Goodell punishes Giants for walkie-talkie-gate

[bormio]

I really thinks he gives these punishments with Pats' fans in mind - let's see how much I can piss them off. It would have been less insulting to give the Giants a total pass.

 

[Wordsmyth]

Roger that.

 

[Ring 6]

And there's no $5M investigation necessary, it was obvious, it was 100% deliberate. There was no misunderstanding of rules, there was no general awareness as Eli had to be involved, and nobody else was doing this unlike the signal filming.

Total ****ing ********. And where is the asterisk for the Giants? How do we know they weren't using walkie talkies during the Super Bowls? When Eli spins out of the grasp, is there someone yelling at him where to throw the ball?

I don't want to go there. I've been listening to BB for over a decade now and our program won't make excuses. But you damn well better believe if this was us, it would be a drastically different outcome from the league.

I'm curious.
Let's pretend that wells, exponent and goodell were right about framegate and science doesn't exist for a minute.

So you have one team who wants the advantage of having the ball slightly under inflated so they send a fat guy to stick a needle it them.
You have another team who wants to gain the advantage of having communication when the league shuts it down for both teams because it isn't working. So they send a guy to hook up walkie talkies.

Is there a difference?

 

[convertedpatsfan]

I'm curious.
Let's pretend that wells, exponent and goodell were right about framegate and science doesn't exist for a minute.

So you have one team who wants the advantage of having the ball slightly under inflated so they send a fat guy to stick a needle it them.
You have another team who wants to gain the advantage of having communication when the league shuts it down for both teams because it isn't working. So they send a guy to hook up walkie talkies.

Is there a difference?

Yeah, the walkie talkie is a one-sided advantage benefiting one team only.

Nobody has quite answered why Brady would deflate the balls to begin with, especially since he sucked so bad in the first half against the Colts and dominated after they added air to the balls.

But assume there is an advantage, would it be that balls are easier to catch? If so, that doesn't help us when Jackson intercepts the ball. And deep balls would have a harder time cutting through wind. The advantage would work for both teams.

In the Giants scenario, only the Giants benefit, which makes it much worse.

Imagine the defense shifts at the last-minute with less than 15 seconds left on the play clock. The Giants can relay that in. If a safety is disguising their coverage by looking like a single high coverage, then with 10 seconds left on the play clock, starts sprinting towards a sideline to try and double-team a throw they're trying to induce, the Giants could call that into Eli as well. If there's a blown coverage by someone slipping, but that receiver isn't one of the primary reads, Eli would not get to him in the normal progressions of a play, but you could tell him over the headset.

So little has been made of the walkie talkies, but it's actually the biggest advantage one might get in a game, greater than filming a sideline, greater than stealing signals like the Colts, and greater than piping in extra noise like the Falcons. Even though we didn't film practices, I would still take the Giants walkie talkie advantage over actual practice film. The practice only tells you some of the things they'll run, most of which you already know. The ability to talk to your QB throughout the entire play is a disgustingly large advantage.

 

[Ring 6]

Yeah, the walkie talkie is a one-sided advantage benefiting one team only.

Nobody has quite answered why Brady would deflate the balls to begin with, especially since he sucked so bad in the first half against the Colts and dominated after they added air to the balls.

But assume there is an advantage, would it be that balls are easier to catch? If so, that doesn't help us when Jackson intercepts the ball. And deep balls would have a harder time cutting through wind. The advantage would work for both teams.

In the Giants scenario, only the Giants benefit, which makes it much worse.

Imagine the defense shifts at the last-minute with less than 15 seconds left on the play clock. The Giants can relay that in. If a safety is disguising their coverage by looking like a single high coverage, then with 10 seconds left on the play clock, starts sprinting towards a sideline to try and double-team a throw they're trying to induce, the Giants could call that into Eli as well. If there's a blown coverage by someone slipping, but that receiver isn't one of the primary reads, Eli would not get to him in the normal progressions of a play, but you could tell him over the headset.

So little has been made of the walkie talkies, but it's actually the biggest advantage one might get in a game, greater than filming a sideline, greater than stealing signals like the Colts, and greater than piping in extra noise like the Falcons. Even though we didn't film practices, I would still take the Giants walkie talkie advantage over actual practice film. The practice only tells you some of the things they'll run, most of which you already know. The ability to talk to your QB throughout the entire play is a disgustingly large advantage.

I fail to understand why one is considered a horrific violation of the integrity of the game and the other an oops.
There is just no logic to that.

