NYT report on Exponent and Deflategate

[The Gr8est]

Good Lord, and I thought they were sleazy before. First the work for the tobacco industry denying the effects of second hand smoke now this doubly sleezy thing (I'll just let people read your link, it speaks for itself).

Faust managed to bargain with Mephistopheles for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures. I wonder what these guys are getting?

Rats season tickets on the 50 yard line?

 

[Jackson 2]

Rats season tickets on the 50 yard line?

IMO, that'd be pocket change compared to their total payoff.

 

[Peter Pat]

I did not read all the post, but I have a feeling everyone including the media is missing the big reveal in this article.

We all know the NFL investigation was extremely bias and the NFL wanted a guilty outcome, but now there is actual proof.

The lead exponet Scientist claimed that their research is independent from what the outcomes of the people who hire them want, ( he was defending his scientific method and credibility) and sometimes he stated a company will just bury the result, and had the evidence came back with a different conclusion the NFL would have buried the test results ,and you would have never heard about Exponent.

He just said the NFL wanted a guilty result, and would have hid their results from the public if the results did not say what they want. I know for most on this board finding that the NFL came to a conclusion and wanted to get that conclusion, and the investigation was clearly bias is old news, and it is like telling people water is wet.

But now we have, on record, the lead scientist stating that as a fact, not a Pats fan, not a Pats media binky, but the scientist hired by the law firm to prove the Pats guilty at all costs. How s that not the biggest take away from the story. It is there now for everyone to see, this should be the 10 inch headline.

 

[XLIX]

Looking at this article in a general sense, does anyone else think the timing of it's release is curious?

I had the exact same thought. Deflategate is, for all intents and purposes, no longer a story. Then, out of the blue, comes a huge puff piece defending Exponent. The timing was curious indeed.

 

[PatsFanSince74]

It is curious. Maybe an 18% drop in stock value over the last 3 months added to the fuel.

View attachment 14145

The big drop in July occurred the week after CA2 reversed Berman.
By my math, that comes out to around $250 million of lost market value.
Their two largest insider Shareholders lost around $1.3 and $2.0 million respectively during that period.
Over 10% of shares held by Insiders were dumped since July.
In addition five investment managers hold over a million shares each and I doubt they are happy.

Even their Wikipedia page includes statements like "The quality and neutrality of reports produced by the company have been called into question on various controversial topics. Common points of critique include corporate denialism and that, for industrial clients, only favorable reports are seemingly produced. Examples include Exponent arguing that dioxins do not cause cancer..."

So, this is a company in trouble and the article was clearly planted by the NFL's PR department with a reporter with a known anti-Patriots bias.

But, given that it was poorly received by people like Florio and that it never actually appeared in the print edition of the paper itself, along with the fact that the online version is accompanied by literally hundreds of critical and incredulous comments, I doubt it's working out the way they thought it would.

Too bad, huh?

 

[PatsFanSince74]

I did not read all the post, but I have a feeling everyone including the media is missing the big reveal in this article.

We all know the NFL investigation was extremely bias and the NFL wanted a guilty outcome, but now there is actual proof.

The lead exponet Scientist claimed that their research is independent from what the outcomes of the people who hire them want, ( he was defending his scientific method and credibility) and sometimes he stated a company will just bury the result, and had the evidence came back with a different conclusion the NFL would have buried the test results ,and you would have never heard about Exponent.

He just said the NFL wanted a guilty result, and would have hid their results from the public if the results did not say what they want. I know for most on this board finding that the NFL came to a conclusion and wanted to get that conclusion, and the investigation was clearly bias is old news, and it is like telling people water is wet.

But now we have, on record, the lead scientist stating that as a fact, not a Pats fan, not a Pats media binky, but the scientist hired by the law firm to prove the Pats guilty at all costs. How s that not the biggest take away from the story. It is there now for everyone to see, this should be the 10 inch headline.

