[NFL] vBook: Colts vs Patriots (Deflategate)

[#1rish]

IMO they should go along the lines with what they did to Payton during bountygate if they are found guilty. Suspend Belicheck for the game and fine the team.

The NFL is a joke though, so nothing will probably come of this.

 

[Rhode Irish]

This stupid controversy is over. Pats, as usual, have perfect gameplan. Bill passes it off to Brady (which is actually correct if you know anything about football - the QB cares about the ball, not the HC), Brady will come out at 4pm with his "aw shucks" and winning smile, say he likes to make the balls soft but never thought about the PSI number and they've never said anything to him about it before. The Pats will pay a 25k fine, the media will look like jackasses, and we are on to Seattle. Pats win again. Masterful.

 

[Irish#1]

Belichick denied any wrongdoing on his part this morning in his press conference. Brady's press conference set for 4:00 today. Should be good.

How so? His answers won't be any different from BB's.

 

[Irish#1]

Well, I'm definitely interested to see what the final verdict is on this whole mess. If the Pats are found to be guilty then they need a fair punishment to fit the crime, though I am not quite sure what that is considering the ridiculous nature of allowing teams to scuff up balls and then how the balls are monitored and then given back to the teams. To be honest I never knew that this is how the NFL did it and I am more concerned with their practice than anything else. Something as important as the ball should never be left to the integrity of the teams using them. I am not saying that it is ok if the team did in fact alter the game balls, I am however suggesting that the NFL should take a little more accountability for not controlling such a thing. They control everything else, but not the most important piece of equipment used for the sport. They are more worried about fining Kap and Lynch for the types of shoes and headphones they are wearing. This to me is more everything that is wrong with the league rather than a another Pats are cheating scandal.

You have a good point. The kicking balls were secured several years back when they found teams were over-inflating to increase distance. Makes you wonder why they didn't put the same practice in for all balls at that time?

 

[irishfan]

This stupid controversy is over. Pats, as usual, have perfect gameplan. Bill passes it off to Brady (which is actually correct if you know anything about football - the QB cares about the ball, not the HC), Brady will come out at 4pm with his "aw shucks" and winning smile, say he likes to make the balls soft but never thought about the PSI number and they've never said anything to him about it before. The Pats will pay a 25k fine, the media will look like jackasses, and we are on to Seattle. Pats win again. Masterful.

This. Keep the blame off of Belichick. He can't afford another cheating strike. If they got caught in the regular season, or if anyone else got caught, this would be borderline a non-story.

 

[Ndaccountant]

This. Keep the blame off of Belichick. He can't afford another cheating strike. If they got caught in the regular season, or if anyone else got caught, this would be borderline a non-story.

I think it is a story b/c the team and coach have already been found to be cheating in the past. Combine that with the large amount of people outside the NE that can't stand the Pats and you have a story.

 

[Black Irish]

Ugh. I keep losing my post. Anyway. Losing 2 psi of pressure is pretty difficult to do just having weather act on it. If the balls were filled inside it would have to have been filled at a temp. upwards of 85 degrees at a minimum and filled just to the minimum pressure. If they were filled at the game time temp. and minimum pressure, the outside air temperature would have to have been as low as 20 degrees to cause the ball to lose 2 psi.

The Patriots deflated their balls.

Come on, Cack, say it's Global Warming at the root of all this. You know you want to. More evidence to push in the face of the deniers.

 

[Cackalacky]

Come on, Cack, say it's Global Warming at the root of all this. You know you want to. More evidence to push in the face of the deniers.

Wellllllll......: it was 50 degrees at kickoff in New England in January......

Just saying

Not really

Oh well.

 

[gkIrish]

This stupid controversy is over. Pats, as usual, have perfect gameplan. Bill passes it off to Brady (which is actually correct if you know anything about football - the QB cares about the ball, not the HC), Brady will come out at 4pm with his "aw shucks" and winning smile, say he likes to make the balls soft but never thought about the PSI number and they've never said anything to him about it before. The Pats will pay a 25k fine, the media will look like jackasses, and we are on to Seattle. Pats win again. Masterful.

I'm pretty sure that's not what's going to happen. At least not the 25k fine part. There's too much public outcry for the NFL to just do that. Bellicheat is responsible for his players.

 

[Monk]

It is so ridiculous that we are even talking about this (because it should have never happened) and most if the blame should go on the NFL. It is absurd to think that the governing body for this league would not supply the ball for the game. If you are asking teams to take care of this item then you should have known this was coming.