 

[Dexter]

Yeah, the double standard bothers me (and not just in this instance, Goodell does this **** all this time) but then I remember that we just won a legendary championship and this @sshole had to hand Brady and Kraft the trophy while being humiliated by the heavy boos and run away from there like a rat as quickly as possible. Makes me feel much better.

 

[Koma]

Yeah, the walkie talkie is a one-sided advantage benefiting one team only.

Nobody has quite answered why Brady would deflate the balls to begin with, especially since he sucked so bad in the first half against the Colts and dominated after they added air to the balls.

But assume there is an advantage, would it be that balls are easier to catch? If so, that doesn't help us when Jackson intercepts the ball. And deep balls would have a harder time cutting through wind. The advantage would work for both teams.

There were a bunch of Patriots-hating dopes that came out after the story first broke with the alleged advantages of a deflated football, claiming it was easier to throw and less likely to fumble. Some fool even did a "statistical analysis" to prove that the Patriots fumbled significantly less after the rules on football preparation changed back in 2006. (On a side note, after the 2015 season invalidated this particular moron's theory, he went on a podcast and claimed 2015 was an unusually warm year - Spoiler: It wasn't - and that's why the Patriots didn't fumble more under the new guidelines.) These people will cling to anything to preserve their beliefs.

Here's the thing none of these people ever address: If a ball under 12.5 PSI is such an advantage (better to throw, easier to catch, harder to fumble, etc), the Patriots were the only team in the history of football to ever notice this? There was never a scenario in the last 60 or years, during training camp or practice or the offseason, where a QB threw a ball at 12 or 11.5 or 11 PSI and discovered he could throw much further and with more accuracy. We're supposed to believe that never, ever happened. If playing with a ball at a lower PSI was really an advantage to the offense, Polian would have pushed that rule change through when he was with the Colts. We've seen the league change the way the game is played to open up the passing game, but, apparently, this very minor change that would result in a huge benefit for the offense never occurred to them. So, either the league is incompetent or the advantages to an under-inflated football are overblown.

 

[NashuaPats]

There were a bunch of Patriots-hating dopes that came out after the story first broke with the alleged advantages of a deflated football, claiming it was easier to throw and less likely to fumble. Some fool even did a "statistical analysis" to prove that the Patriots fumbled significantly less after the rules on football preparation changed back in 2006. (On a side note, after the 2015 season invalidated this particular moron's theory, he went on a podcast and claimed 2015 was an unusually warm year - Spoiler: It wasn't - and that's why the Patriots didn't fumble more under the new guidelines.) These people will cling to anything to preserve their beliefs.

Here's the thing none of these people ever address: If a ball under 12.5 PSI is such an advantage (better to throw, easier to catch, harder to fumble, etc), the Patriots were the only team in the history of football to ever notice this? There was never a scenario in the last 60 or years, during training camp or practice or the offseason, where a QB threw a ball at 12 or 11.5 or 11 PSI and discovered he could throw much further and with more accuracy. We're supposed to believe that never, ever happened. If playing with a ball at a lower PSI was really an advantage to the offense, Polian would have pushed that rule change through when he was with the Colts. We've seen the league change the way the game is played to open up the passing game, but, apparently, this very minor change that would result in a huge benefit for the offense never occurred to them. So, either the league is incompetent or the advantages to an under-inflated football are overblown.

How about this for an angle? The Colts were accusing the Patriots of playing with an underinflated ball prior to the game claiming it was an advantage. If it was an advantage, then why did the Colts inflate their balls to 13.0 rather than 12.5? It doesn't make any sense. If they truly believed it was an advantage to have less air, then they intentionally put their team at a disadvantage.

The fact is it's not an advantage.

 

[TomPatriot]

I will say it again. The discrepancy in Patriot punishment occurred because that's what the other 31 owners wanted. They want to cripple the Patriots (and Bob Kraft) because of their success. Goodell is just the stooge satisfying their needs. It was never about "integrity" but rather parity and jealousy. I've gone to battle against them before and this is their mindset.

Brilliant strategy. It resulted in a SB 51 ring, 8 2017 draft picks, $61m+ in cap room. The sweetest revenge.

 

[ForThoseAboutToRock]

I fail to understand why one is considered a horrific violation of the integrity of the game and the other an oops.
There is just no logic to that.

Moreover, does this count as a "strike" against the Giants to be considered with respect to future (escalating) punishments?

