Another article from a two bit sycophant at WEEI. Oh wow, I am convinced now, it is all a frame job.
You aren't including Mike Florio in that swipe, are you? The italicized part is his, and the link was included. I am not aware that he has any ties or allegiances to Boston/New England.
I can certainly understand why everyone will dismiss any person/source with ties to Boston, but what I find a bit odd is that those same people will so easily accept the NFL's version without questioning it, especially when consulting firm involved has a track record of bias, having previously "proven" tobacco doesn't cause cancer, asbestos isn't bad for workers and there's no harm in dumping toxic waste in the Amazon rain forest (who do you think paid for those reports?).
An NFL-sanctioned witch hunt on the Patriots still makes little sense. Why?
I'm not accepting or accepting what the NFL says at all, because they didn't really say anything.
The Patriots and Tom Brady will be just fine. What difference does it make anyway? In the long run, this will be nothing but an interesting side note trivia question someday.
Will it keep Brady out of the Hall? No.
Will the NFL take wins, titles and rings away? No.
A witch hunt? I don't think so. Didn't they choose this investigation team very carefully? Isn't that why the words in the final report as so well chosen, so as to avoid litigation.
Show me where in the report there is one piece of evidence, circumstantial or otherwise, that shows Brady knew anything about deflating footballs AFTER the referee is supposed to have inspected them. Perhaps Brady gave the impression to the equipment guys that he wanted them to push it below the limits if possible and see if the refs catch it, but I'd bet my house that he never directed them to deflate them after inspection. Show me evidence of THAT and I will show you a problem.
You don't think those emails implicating Brady of giving the equipment guy shoes, autographs, and the "50,000 Yard football" are, at least, circumstantial evidence that Brady knew?
The worst part of this is if Brady gets suspended we will have to listen to gondicar and piacere whine about it for the next 6 months. For that reason alone I hope this gets dropped. 😛
LMAO , now thats funny .
You don't think those emails implicating Brady of giving the equipment guy shoes, autographs, and the "50,000 Yard football" are, at least, circumstantial evidence that Brady knew?
A friend of mine used to work for the Pats and is good friends with Brady to this day (if you saw the photo of Brady with his crew at the Derby, my friend is in it). I have never mentioned that before, and I only mention it now because when my friend worked for the Pats he used to get me signed helmets and balls for various non-profits that I am involved with and do fundraising for. Probably a dozen items over the course of time, literally whenever I asked. Not just Brady but also by Vinateri (his sig on a football brought in almost as much as Brady's at various charity auctions right after the first two Superbowl wins) and a few others. I have a signed Brady ball addressed to me for my 40th birthday. All that just because I know a guy who knows Brady, who I have never even been in the same room with and owes me absolutely nothing. The point is that all those guys, and especially TB12, sign and give A LOT of stuff to a lot of people, way more than any of us probably realize.
[Edited on 5/8/2015 by gondicar]
A witch hunt? I don't think so. Didn't they choose this investigation team very carefully? Isn't that why the words in the final report as so well chosen, so as to avoid litigation.
They chose the team carefully alright...apparently they chose the team so carefully as to ensure the outcome that they wanted, and they chose their words carefully because they wanted to point their finger at someone even though there is no smoking gun and they know it could blow back on them...
In an effort for transparency, one of NFL commissioner Roger Goodell’s favorite words, it’s more likely than not a prudent exercise to raise questions about the way in which the DeflateGate investigation was handled.
Questions are being raised about Exponent, the California-based engineering firm employed by the NFL and Wells in the scientific part of their investigation.
A February 2010 article in the Los Angeles Times, which was brought to my attention on Twitter by Rich Hill of Pats Pulpit, alleges that Exponent is a “hired gun” called upon by major corporations to “weather messy disputes.”
The article also states that Exponent’s scientific standards are right to be criticized.
“But 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 has represented many major high-profile companies, including Toyota, Ford, Suzuki, Exxon and others. Often times, according to the article, Exponent reaches questionable conclusions based on their allegiances.
“[In May 2009], the Amazon Defense Coalition alleged that an Exponent study finding that dumping oil waste in the Ecuadorean rain forest did not increase cancer rates was tainted because the firm’s largest shareholder was a member of the board of Chevron Corp., which commissioned the study.”
But that’s not all, either.
In fact, Exponent once argued for Big Tobacco that secondhand smoke does not lead to cancer, which we now know is false.
“Stanton Glantz, [is] a cardiologist at UC San Francisco who runs a database on the tobacco industry that contains thousands of pages of Exponent research arguing, among other things, that secondhand smoke does not cause cancer.”
[Edited on 5/8/2015 by gondicar]
The worst part of this is if Brady gets suspended we will have to listen to gondicar and piacere whine about it for the next 6 months. For that reason alone I hope this gets dropped. 😛
LMAO , now thats funny .
