for spending tens of millions of dollars to make it stick?

Click to expand...

They may be pissed at Goodell.

But look at how Goodell is operating. He makes $30-$40m a year in an economic environment that is very difficult for the majority of the NFL's customers. So what is Goodell doing? He calculates that he needs to make the moves that will keep him in his job as long as possible. Doing the right thing by Brady may have pissed off a lot of owners. Going after Brady also is a waste of money and pisses off owners. But which of the two keeps him in his job longer?

He is no different than those CEOs who give themselves bonuses before the company ship sinks, or those CEOs who use the company's cash balance to buyback stock (with which the execs are regularly compensated).

NFL = FIFA North America

grux said:

Why wouldn't Kraft go Rogue if none of his fellow owners support him? Also, I am just about finished following the NFL.

On this week’s edition of Kirk Minihane’s “Enough About Me” podcast, Sirius XM radio host Chris “Mad Dog” Russo said he has spoken with nine NFL owners who told him that the Deflategate discipline handed down by commissioner Roger Goodell was more about punishing Patriots owner Robert Kraft than it was suspending quarterback Tom Brady.

“They want to get TV ratings,” Russo told Minihane, who then proceeded to spell out the thought process of the owners he spoke with.

“’Do you think we want Goodell to suspend the best player in the league? Its star? For the first four games of the regular season, which includes a game against the Cowboys and the first opening Thursday night game of the year?

“‘We got Kraft. We don’t like Kraft. We got him already. We nailed him for a million dollars, and he lost a first-round pick and a fourth-round pick. And we made sure that Kraft did not appeal it because we all bombarded him at the owners’ meetings and said ‘Bob, you’ve got no support here. Do what you have to do. You have no support. Nobody is going to back you up.’”

He added: “So Kraft took the sword and that was the end of it. ‘We didn’t need Brady, too. We got Kraft.’ ”

The latest edition of “Enough About Me” with Russo will be posted to WEEI.com on Thursday.

Click to expand...

I'm not buying it. If this was simply about Kraft and ratings they wouldn't be so adamant in suspending Brady. They got what they wanted out of Kraft, why go through such lengths to defame and destroy Brady's name, achievements and greatness. This had nothing to do with Belichick either. Wells could've used the same BS and conjecture to frame Belichick if he wanted to, but he made it his mission to exonerate Belichick and the coaches, when he could've easily stated, it's more probable than not that Belichick was aware of Brady and the ball boys' activities and suspended them all.

This whole thing was about knocking Brady down a notch, especially after beating Seattle, so that he and Manning could retire, seemingly with equal success, so that their rivalry stands the test of time. That is the only reason the league did a crap job of fixing games this season, it's hard to get a weak QB and his scrub back up in the big one, without the fix becoming obvious. Unfortunately, most fans know that Manning was gifted this last SB, so the rivalry is pretty irrelevant now, it's actually been irrelevant since Manning got embarrassed against Seattle, but... I digress. Manning retired owning Brady in AFC championship games. Brady will retire owning Manning in less important games. They will have similar stats, even if Brady comes up short and many will still see them as equals or debate, who's better. I won't.

Since fans have no big QB rivalry to look up to, or no legit HoF QB, outside of Brady, that is playing up to par, I'm afraid the NFL is about to experience some dark days. Time for some other sport to rise in popularity, while the NFL falls to NBA levels of obscurity.

Wow, I didn't think the "for the good of the 32" excuse could be made any more pathetic, but here we are.

BradyFTW! said:

Wow, I didn't think the "for the good of the 32" excuse could be made any more pathetic, but here we are.

Click to expand...

It's all Kraft cares about, His standing among the owners.

TommyBrady12 said:

As i've felt all along, deflategate was about NFL ownership getting back at the patriots.

Click to expand...

It has been my contention all along that this was ownership driven ... Goodell is but their puppet.
Nothing about deflategate makes sense ... especially the money spent.
These guys don't care about money ... only power and they took a weed wacker to Kraft.

I mean let's face it ... Kraft could fire Belichick anytime ... but he doesn't and they hate that.
Belichick's brilliant ... he doesn't screw up ... they cannot get to him but Kraft ... he is easy.
Kraft does not deserve the slander tossed his way IMO ...
He continues to support the teams excellence in spite of the league ... he deserves our support.

Ivan said:

It's all Kraft cares about, His standing among the owners.

Click to expand...

You assume to much ...

IcyPatriot said:

You assume to much ...

Click to expand...

No assumptions necessary, his words and actions say it all.

Great Job Roger

Going after Brady was Goodell's attempt to make peace with black players who were complaining that they were getting far more and harsh punishments than the white players. He called in Ted Wells, a noted black attorney who started in at Holy Cross as a black activist (great stories there) and who previously went after Incognito, another white player.

This is truly where the Brady part all started. It spiraled wildly out of control since to the point where even Wells seems somewhat reasonable compared to the depths of lies from the NFL. Yea Goodell and others were sick of the "Assistant Commissioner" but sadly this all started as Roger using Brady as a sacrificial goat.

I think Mr Clement must answer for the reports of him repeatedly lying in court. His email contact info is here Paul D. Clement, Appellate Lawyer | Bancroft

The DC Bar complaint forms are here File an Attorney Complaint

I hope this news becomes bigger , to see reaction of these owners. But I doubt it was anything about kraft. It was always about BB.

h0c2000 said:

The owners know we're stooges since we keep slurping up their product. That's why I didn't watch the SB this year. Trying to withdraw from their product.

Click to expand...

Same here! I didn't watch the Superbowl* either. The 32 corrupt owners are the drug cartels, Goodell is the dealer. Time for America to wean themselves off this drug and stand up against them together.

Ivan said:

It's all Kraft cares about, His standing among the owners.

Click to expand...

Kraft is a very successful businessman who is worth 4.8 billion dollars. I would argue that he cares plenty about all of his businesses, how profitable they are, and the money they make. If that weren't the case, he wouldn't have been such a successful businessman.

Kraft's standing among the owners affects the profitability and worth of a certain business holding called the New England Patriots. Of course he cares about his standing among the owners. For us it is a passion. For him it is a business, IMHO.

At first I believed that this was about nailing BB to the cross cuz he has not "gotten in line" like all other coaches. Hence the strong punishment to the Pats and Brady when other issues (Ray Rice, Jets Revis tampering, Vikings ball tampering) was meet with little to no consequences to the guilty party. Now its all about the NFL front offices wanting power and control over all of the NFL. The NFL has been caught in lie after lie after lie and the keep doubling down and spending millions of dollars on this. If this was all about getting Kraft, I cant see how the NFL would continue after Bradys appeal. Now the sentiment has turned a bit in the Pats favor, with a lot of people thinking that maybe the Pats did nothing, or at the very least cant be proven (or other explanations for the change in PSI) and the punishment should be put on hold or reduce, but the NFL keeps at it. They don't care about any negative press they may be now getting. Nor do they don't care about how much money this is now costing them. I think they feel that if they can get away with something like punishing the leagues best player and team for basically nothing, then the fear factor will spread across the league and they will feel empowered that they can get away with anything. Like something as serious as doctoring concussion data or as little as fining a player 5 figures for wearing his socks to high. Its all about power and control.