[probably not]

 

[tasmlab]

It's not like it's an equipment violation.

Are walkie talkies equipment?

 

[ivanvamp]

Moreover, does this count as a "strike" against the Giants to be considered with respect to future (escalating) punishments?

[probably not]

The only team for whom the "repeat offender" status applies is the Patriots. It didn't apply to Denver or the Jets or Seattle or anyone else but the Pats.

 

[sb1]

This is why the Mike Silvers and Kellerman's don't get it and never will. They can accuse the organization and us fans of being "petty" and telling us to "move on" all they want... and it will not happen until this commissioner is shown the door and another one takes his place that puts the league's interests above the interests of the the Jerry/Mara/Rooney/Johnson clique.

 

[The Gr8est]

This is why the Mike Silvers and Kellerman's don't get it and never will. They can accuse the organization and us fans of being "petty" and telling us to "move on" all they want... and it will not happen until this commissioner is shown the door and another one takes his place that puts the league's interests above the interests of the the Jerry/Mara/Rooney/Johnson clique.

Anyone telling Pats fans to move on should be asked if they would be willing to have their favorite team give up two 1sts and one 4th round pick in exchange for our moving on.

 

[Koma]

The only team for whom the "repeat offender" status applies is the Patriots. It didn't apply to Denver or the Jets or Seattle or anyone else but the Pats.

We learned from Ndamukong Suh that a player has to avoid committing a fineable or suspendable offense for 32 games to avoid being considered a repeat offender. In the eyes of the league, if a player cheap shots someone, then goes 2 seasons without cheap shotting someone else, it's like the first incident never happened, for future discipline purposes.

For teams, though, well, really just for the Patriots, 9 years can pass between incidents but the penalty for the second offense will be ramped up because it's a repeat offense.

The thing that's really bothersome is that fans and the media just accept the "repeat offender" punishment and never wonder why they never heard this for any other team, before or since.

 

[ForThoseAboutToRock]

The only team for whom the "repeat offender" status applies is the Patriots. It didn't apply to Denver or the Jets or Seattle or anyone else but the Pats.

I'd argue it also probably applies to the Saints in the Post-Bountygate era. If you had swapped the walkie-talkie thing from McAdoo to Payton, I'd wager that Payton would've been facing pretty severe consequences.

This has bothered me for a long time. It stuck out like a sore thumb to me in the original Deflategate punishments - basically the NFL saying "you've been on probation [without notice], 1 strike against you, so now you pay double." It was arbitrary then, and remains so, given the unevenness of punishments handed out by the astonishingly incompetent Troy Vincent / Roger Goodell tandem.

Since then I've been patiently and obstinately waiting for them to apply the same logic again. I know they won't. I know they made that **** up on the spot because it sounded like a tough-guy crackdown on the bad-boys who must do stuff to get to the AFCC every year [hence the long and seemingly well-sourced articles that were written about how DFG was a makeup call for SG].

So, I'll just post about it here like a broken record every time we see some slap on the wrist. I'll keep bringing it to the attention of the Michael Hurley's and Tom Curran's to see if they'll write about it.

 

[MitchKumstein]

Speaking of slaps on the wrist, are we still waiting for rog to drop the hammer on the Steelers for not reporting Bell's injury prior to the AFCCG?

I don't know why rog even bothers going through with effort of pretending that he's going to consider punishing Pittsburgh. Everyone knows that the Rooneys will at most get a small monetary fine.

 

[The Gr8est]

Speaking of slaps on the wrist, are we still waiting for rog to drop the hammer on the Steelers for not reporting Bell's injury prior to the AFCCG?

I don't know why rog even bothers going through with effort of pretending that he's going to consider punishing Pittsburgh. Everyone knows that the Rooneys will at most get a small monetary fine.

Based on the history of the NFL* and their arbitrary punishments, along with the Rooney's standing among owners, with some animals being more equal than others, I expect no punishment whatsoever.

Maybe the Omissioner will impose a $99,999.00 fine just to tweak Pats fans.

 

[archstanton543]

Anyone telling Pats fans to move on should be asked if they would be willing to have their favorite team give up two 1sts and one 4th round pick in exchange for our moving on.

Tom Curran says we should move on. What would you say to him?

 

[The Gr8est]

Tom Curran says we should move on. What would you say to him?

Well, just like with posters on this board, I am free to disagree, and Curran may even have an account here as well.

Sorry Tom, this Pats fan isn't ready to move on.

**** Goodell!

And you can tell him I said that!