"I don't get why the League would want to make Brady look guilty if he isn't"

[SVN]

Believe once the rush to judgment calms down the media will read the report for what it is. At that point the tide will turn in Brady's favor. That report is horrible with conclusions that are inexplainable. Most media reporters haven't read it, however in the next few days a few enterprising reporters will begin ripping it apart.

Don't believe Brady will be punished - the risk is too great for the NFL

Not 1% chance of it happening. Because it goes away from the popular narrative. I just wanted tom to say to jim gray ,in fact have jim gray ask the question direct if he did anything or not and go from there. Right there is too much lawyer speak which is hard to filter.
But I have no illusion the tide will turn . People like peter king who have read the report cant fathom the deflator comments made in may .

 

[SVN]

Mark Daniels gets it

@MarkDanielsPJ
I'm surprised more hasn't been made of this text. Jastremski is saying the balls should've been around 13 psi. pic.twitter.com/m7S4Bwf6HA

@MarkDanielsPJ
Had Jestremski said the balls should've been around 11, people would've gone nuts. Instead, he's saying they should've been legal.

@MarkDanielsPJ
So much is being made over the "deflator" and "needle" comment, but what about the only text that references psi???

@MarkDanielsPJ
Brady's maintained all along that he wanted the balls at 12.5 psi. I'm not seeing much to suggest otherwise, but that's my opinion.

I have been saying that all the time. The 16psi and 13 psi legal limit text exchange completely exonerates brady . No one has cared to point this out in the national media and we havent heard from brady about this either. Perhaps this is the part of brady's testimony which yee is arguing has been left out of the report. unless mcnally took it upon himself to mess with the balls after the refs inflated it to over 12.5 and there is no proof of that except the bathroom break. Mcnally's testimony unfortunately has been all over the place to consider him reliable .

 

[SVN]

I strongly disagree. If Brady gets suspended for two games or more for possibly knowing about letting 5-7% of the air out of a few footballs, there will be comparisons to Ray Rice's two game suspension for brutally mauling his wife, captured on video. That won't play well anywhere, especially with the NFL's fastest growing fan base - women.

The PR right for the league is to show it doesnt show any favortism to the patriots. If its a 2 game suspension,goodell will be killed by the national media. The harsher the punishment the better goodell looks in the peoples eys outside of NE. He may lose the aribitration but at least has a chance to show he appeased the public. They wont compare the ray rice situation because when has the NFL been logical.?

 

[Rob0729]

BTW, on page 227 of the Wells Report, it reads:

"It is our conclusion that it is more probable than not that Tom Brady saw the Ray Rice video before Roger Goodell made his initial ruling of a two game suspension."

 

[Jim Colclough fan]

Not 1% chance of it happening. Because it goes away from the popular narrative. I just wanted tom to say to jim gray ,in fact have jim gray ask the question direct if he did anything or not and go from there. Right there is too much lawyer speak which is hard to filter.
But I have no illusion the tide will turn . People like peter king who have read the report cant fathom the deflator comments made in may .

Let's give it a week or two. We've only had one side of the story (outrageous Wells Report headlines) come forward. Pro football writers will begin digging into the report and the story-line may change. Believe Brady will speak in the proper moment. At that time he'll satisfy his fans as well as the fence sitters.

 

[TomPatriot]

The PR right for the league is to show it doesnt show any favortism to the patriots. If its a 2 game suspension,goodell will be killed by the national media. The harsher the punishment the better goodell looks in the peoples eys outside of NE. He may lose the aribitration but at least has a chance to show he appeased the public. They wont compare the ray rice situation because when has the NFL been logical.?

The NFL won't compare it. But several prominent sports writers will. And women's organizations will notice. You give Tom Brady a 6 game suspension and Ray Rice 2? Women are 45% of the NFL fanbase and the fastest growing segment. So you give the handsome QB with"general awareness" a harsher penalty than the wife-beater who was caught on video? I am no PR expert but that seems daft.

 

[SVN]

The NFL won't compare it. But several prominent sports writers will. And women's organizations will notice. You give Tom Brady a 6 game suspension and Ray Rice 2? Women are 45% of the NFL fanbase and the fastest growing segment. So you give the handsome QB with"general awareness" a harsher penalty than the wife-beater who was caught on video? I am no PR expert but that seems daft.

It is Daft but which sports writer will compare. ? Idiotic writers are already comparing brady to Arod and Lance Armstrong.

 

[mgteich]

I have heard this a lot in recent days. The argument is that there needs to be motivation for a conspiracy and there is none because Brady being guilty is the worst possible scenario for the league to have one of their most marquee players being a cheater. But I ask is it?

The League has gotten out pretty good for this. For the last few months, the growing feeling is the League was incompetent for having a 100 day investigation that will produce nothing and they may have intentionally smeared the Patriots too boot. Now they released a report that goes out of its way to exonerate anyone in the League of any wrong doing and ignore the leaks all together while burying Brady and no one is complaining about the League anymore.

The best way to take heat off yourself is to make someone else the bigger enemy. Goodell comes down hard on Brady and the Pats and they win a lot of good will back with the rest of the country for finally taking a hard stance and not sweep things under the rug. If Goodell gives Brady a 6-8 game suspension, he will be commended for most of the country. People will forget the Ray Rice stuff. People will forget the Adrian Peterson stuff. And now Brady is the bad guy. I think Goodell thinks this has been a good week for him.

