Survey on Brady's Guilt - No Suprises

[SlowGettingUp]

So the NY Times has a very interesting survey asking people if they believe Brady was guilty. Some results were not surprising - e.g., 90% of Colts fans believe in his guilt and the more New England fans know about the issue the more they believe he is innocent.

But there are some very interesting other details as well:

The "guilt-gap" between Pats fans and non-Pats fans actually increased the more knowledge people displayed about the case. (My take is that increased knowledge might just reflect the intensity of their fandom).

Whether people believe in a conspiracy related to the events (pro Brady that he was framed by the league to distract the public from its problems and anti-Brady that the judge was influenced by Brady's wealth and fame) was highly correlated to whether those people also believed in other conspiracies (Obama not born in US and 9/11 truthers). So folks that tend to believe in one conspiracy also see conspiracies in other places.

Full article here:

Tom Brady and Political Beliefs: It Depends What Team You’re On

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/16/upshot/tom-brady-and-political-beliefs-it-depends-what-team-youre-on.html

 

[VectorPrime]

How exactly is believing Brady followed the laws of physics the "conspiracy theory"? The idea that Brady orchestrated a massive racket to remove 3/10s of a PSI from a football is the wild conspiracy theory.

 

[SlowGettingUp]

How exactly is believing Brady followed the laws of physics the "conspiracy theory"?

Read the article - the conspiracy theories relate to the judge and the league, not to Brady.

 

[IcyPatriot]

NY Times .... a bastion of impartiality.

 

[robbomango]

They have to believe he's guilty, otherwise they'd have to face the reality that Brady's been truly wronged and dragged through the mud for nothing. Better to believe he's guilty and deserves punishment than innocent and deserves vengeance on your team. Many heads are berried in the sand in our rival fan bases...

 

[JoeSixPat]

Read the article - the conspiracy theories relate to the judge and the league, not to Brady.

I'm not quite sure why the author mocks this

There's no question that Goodell and the NFL with the backing of certain owners were involved in what is much more than a witch hunt. They leaked, lied and libeled against Brady and the Patriots, blatantly and knowingly releasing false information

The only question is what their motivation might be

Roger Goodell's self preservation of his $44 million a year job amid cries for his ouster isn't a conspiracy theory - it's the most likely motivation for his unethical actions

 

[Ice_Ice_Brady]

I would be curious as to which percentage of those polled believe Mortensen's initial report was true.

 

[Koma]

I would be curious as to which percentage of those polled believe Mortensen's initial report was true.

That percentage is probably disappointingly high. I was reading some of the comments on that Matt Bowen article and some responses to a Kravitz tweet and there are still people who believe the PSI in the Colts footballs was unaffected during the AFCCG. Not that they were lower, but still legal, but that they were at a constant PSI for the whole game.

 

[IcyPatriot]

I would be curious as to which percentage of those polled believe Mortensen's initial report was true.

11/12 ..... 91.6%

Sorry ... I couldn't resist.

 

[TheBostonStraggler]

A "poll" is one of a long list of 'user car salesman' polished up lies by the media. Right now everyone on this board could get together and conduct a phone poll that would noticeably vary from the NYT's "poll". The way polls are used by media, partisans and ideological advocates would be funny if the selling of the BS didn't have an effect on policy.
How the question is worded and framed, the sequence of questions, how multiple choice answers are narrowed, what is the demographical breakdown of the polling sample, what are the thresholds for respondent grouping, the slant and 'aim' of the crew/company conducting the phone calling -- these are many of the items that determine poll results.
If a Poll doesn't release the specific methodology, as noted above, then the poll is not worth the paper it is written on. College department's are famous for these unscrupulous "polls".

As far as most polls go and the public in general, it wouldn't surprise me at all if 90% of respondents answer they are markedly better than average. Then 90% follow up by failing to correctly answer who is buried in Grant's tomb.