I promise I won't ever bring it up unless someone else does. 😛
The Patriots and Tom Brady will be just fine. What difference does it make anyway? In the long run, this will be nothing but an interesting side note trivia question someday.
Will it keep Brady out of the Hall? No.
Will the NFL take wins, titles and rings away? No.
X2 -- not worth paying attention to
This is obviously not going to hurt Brady's earning power. He just sealed a new endorsement deal with Cheat 'O's.
You can slice it and dice any way you want. If your a NE fan
or not you will believe/think what you want out of this. I am sure there
is more to come.
What I find to be the best thing out of this so far are
the texts between these two guys!!! You can't write stuff this good!!
Priceless!!!! I hope SNL does a skit about this, two guys with thick "Boston" accents
reading these texts and so forth.....could be good!!
Why would you call yourself "the deflator"?!?! 😉 😛 😉 😛 😉 😛 😮
After a game between the Patriots and Jets on Oct. 16, 2014, Brady “complained angrily about the inflation level of the game balls,” leading to the following text-message exchange between the two equipment managers:
McNally: Tom sucks … im going make that next ball a [expletive] balloon
Jastremski: Talked to him last night. He actually brought you up and said you must have a lot of stress trying to get them done …
Jastremski: I told him it was. He was right though…
Jastremski: I checked some of the balls this morn… The refs [expletive] us…a few of then were at almost 16
Jastremski: They didnt recheck then after they put air in them
McNally: [Expletive] tom … 16 is nothing…wait till next sunday
Jastremski: Omg! Spaz
Here’s some texts from Oct. 21. They’re still a little salty at Brady.
McNally: Make sure you blow up the ball to look like a rugby ball so tom can get used to it before sunday
Jastremski: Omg
Oct. 23, 2014. Still plotting against Brady ahead of the upcoming game against the Bears.
Jastremski: Can’t wait to give you your needle this week
McNally: [Expletive] tom….make sure the pump is attached to the needle…..[expletive] watermelons coming
Jastremski: So angry
McNally: The only thing deflating sun..is his passing rating
The next day, McNally seemed to indicate that Brady would need to pay up if he wanted the balls the way he liked them.
Jastremski: I have a big needle for u this week
McNally: Better be surrounded by cash and newkicks….or its a rugby sunday
McNally: [Expletive] tom
Jastremski: Maybe u will have some nice size 11s in ur locker
McNally: Tom must really be working your balls hard this week
What seems to be something of a smoking gun, when McNally calls himself “the deflator” and mentions taking the story to ESPN, came on May 9, 2014, before the start of the season.
McNally: You working
Jastremski: Yup
McNally: Nice dude….jimmy needs some kicks….lets make a deal…..come on help the deflator
McNally: Chill buddy im just [expletive] with you ….im not going to espn……..yet
[Edited on 5/8/2015 by jszfunk]
Everyone has a plan, till you get punched in the face,
There is no middle.
There is Patriot world, where everything is awesome, Bob Kraft is Gandhi, Bill Belichick is a god, and Tom Brady would never do anything to disgrace the uniform or the game.
And there is the rest of the free-thinking world. Where reality lives.
In Patriot world, the NFL is out to get you. Everybody is out to get you. It’s a conspiracy. It’s a sting. The Wells Report is ridiculously flawed. There are factual errors. The league was OK playing half of the AFC Championship game with footballs that might have not been inflated properly. The other 31 franchises are insanely jealous of the Patriots’ success. A couple of New England’s adult ball boys maybe went off the reservation, but all the evidence against the Patriots is circumstantial. The league has nothing.
In the rest of the free-thinking world, the Patriots are liars and cheaters. They were caught red-handed in Spygate in 2007 and now the league has got them again. The Patriots intentionally and systematically deflated footballs, below legal limits, to accommodate Brady. They did it because they believed it gave them a competitive advantage (more completions, less fumbling, better play in bad weather — all Patriot trademarks). Brady knew about it, lied about it, then withheld information from the Wells investigators.
View Story
Volin: Weighing possible punishments for Brady, Patriots
A suspension longer than one or two games for Brady would feel excessive.
None of the above is going to change. Folks are going to align themselves with one side or the other. Even after the penalties are announced.
It feels like the sanctions are coming soon. And it’s pretty clear that the NFL has made up its mind about this.
Officially speaking, the NFL’s executive vice president, Troy Vincent, will hand out the punishment(s), but we all know this is commissioner Roger Goodell’s call. And it’s a huge one. I heard some “expert” on TV Friday say that Goodell’s ruling on Patriot sanctions would be a bigger deal than Kenesaw Mountain Landis’s decision to ban eight White Sox players for life after they conspired to throw the 1919 World Series.