Do I think Goodell was part of a sting? No. I think others were. Do I think Goodell is using this to rehab his image at Brady's expense? Sure.

But like most things Goodell does, it will likely come back to bite him. Brady is not going to go down quietly and between him and Giselle, he has unlimited resources to fight this if he chooses to. If he feels clearing his name is worth spending millions and millions to do so, he will do everything he can to fight it. This could end up blowing up in Goodell's face.

I think that Goodell wanted to find the Patriots guilty. Wells went digging to find guilt and not necessarily the truth. I think if the Wells report did not have the Pats' guilty, it would have been the worst case scenario for Goodell and the League. Making Brady the fall guy might not be ideal, but it is far better than coming up with nothing after all this.

I thought that I'd bump the original post.
=======
Agreed.

The open question is why the union did not formally object to the requests to provide emails and phone records.

 

[tom444]

Let's give it a week or two. We've only had one side of the story (outrageous Wells Report headlines) come forward. Pro football writers will begin digging into the report and the story-line may change. Believe Brady will speak in the proper moment. At that time he'll satisfy his fans as well as the fence sitters.

Pro football writers? Ha ha, now there's a serious group of investigative reporters.

 

[vyrago]

Pro football writers? Ha ha, now there's a serious group of investigative reporters.

Hope everyone listened to this Matt Chatham piece: http://media.weei.com/a/104935882/m...-15.htm?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

 

[lurker1965]

I have heard this a lot in recent days. The argument is that there needs to be motivation for a conspiracy and there is none because Brady being guilty is the worst possible scenario for the league to have one of their most marquee players being a cheater. But I ask is it?

The League has gotten out pretty good for this. For the last few months, the growing feeling is the League was incompetent for having a 100 day investigation that will produce nothing and they may have intentionally smeared the Patriots too boot. Now they released a report that goes out of its way to exonerate anyone in the League of any wrong doing and ignore the leaks all together while burying Brady and no one is complaining about the League anymore.

The best way to take heat off yourself is to make someone else the bigger enemy. Goodell comes down hard on Brady and the Pats and they win a lot of good will back with the rest of the country for finally taking a hard stance and not sweep things under the rug. If Goodell gives Brady a 6-8 game suspension, he will be commended for most of the country. People will forget the Ray Rice stuff. People will forget the Adrian Peterson stuff. And now Brady is the bad guy. I think Goodell thinks this has been a good week for him.

Do I think Goodell was part of a sting? No. I think others were. Do I think Goodell is using this to rehab his image at Brady's expense? Sure.

But like most things Goodell does, it will likely come back to bite him. Brady is not going to go down quietly and between him and Giselle, he has unlimited resources to fight this if he chooses to. If he feels clearing his name is worth spending millions and millions to do so, he will do everything he can to fight it. This could end up blowing up in Goodell's face.

I think that Goodell wanted to find the Patriots guilty. Wells went digging to find guilt and not necessarily the truth. I think if the Wells report did not have the Pats' guilty, it would have been the worst case scenario for Goodell and the League. Making Brady the fall guy might not be ideal, but it is far better than coming up with nothing after all this.

OK this will be long as different groups of fans hate the Patriots/Brady for different reasons.

First there are fans of certain teams who have had there dreams crushed, I'm thinking Colts, Steelers, Texans, Broncos, Ravens - teams that are or once were good, but the Patriots stood in their way. You can blame the refs, or hey, we all KNOW the Patriots cheated. There is is no other way they could stop MY team.
Second are fans of bad teams. (They will claim to be NFL fans after it is obvious their team sucks yet again this year.) Every year they get told their team is not doing it right, be it drafting "flashy work out wonders" (Raiders) or WRs in the first round (Detroit) or filling the roster with bad character guys (Cincy) every year they hear "why can't you be like New England?" There are examples for every team that had a long down period in the last 15 years. Although that comparison may be true, it put the Patriots in the spot of the kid in grammar school that is a teacher's pet because he does homework, etc.
Then there are player fans. Peyton Manning fans have nothing left than hating Tom for any reason. Ball to low, forget the Ideal Gas Law, he cheats unlike Manning. If socks-gate starts, Tom is a filthy cheater who does not pull up his socks like Peyton.
Montana fans are now feeling the heat. Before they had 4>3 but now they are sweating, so they grab at straws. Montana never had to CHEAT with DEFLATED balls...(yes, stick'um, but that does not effect a Montana fan.) For how it effects them, see Peyton Manning fans above.
Then there are casual fans. They see the page 1 headline PATRIOTS CHEATED and miss the section D 34 We regret the error.
Player fans are often team fans and the effect is cumulative for them.

 

[wolverinejoe80]

guys think simply. NFL is always above players. they are always about the league. they will do whatever it takes to cover their sorry ass.

 

[Silver Blue&Red]

I thi nk this has gotten to the point that it needs to go to actual legal court. Just like some people sue private organizations they belong to in actual court. This is such a blatant railroad, set up, defamation case. There are people's reputations online. The right to earn a living. I know they have a collective bargaining agreement with the NFL, but this is getting to be way beyond that. Brady has got to come back swinging, big time. In my mind, there are two different opinions on this whole thing. Those who think this is BS and Brady is innocent and those who think this is BS and just don't like Brady. I am just fuming over the blatant biased that is being allowed to happen here. Jesus, what has this society come to? Even people I know who have a level head, are questioning Brady's "integrity"