Deflate-Gate: Here We Go Again

I still haven't seen anything definitive that the footballs were weighed and found to be bad. Is this true? To me if that has not been confirmed then everything else is moot.

I will admit it's reassuring to see the Patriots players taking this light-heartedly.

kennyb said:

Very plausible that Kraft wants to ruin his brand by cheating in stupid ways which don't have a logical way of even helping the team win. Have a great qb with huge hands throw ducks because the ball is underinflated. Brilliant.

Guilty unless proven otherwise.

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Spygate ruined our brand? The Patriots have been getting even more rich since. The team's value has grown. The benefits of winning, even while punished for cheating, outweighed the repercussions.

That's just a fact.

He'll be even richer if we win this Superbowl, even if it turns out we cheated again, then if we would have lost honestly. He will sell more shirts, more hats, more gear, and people will buy them anyway, no matter what.

I find it fascinating that a Super Bowl between two teams that should yield a fascinating discussion about X's and O's, strategy, etc. will take a back seat to whether or not the PSI in the footballs was the correct PSI.

Because the deflated ball caused the kick off to bounce off the returner's face - his helmet would have caught a properly inflated ball! Perhaps they deflated the ball at the line of scrimmage, which would explain how the Colt line was blown off of the line of scrimmage every time we ran it at them. And let's not forget that Brady deflated the ball and threw a perfect ga- oh, and interception? We did that one on purpose, when the game was closest to being in contention, to throw them off the scent.

My reaction to this is a big giant "Whatever". The cynical part of me suspects that the NFL might be a little concerned that Seattle and New England in the Super Bowl pretty much "deflates" the myth that there is parity in the Salary-Cap Era NFL, and what better way to drum up interest in another super power Super Bowl matchup then a good old fashioned "Good vs. Evil" storyline.

Oy. Sometimes the NFL reminds me of the WWE in the worst ways.

flasox27 said:

Lets face facts. Goodell has had a vendetta against the Pats since the day he took office. He blew the camera gate situation out of proportion with the help of or because of the NYC media. He now has a ticklish situation involvimg his beloved Jets and what better way to alleviate the pressure than to feed the media a non story about the bad old Pats. Don't forget that Irsay owes the POS one from the lenient treatment he received after his incident involving controilled substances. Why Kraft continues to support the POS is beyond my comprehension.

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Why would Goodell have a vendetta against the Patriots? Kraft is one of his biggest supporters and was one of the owners who pushed for a contract extension for Goodell. The Patriots is one of the marquee NFL franchises and tainting their accomplishments would look bad on the NFL as a whole. It would make the NFL product look bad. That theory makes no sense.

PatriotSeven said:

Per Mike Reiss, that the NFL is investigating the Colt's allegations that the Patriots deflated the balls.

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Per Mike Reiss the league said they are investigating 'the matter'.
Per Mike Reiss, Cravitz said the matter is that the Patriots deflated the balls.
Per me, we don't really know what the NFL means by 'the matter' and it likely means they are starting from whether or not the balls were deflated and then trying to figure out why if they even were.

AndyJohnson said:

First of all it is Florio, and secondly, directly from the article you quoted:

In this specific case, the investigation will focus on whether the balls were properly weighed and measured by officials before the game started, whether anything happened while the balls were in the custody of the referee, and whether anything happened after the balls were given by the referee to the ball attendant.

They appear to be investigating the referees, and at this point it would seem they have not even determined how many balls were under inflated, if any were, and by how much

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My emphasis. That's more than merely "investigating the referee". And Florio also says (and I know it's Florio, but it is easily verifiable) that the ball attendants are team employees, not league ones.

PatriotSeven said:

Per Mike Reiss, that the NFL is investigating the Colt's allegations that the Patriots deflated the balls.

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So it's the COLTS allegations. Well. That's certainly a trustworthy source!

Would the Browns fans or the Jaguar fans trade places with us ? Of course. We win, they lose.

Time to quit whining about deflated balls. Why the league has teams provide balls is more than absurd. If they want equal playing field that badly, take control of that crap.

Useless convo. Let's win the whole damn thing and throw soft footballs to the crowd as we run through town on duckboats.

condon84 said:

Why would Goodell have a vendetta against the Patriots? Kraft is one of his biggest supporters and was one of the owners who pushed for a contract extension for Goodell. The Patriots is one of the marquee NFL franchises and tainting their accomplishments would look bad on the NFL as a whole. It would make the NFL product look bad. That theory makes no sense.

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Because...reasons

PatriotSeven said:

Spygate ruined our brand? The Patriots have been getting even more rich since. The team's value has grown. The benefits of winning, even while punished for cheating, outweighed the repercussions.

That's just a fact.

He'll be even richer if we win this Superbowl, even if it turns out we cheated again, then if we would have lost honestly. He will sell more shirts, more hats, more gear, and people will buy them anyway, no matter what.

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No it's not. Coincidence is not causation. And spy gate didn't help them win.

And this might kill the brand if true. While not doing much if anything to help win. There's no evidence that Belichick would engage in reckless conduct like that again. Less evidence that he'd have Krafts tacit approval.

You are world class idiot or a troll.

PatriotSeven said:

I don't buy this at ALL and never have. Kraft is one of the most powerful owners in the NFL and we are now the 2nd most valuable franchise behind the Cowboys. Goodell would be out of a damn job, if he was constantly screwing over Kraft's team. Come on guys.

You get on a Jets forum, they say the same ****. That we have Goodell in our pocket. I't's getting silly. Goodell hates us. He loves the Ravens. He loves the Steelers. He loves the Jets. He loves Indy. He loves Peyton. He hates US.