 

[irishfan]

I'm pretty sure that's not what's going to happen. At least not the 25k fine part. There's too much public outcry for the NFL to just do that. Bellicheat is responsible for his players.

Going to be hard to justify doing anything other than fining BB. And that could be pushing it. Pete Carroll didn't get in any hot water for about half his team using adderal or anything else last year.

It's different, but it's not different at the same time. There really isn't any precedent I can think of for punishing a coach for the actions of his players.

 

[Rhode Irish]

I'm pretty sure that's not what's going to happen. At least not the 25k fine part. There's too much public outcry for the NFL to just do that. Bellicheat is responsible for his players.

We will see. I think if the NFL investigates and they can't tie it to Bill then their hands are tied. They can't really bang Brady because so many other QBs have stepped in to say that the whole league manipulates the game balls. The public outcry was all about pinning it on Belichick, but if they could tie it to him he wouldn't have said what he said (he totally copped to spygate, by contrast). If NFL is really worried about outcry, they will get their pets in the media to start changing the narrative in the leadup to the announcement.

 

[Bubbles]

It is so ridiculous that we are even talking about this (because it should have never happened) and most if the blame should go on the NFL. It is absurd to think that the governing body for this league would not supply the ball for the game. If you are asking teams to take care of this item then you should have known this was coming.

No. The Patriots are evil, and all of them need to be banned for life, with the organization getting the death penalty. Haven't you been paying attention to this thread? Don't you know that clever, derogatory puns made from the team or team member's names mean that the general public is looking at this objectively and must therefore be right?

 

[Irish#1]

I think it is a story b/c the team and coach have already been found to be cheating in the past. Combine that with the large amount of people outside the NE that can't stand the Pats and you have a story.

What, the Pats are despised?

No. The Patriots are evil, and all of them need to be banned for life, with the organization getting the death penalty. Haven't you been paying attention to this thread? Don't you know that clever, derogatory puns made from the team or team member's names mean that the general public is looking at this objectively and must therefore be right?

I see you've finally come to your senses!

 

[wizards8507]

What, the Pats are despised?

...asks the Yankee fan.

...and the Notre Dame fan for that matter.

 

[Irish#1]

...asks the Yankee fan.

...and the Notre Dame fan for that matter.

I do have my crosses to bear. lol

 

[Whiskeyjack]

SBNation's Spencer Hall just published an article titled "How to love Bill Belichick, the NFL's last romantic":

There are two kinds of people in this world: those who like ornery, difficult, bastard type things, and those who don't. You either understand why you would love a dog who eats the bacon out of the fridge and turn your couch into a biohazard site, or you don't. Those people who don't understand this own Golden Retrievers, wear khakis, and drive Altimas. There is nothing wrong with any of that because those are all good and fine things, and I hope you enjoy them.

Then there are those of us who watch Bill Belichick stonewall an entire press conference after his team has been caught cheating and somehow come out of it liking him, and wanting to put on a hot bowl of coach-gruel for him as a sign of respect.*

*Belichick probably only eats coach-gruel, a kind of protein-rich goo he can hork down from a bowl placed in front of him at eight hour intervals. He eats it without hands, like a dog hopping on a bowl of gizzards. Do not think that coaches aren't thinking about mimicking this right now; they're probably ground-floor investors in Soylent, and heavy users.

There's a kind of sick logic to this affection for Belichick and his complete refusal to work on the same page with the rest of humanity. Belichick cheats, albeit at the fringes of a sport whose rules allow for a lot of on-field and extracurricular edge-seeking. He speaks as few words as possible to the media, though he's more than capable of giving brilliant answers to football questions when he likes. He does not understand clothing, or what it does besides prevent the body from embarrassing public exposure. He is an adult who periodically sleeps in his office without shame, a practice which is really only acceptable if you're a lighthouse keeper or fireman.*

*Someone please make sure Bill Belichick is not actually a lighthouse keeper, and that he does not actually live in the lighthouse built into Gillette Stadium.

The greatest football coach of an era lives like a bridge troll who pays only the bare minimum of humanity taxes. And you either find that hilarious, or you don't. I do, because Bill Belichick is only paying the barest of lip services to society past the requirements of his job, and I admire the hell out of that. It's a pessimist's life goal, like living in a place where your nearest neighbor's house couldn't be hit by a well-placed gunshot from your front porch.

And if Belichick makes things hard for reporters, then they're not being imaginative enough. You're getting a villain, a grumbly, mercurial villain so petty-villainous George R.R. Martin himself called the Patriots the "Lannisters of the NFL." Like Marshawn Lynch refusing to answer questions with anything but "yeah" and "I'm just thankful", he's making your work for you. Maybe someone's actually frustrated by this, but otherwise just enjoy turning this into kayfabe and thank your lucky stars people pay attention to your sport.