Wow. Fallout from deflating footballs is now a bigger deal than fixing the World Series? We are certainly in uncharted waters.
The Patriots have done nothing to inspire mercy from Goodell since the report was released Wednesday. They have done what they always do. They have obstructed the investigation while they denied everything. They have pointed fingers and demanded apologies. They have tried to position themselves as victims. Brady’s suddenly available flyweight agent has been crying foul to every media outlet. Meanwhile, the Patriots’ formidable media cartel has been working overtime, poking holes in the report and defending the franchise against enemy forces.
None of it matters, of course. The Patriots are members of a club, and the judge and jury of this club is Goodell. And he has strong feelings on these kinds of transgressions.
Here’s what Goodell said at his pre-Super Bowl news conference Jan. 30:
“All of us want to make sure that the rules are being followed, and if we have any information where the potential is that those rules were violated, I have to pursue that and I have to pursue that aggressively . . . We are a league of rules . . . If there are rules that dictate the pressure in footballs . . . we’re going to enforce those rules . . . Whether a competitive advantage was actually gained or not is secondary in my mind as to whether that rule was violated. That’s the integrity of our game, and when those rules are violated, we will take that seriously.’’
Remember, this is what Goodell said before the Patriots lawyered up and made Jim McNally unavailable after the investigators got a look at McNally’s texts. As good as flipping off Wells feels (“Yeah, stick it to ’em Bob, tell ’em go take a hike, Bill!”), New England’s refusal to fully cooperate is likely to hurt the Patriots when the punishment is doled out. And let’s not forget the Patriots have a record of cheating. They have a prior.
Goodell has been part of an unholy alliance with Kraft and CBS boss Les “I love Patriot Place” Moonves, but now he must choose. Kraft threw down the gauntlet during Super Bowl week. Last week, when the report was finally released, Kraft issued a tantrum/statement, expressing his disappointment with the investigation and challenging the findings. Then, on Thursday night at Salem State, Brady rejected an opportunity to state his innocence.
This looks bad for Fanboy Nation. Patriots fans need to stop arguing about the science and the sting. Don’t convince yourself that “more probably than not’’ gives the Patriots a loophole. It doesn’t. In NFL-speak, “more probably than not’’ means the investigator has determined that Brady and the Patriots are guilty of knowingly breaking the rules of competition. It doesn’t matter that this might not hold up in a court of law. This is not a court of law.
For those who would question Wells’s integrity, here’s what Goodell said on Jan. 30:
“Ted Wells’s integrity is impeccable.’’
So, where’s the daylight for the Patriots? The commissioner said he will take rules violation seriously. He said his investigator is impeccable. And his investigator has determined that the Patriots are guilty.
Is it any wonder that folks in Foxborough are nervous?
Sorry. Time to parachute down from Planet Patriot and introduce yourself to reality. A hard rain’s a-gonna fall on Tom Brady and the Patriots.
Everyone has a plan, till you get punched in the face,
This article isn’t remotely surprising in the least. Did the NFL actually tell Walt Anderson that his best recollection of weighing the Pats footballs was wrong because it would have proven they were innocent? I don't know, but honestly should anything be a surprise at this point considering how badly this "investigation" has been run from the outset? Rule #1 of a Witch Hunt. There are no rules. Someone needs to investigate the investigators.
Wells report disregards Anderson’s “best recollection” on a key piece of evidence
Posted by Mike Florio on May 10, 2015, 1:16 PM EDT
Earlier today, I spent way too much time hunting-and-pecking my way through an item regarding the problems with the two pressure gauges used to measure the Patriots footballs at halftime of the AFC title game. I spent so much time focused on the nuances that I didn’t give proper attention to perhaps the most obvious problem of all.
To summarize, the NFL had two air pressure gauges available at the game. One had a Wilson logo on the back and a long, crooked needle. The other did not have a Wilson logo, and a shorter, straighter needle.
The gauge with the logo and the longer needle generated higher measurements of the Patriots footballs at halftime, ranging from 0.3 PSI to 0.45 PSI higher for each of the 11 footballs. If that gauge — the one with the logo and the longer, crooked needle — were used to set the PSI for the balls before the game began, the measurements from that gauge are the right measurements to rely upon at halftime. And those measurements show that there was no tampering, because most of the footballs fell within the 11.52 to 11.32 PSI range for halftime, as predicted by the Ideal Gas Law.
Referee Walt Anderson didn’t clearly recall which gauge he used to set the pressure in the Patriots balls at 12.5 PSI before the game. Page 52 of the Wells report reveals that it was Anderson’s “best recollection” that he used before the game the gauge with the logo and the longer, crooked needle. In other words, Anderson recalls using the gauge before the game that, based on the halftime measurements, leads to a finding of no tampering.