 

[SlowGettingUp]

I'm not quite sure why the author mocks this

There's no question that Goodell and the NFL with the backing of certain owners were involved in what is much more than a witch hunt. They leaked, lied and libeled against Brady and the Patriots, blatantly and knowingly releasing false information

The only question is what their motivation might be

Roger Goodell's self preservation of his $44 million a year job amid cries for his ouster isn't a conspiracy theory - it's the most likely motivation for his unethical actions

The actual theory pro-Brady theory suggested was that:

the N.F.L. tried to punish him to distract people from the league’s problems

I doubt many here support that particular theory. More plausible to my mind is that Goodell wanted to show he was tough and not in the pocket of Kraft, but there are many other possibilities, including some "nail-the-Pats-at-last" proponents among the League and some owners. I'm guessing that within the next few years there will be a tell-all book with leaks from within the League about what actually went down.

I certainly do agree the pro-Brady "conspiracy" theory is much more plausible than the one about the judge.

 

[Zeus]

An interesting commentary included as a link in one of the comments on the article -

What Political Science Teaches Us About Deflategate and the Berman Decision

 

[memento]

It really doesn't tell us much if there's no way to see what three questions were asked and what source they're using as correct.

 

[SlowGettingUp]

A "poll" is one of a long list of 'user car salesman' polished up lies by the media. Right now everyone on this board could get together and conduct a phone poll that would noticeably vary from the NYT's "poll". The way polls are used by media, partisans and ideological advocates would be funny if the selling of the BS didn't have an effect on policy.
How the question is worded and framed, the sequence of questions, how multiple choice answers are narrowed, what is the demographical breakdown of the polling sample, what are the thresholds for respondent grouping, the slant and 'aim' of the crew/company conducting the phone calling -- these are many of the items that determine poll results.
If a Poll doesn't release the specific methodology, as noted above, then the poll is not worth the paper it is written on. College department's are famous for these unscrupulous "polls".

As far as most polls go and the public in general, it wouldn't surprise me at all if 90% of respondents answer they are markedly better than average. Then 90% follow up by failing to correctly answer who is buried in Grant's tomb.

I emailed the author and asked for details of the questions in the poll.

I also wrote the following in my email:

I’m one of the few people that have actually read the whole Wells report and then the judgment, and personally think it is more probable than not that nothing was done to the balls at all. What is indisputable was that the League leaked misleading information about the pressures and then told Kraft they would not correct it and that he could not either. So some sort of “conspiracy” by the League is indeed plausible, although likely not the particular one you suggest in the survey.

Increased knowledge could easily correlate with being more of a fan of some team, so it’s not necessarily the case that increased knowledge causes further divergence of belief. You would have to also ask about intensity of support for some team and then correct for that factor.​

 

[meatface]

I funny how people hold this up as evidence of something, it's just people's opinions!

 

[Wax Frog]

Many heads are berried in the sand in our rival fan bases...

Dingle?

 

[Joker]

Brady IS guilty...of shytting on Gregg Doyel's face and farting in the general direction of Fatslob Kravitz and Indiana in general.

Brady should get the highest award an American can recieve for such patriotic acts.

 

[PatsBoy12]

They have to believe he's guilty, otherwise they'd have to face the reality that Brady's been truly wronged and dragged through the mud for nothing. Better to believe he's guilty and deserves punishment than innocent and deserves vengeance on your team. Many heads are berried in the sand in our rival fan bases...

And this is just a microcosm of the bigger issue: Better to believe the Pats are guilty of every type of cheating there is than to believe they really have just been that good for the past 1 1/2 decades.

 

[PatsFanNM]

It's interesting reading the responses to the NYTimes article. Much more intelligent than are usually found on this issue, much more in support of Brady and the Patriots, but even among those who are not Pats fans, willing to look at things more objectively than usual. Unlike Pro Football Talk.

 

[DarrylS]

Gotta sell them newspapers and anything that criticizes the Patriots is worthy of a click, "see I told you so, hon"..

It is not about the method, it is just another effort to divert from the real issues in the NFL...

The revolution in New England continues, as the NYT along with many other publications and mediots can now deduce how much we hate them and make more press, more face book like or twitter followers..

The author claims to be from Dartmouth, maybe he was born in New Jersey..