This is fairy tales to make a fan feel better and that the commissioner is always in the OTHER guy's pocket. It's always the OTHER team getting favors. Never ours. We just always get screwed over.

It's a pretty typical way of dealing with these sorts of things, if you can't cope with it. Sometimes we are the victims, and other times we are the bullies. It is what it is. They do have an agenda, and sometimes it goes against you and sometimes for you. But to always think we are the victims, it's just plain delusional.

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Please explain why Goodell penalized the Pats a first round draft pick for having a camera in the wrong location when the penalty for cheating on the cap by the Bronco's and 49ers was only a third round pick. Explain to me how the supposedly confidential tape got leaked to his wife's tv station. Explain to me what happened to the investigation of tape leak. Explain to me why the tapes were destroyed when the only thing that could be shown would be other teams doing the same thing. Explain to me how the Jets can trip a player in a game and only have a flunky receive punishment. When you can rationally explain these facts, then I will happily admit that you are the moral compass of the Pats you purport to be.

This has been a bit of a buzz kill.

The reality is if this were made of any other team, it wouldn't be a blip on the radar as is evidence of that Panthers literally heating the balls.

But unfortunately it is not any other team, and given that it will garner more clicks on the internet and social media than an ebola outbreak, I understand why people are covering it.

What really bothers me is Belichick not coming out and unequivocally denying it.

Same old crap we got with spy gate.

“We’ll cooperate fully with whatever the league wants us to — whatever questions they ask us, whatever they want us to do.”

No sh!t you are going to do whatever the league says. That wasn't the question.

And then this

Questions: Were the Patriots using deflated footballs?

Answer “I just said, the first time I heard about it was this morning. Whatever they need from the league, that’s what we’ll do.”

Yes, you first heard about the league looking into it this morning. Again that wasn't the question.

At the end of they day I don't think there is anything different going on with the pats then any other team.

Hell on my local sports show they interiewed a former college coach who said he told his equipment folks if those balls (the throwing ones) were inflated one fraction of an ounce over 12.5 they were fired. And on a good day they were probably 12.

But I was looking forward to a couple weeks of watching nil network and going over the match ups and x's and o's.

Looks like another media blackout for me till the Super Bowl.

PatriotSeven said:

Publicly. How do you know what he told him privately? It's BB's job to take the fall. You don't actually expect Kraft to condone it publicly, do you?

He called him a shmuck? The horror! Where was the assurance? Punishment from Kraft? What moves did Kraft make to make sure it would never happen again? He was a shmuck. He got caught and made our franchise look bad.

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How do you he didnt make any moves to make sure it didnt happen again ? Are you seriously accusing them of doing this over and over behind the scenes even after that ?

rlcarr said:

My emphasis. That's more than merely "investigating the referee". And Florio also says (and I know it's Florio, but it is easily verifiable) that the ball attendants are team employees, not league ones.

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But the point is you cannot say the Patriots are being investigated for what happened later until after the referees are investigated and it is determined whether the balls given to the ball boy were pristine.
My whole point here is people are jumping the gun, and it is creating the perception that there is smoke when we do not know that yet.
This thread is going in a direction where people will conclude the league has something on the Patriots and may choose to do something about it or sweep it under the carpet which is absolutely inaccurate.

46 pages over an accusation from a butt hurt nobody Colts fan who has no proof or evidence other than the Pats broke a rule in the past so it must be true.

PatriotSeven said:

Spygate ruined our brand? The Patriots have been getting even more rich since. The team's value has grown. The benefits of winning, even while punished for cheating, outweighed the repercussions.

That's just a fact.

He'll be even richer if we win this Superbowl, even if it turns out we cheated again, then if we would have lost honestly. He will sell more shirts, more hats, more gear, and people will buy them anyway, no matter what.

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When are you claiming that we cheated before?

And you STILL haven't answered my question.

How do you explain how we deflated the footballs?

I keep checking espn.com for any new news. The first line of their article on this says: "The NFL is investigating whether the New England Patriots intentionally deflated footballs during their victory over the Indianapolis Colts in Sunday's rain-soaked AFC Championship Game."

Hope they screwed up and just assumed this.

**** the haters. Screw the crybaby fans. Go Cheatriots!

Hearing other franchises wine afterwards makes it all the sweeter, and it does make up for every time we got screwed over.

flasox27 said:

Please explain why Goodell penalized the Pats a first round draft pick for having a camera in the wrong location when the penalty for cheating on the cap by the Bronco's and 49ers was only a third round pick. Explain to me how the supposedly confidential tape got leaked to his wife's tv station. Explain to me what happened to the investigation of tape leak. Explain to me why the tapes were destroyed when the only thing that could be show would be other teams doing the same thing. Explain to me how the Jets can trip a player in a game and only have a flunky. When you can rationally explain these facts, then I will happily admit that you are the moral compass of the Pats you purport to be.

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I would need to know all the details, to draw a conclusion on if the punishments you are talking about were just or not and I don't. But I'm pretty sure the tapes were destroyed so the NFL, and the Patriots could save face as opposed to having them plastered all over the media. Jet's are not the only team getting favors. All teams do at one point or another. We get favors too. Stop being a homer.

tombonneau said:

To me, the most likely scenario for any skullduggery was coming out of the locker room to start the half and using an underinflated ball for just that one drive. That would be the easiest time to swap out a ball, you're in the locker room, no cameras, etc.

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But...the balls don't go into the locker room with the team (as far as I know).

moejr said:

I keep checking espn.com for any new news. The first line of their article on this says: "The NFL is investigating whether the New England Patriots intentionally deflated footballs during their victory over the Indianapolis Colts in Sunday's rain-soaked AFC Championship Game."

Hope they screwed up and just assumed this.

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Isn't the cited source on that article simply Kravitz BS?