That's probably why even their Wikipedia Page contains stuff like this:
"The quality and neutrality of reports produced by the company have been called into question on various controversial topics. Common points of critique include corporate denialism and that, for industrial clients, only favorable reports are seemingly produced. Examples include Exponent arguing that dioxins do not cause cancer..."
and
"According to the Los Angeles Times, "Exponent's research has come under fire from critics, including engineers, attorneys and academics who say the company tends to deliver to clients the reports they need to mount a public defense." Exponent's executive chairman responded that such criticism is a "cheap shot", responding "Do we tell our clients a lot of what they don't want to hear? Absolutely." but that they also often come up with results not favoring their clients. No concrete examples were however provided for the paper. In 2009, the Amazon Defense Coalition criticized an Exponent study commissioned by the energy company Chevron that dumping oil waste didn't cause cancer because Chevron's largest shareholder was a director on Exponent's board. The firm was also criticized for assisting industry efforts to reduce chromium regulation."

All in all, things aren't going too well for these guys.

 

[NashuaPats]

Nye failed to account for ambient air pressure. Degrassee Tyson made the same mistake, but fessed up when the error was pointed out to him. AFAIK, Nye never corrected himself.

Which is ridiculous. I haven't taken a science class in twenty years and I knew to take into account the atmospheric pressure. I spent about five minutes looking up the formulas on the internet and did the math correctly. Meanwhile the TV scientists failed which gave more credit to the false accusation. Even when Tyson corrected himself, he still mocked Belichick for overall being wrong even though he was absolutely correct. Pathetic.

 

[upstater1]

The idea that the Boston office wasn't consulted for fear of bias of Patriots fans is berserk in the extreme.

They don't trust their own scientist because of bias!!!!!!!!

As scientists, they should want every data point scrutinized and contested.

Never mind the very idea that scientists who favor the Patriots might be biased but that those who hate the Patriots are not!!!

 

[AtomicDawg]

Awesome take on the NYJFL*.

 

[Tony2046]

The big drop in July occurred the week after CA2 reversed Berman.
By my math, that comes out to around $250 million of lost market value.
Their two largest insider Shareholders lost around $1.3 and $2.0 million respectively during that period.
Over 10% of shares held by Insiders were dumped since July.
In addition five investment managers hold over a million shares each and I doubt they are happy.

Even their Wikipedia page includes statements like "The quality and neutrality of reports produced by the company have been called into question on various controversial topics. Common points of critique include corporate denialism and that, for industrial clients, only favorable reports are seemingly produced. Examples include Exponent arguing that dioxins do not cause cancer..."

So, this is a company in trouble and the article was clearly planted by the NFL's PR department with a reporter with a known anti-Patriots bias.

But, given that it was poorly received by people like Florio and that it never actually appeared in the print edition of the paper itself, along with the fact that the online version is accompanied by literally hundreds of critical and incredulous comments, I doubt it's working out the way they thought it would.

Too bad, huh?

There's a humorous side to their loss as well.

Exponent takes a hit, cuts guidance
Exponent dropped 11% after its second-quarter financials fell well short of what investors had expected to see. The engineering and scientific consulting firm saw revenue decline 3%, contributing to an 11% drop in net income. Earnings of $0.38 per share missed the consensus forecast by $0.05, and the company's environmental and health segment was hit especially hard, with sales declining 20% year over year.

So it looks like their environmental research department is deflating.

Suck that air Exponent.

 

[Koma]

The idea that the Boston office wasn't consulted for fear of bias of Patriots fans is berserk in the extreme.

They don't trust their own scientist because of bias!!!!!!!!

As scientists, they should want every data point scrutinized and contested.

Never mind the very idea that scientists who favor the Patriots might be biased but that those who hate the Patriots are not!!!

What the Exponent guy should have said was that his company could have used a team from their Boston office, all of them Patriots ST holders, and come up with the same results.

Instead, he implied that the Boston office would skew things in favor of the Patriots. Then, he brought on at least one Giants fan to the team, which means he probably altered things against the Patriots.

 

[zydecochris]

There's a humorous side to their loss as well.

So it looks like their environmental research department is deflating.

Suck that air Exponent.

Unfortunately for Exponent's business model, recent market analysis indicates that the need for their type of work peaked in 2015 (when Goodell was doing the Wells Report), see the newest market projections below:

 

[PatsFanSince74]

There's a humorous side to their loss as well.




So it looks like their environmental research department is deflating.

Suck that air Exponent.

It's the kind of story that just breaks your heart, isn't it?

 

[TruthSeeker]

As much as I hate to revisit deflategate, the biggest flaw in all this nonsense was the data gathering. They literally were using an individual's "best recollection" for the starting values.

Actually, they literally rejected an individual's "best recollection" when it didn't lead to the desired result.