So how did Ted Wells get around the “best recollection” of Walt Anderson? Wells persuaded Anderson to admit that it’s “certainly possible” he used the other gauge. And the company hired to provide technical support for the Wells report concluded based on a convoluted explanation appearing at pages 116-17 of the report that it is “more probable than not” that Anderson used the other gauge.
In other words, the Wells report concludes on this critical point that it’s “more probable than not” that Anderson’s “best recollection” was wrong.
Why should Anderson’s “best recollection” be doubted? He knew that there was a concern about tampering with the footballs. He presumably was paying more careful attention to the process of getting the balls filled with air before the AFC title game than he normally does.
So which gauge did you use, Walt, realizing that there could be a question later about the inflation of the footballs?
“Well, my best recollection is that I used the one with the long, crooked needle.”
Is it possible, Walt, that you used the other gauge that was available? You know, the one that for whatever reason measures the air pressure at 0.3 to 0.45 PSI lower?
“Well, I don’t know about that. . . .”
Isn’t it possible, Walt?
“Well, it’s certainly possible.”
That’s how investigations that start with a predetermined outcome and work backward unfold. (Holy crap, I think I’m beginning to agree with Don Yee.) And that’s why Wells should have concluded based on the scientific evidence that the question of whether tampering occurred in connection with the AFC title game is inconclusive.
Regardless of whether certain executives in the league office wanted the Patriots to be found guilty of cheating or whether Wells personally believed based on the non-scientific evidence that cheating must have happened, something prevented Wells from making a truly objective assessment of the scientific evidence. And a truly objective assessment of the scientific evidence should have led to this conclusion: It’s unclear whether tampering occurred.
This doesn’t mean the Patriots should be exonerated. The texts between Larry and Curly and the potential involvement of Tom Brady a/k/a Moe Howard requires further examination regarding whether there was a pattern of deliberate efforts to get the footballs below 12.5 PSI at kickoff on a regular basis. And Tom Brady should be presumed guilty at best and suspended indefinitely until he gives up his text messages and emails at worst for his failure to cooperate with the investigation.
But as it relates to the AFC title game, the scientific evidence was resolved not simply by a coin flip, but by a coin flip that Walt Anderson recalls as landing heads, and that someone else decided was actually tails. If discipline is going to be imposed on the Patriots or any individuals, it needs to be based on something other than whatever did or didn’t happen before the AFC title game.
[Edited on 5/11/2015 by gondicar]
Ouch. 4 game suspension for Tommy Boy.
no worries.
Bill has a master plan... 😛 
Patriots Champions.
has a nice "ring" to it...
so...who's wearing their Malcolm Butler tee shirts today?
heh heh...
4...and counting.
4...and counting.
4 game suspension? 😉
Everything in Moderation. Including Moderation.
4...and counting.
4 game suspension? 😉
😛
it's no wonder I start smiling as soon as I see your name in this thread...
Trying to decide if I should get this now, or if I should wait until next Feb and get the new one after they win #5.
4...and counting.
4 game suspension? 😉
😛
it's no wonder I start smiling as soon as I see your name in this thread...
Heh thanks! Every now and then I come up with something.
Everything in Moderation. Including Moderation.
Trying to decide if I should get this now, or if I should wait until next Feb and get the new one after they win #5.
Remember the slogan in Pittsburgh when they were going for their fifth, "One of the thumb in '81"?
Everything in Moderation. Including Moderation.
Trying to decide if I should get this now, or if I should wait until next Feb and get the new one after they win #5.
Remember the slogan in Pittsburgh when they were going for their fifth, "One of the thumb in '81"?
Sure do. When I was playing pop warner football in the late 70s our team was called the Steelers and we used the same logo/colors as the NFL team so the Steelers were my "other" team for a long time. I even had the Iron City beer cans that had each championship team photo on them. But that all changed when I met Wharfrat, now the Steelers are more like mortal enemies. 😛
Trying to decide if I should get this now, or if I should wait until next Feb and get the new one after they win #5.
Remember the slogan in Pittsburgh when they were going for their fifth, "One of the thumb in '81"?
Sure do. When I was playing pop warner football in the late 70s our team was called the Steelers and we used the same logo/colors as the NFL team so the Steelers were my "other" team for a long time. I even had the Iron City beer cans that had each championship team photo on them. But that all changed when I met Wharfrat, now the Steelers are more like mortal enemies. 😛
Heh I forgot about those cans. My brother and I had those too. Forgot about them. No clue what happened to them. I will have to ask my mom if they are in her basement.
Regarding Wharf, the bastid is also a Notre Dame fan as you might know. 😉
Everything in Moderation. Including Moderation.
I'm an ND fan too. Big time.
my dad played there (with 3 Heisman winners)
Patriots, ND.
I'm a pariah... 😛