A full disclosure here before we go any further: On its best days, I hope for the NFL to be sucked into a galactic sewer pipe. This is a business that terminates its workers at will after asking them to perform their jobs at great risk. They then market that risk, and sell it with the gruntiest, stupidest cliches imaginable about masculinity and toughness, and use the media to propagate that myth. The owners press taxpayers for subsidies and complain about lack of support while threatening to move franchises. Depending on the day or the motive, they are either socialists when it comes to revenue sharing and stadium financing, or the most cutthroat capitalists in the world when it comes to player contracts and concussion settlements.

There is nothing fickle about the NFL's variety of "fickle:" name the day, and they will be reassembling their arguments into a different mound of gibberish to justify the pursuit of a higher profit at lower cost. It's a horrible, reductive, narrow-minded, and deeply unimaginative business that takes its best ideas from elsewhere and stifles innovation in the name of profit and safety.

Its focus on THE SHIELD at all costs is almost a form of integrity--almost, but not quite. If Bill Belichick makes me howl with laughter when straight-faced denying he, a legendary control freak among control freaks, knew anything about ball pressures, it's because Bill Belichick might be one of the few pieces of total integrity in that room. He is going to win football games, and will do anything to win them even if it makes your job harder as a reporter, or you think he's a total dick. It's a schoolboy's motivation, but ultimately it's a childish one to want to win, an aspirational one that makes little sense in a league where a .501 winning percentage can keep you employed for decades.*

*Hello, successful multimillionaire Jeff Fisher! You have more money than I will ever have, please give me some.

And unlike the need to sell PSLs or maximize a contract or continue to deny that football might have to be rebuilt from teh ground up as a sport, you can identify with that urge, yes? The abstract appeal to victory is one you can understand from a sentimental sense. Who doesn't like winning, and winner-y things? Victory's at least a human concept, a nod that we are playing a child's game, or at least a game.

Worrying about Bill Belichick -- or Tom Brady, or a few pounds of air -- somehow infringing on the integrity of the NFL would be a mild form of real, live insanity. The NFL doesn't have much in the way of integrity to worry about in the first place. The league is well on its way to becoming what the sport of boxing is now, with college football just behind it thanks to the very real risks posed by long-term exposure to the business' main ingredient, the game of football itself.

If this somehow still bothers you after considering everything else you could be mad about as an NFL fan or observer, well you can't be helped. You could at the very least respect the consistency here. Accuse him of cheating, and Bill Belichick will tell you nothing all day in the most bored, half-annoyed manner imaginable. It's all he's ever done, and it might be the most honest thing you'll hear in the NFL all day.

 

[wizards8507]

FWIW

It Is What It Is » Report: Tom Brady tells teammates behind closed doors he prefers footballs ‘a certain way’

 

[wizards8507]

Brady at the mic.

 

[gkIrish]

That fact that Brady likes his balls at the absolute minimum level just confirms in my mind that this was intentional by him at a minimum, and likely with his coach's knowledge.

Then again I don't believe any word that comes out of his mouth so whatever. All time sleaze QB and coach.

 

[gkIrish]

How has the NFL not contacted Brady yet? What a joke organization.

 

[NCND]

Is this really news? WTF

 

[gkIrish]

Sounding more and more like this wasn't the first time. How many close games did Patriots win this year?

Deflategate: Baltimore Ravens tipped off Indianapolis Colts about New England Patriots' deflating footballs | FOX Sports

 

[wizards8507]

NHL Live is cracking me up right now.

 

[wizards8507]

Sounding more and more like this wasn't the first time. How many close games did Patriots win this year?

Deflategate: Baltimore Ravens tipped off Indianapolis Colts about New England Patriots' deflating footballs | FOX Sports

LMAO so the Ravens' butthurt actually caused them to try and sabotage the AFC Championship game.

 

[gkIrish]

It's also laughable that Brady claims he couldn't tell the balls were deflated.

 

[palinurus]

Brady says he didn't alter the balls in any way. Now leave him alone.

Patriots QB Tom Brady: 'No Knowledge of Wrongdoing' on Deflate-Gate - NBC News

 

[irishfan]

Going to be tough for NFL to prove anything. The fact they haven't reached out to Brady yet is pathetic. I can't imagine they want this story to drag into next week?

 

[GoldenDomer]

 

[palinurus]

This would be easier to ignore except that no one really believes a single word Belichik says about anything.