here's a pats thread for everyone to talk about patritos shit because nobody else cares

kinda understandable - the bountygate penalties were really steep especially considering how spurious a fair amount of the accusations levied against the saints ended up being

the penalty shd be the pats balls get over inflated all season, an eye for an eye

its too bad the pats didnt win the spygate superbowl wld be cooler if the benefited maximally from their evil deeds

also less emotionally traumatic for me

losing 33% of one's season over deflated balls kinda seems ridic. I mean did the ball deflation also prevent the Colts from playing pass defense ?

of course not the colts sucked

idk feel like its fine for the league to come down hard on cheating what are sports but rules after all makes u think

I think every holding penalty should result in the offender having to ride a little scooter in circles on the sideline for two minutes while the rest of the team plays down a man

just like hockey

lol seems reasonable

speaking as someone who isnt a pats fan really but can appreciate their talent/achievements, this whole thing didn't like offend my sensibilities or anything, it's more like...why bother, aren't you the goddamn patriots, you're one of the 3 or 4 best teams in the NFL, winning games is what y'all /do/

of course if the suspension was any longer or any shorter, then brady's first game back wouldn't be a sunday night game. against the colts. which is a little bit too, um, scripted.

(and i think while the investigation was completely silly, the punishment is fair enough considering everything, including brady's completely remorseless reaction.)

the league shd be giving the patriots an award for putting together one of the alltime great sports heals imho

like im not sure even the steinbrenner yankees were this cartoonishly malicious

should add a 'tom brady hands' unit to stat sheet for measuring total passing distance by a QB so that super cool QBs like me can laugh at tom's tiny hands

xp lol, they weren't at all! steinbrenner himself was bc he had private detectives try and dig up shit on people the team wasn't really aside from vintage era a-rod.

(among other classic george behaviors)

it's also why i've never been into the pats despite having parents from boston, being raised to cheer the other boston teams and living here now - not the heel aspect i dont dig so much as the slavish worship similar to what the yankees always got but hey different strokes/different folks

/scarface im the bad guy scene with bradys head on there or w/e/

if i had grown up here from jump would be in full homer anger mode i'm sure, i'm not above such things

xp lolllll

whereas the Stengel/Houk Yankees were famous for Whitey Ford discreetly doctoring the ball and Yogi Berra intentionally nicking it on his shinguards before throwing back to the pitcher.

and there was Mickey Mantle's "beaver shooting"

xxxpost

when i was a kid the pats were the worst franchise in the nfl so i basically have a successful republican small businessmans level of entitlement re their success

i made them with my futilely clapping sad childs hands no one helped me or believed in me

haha that's all the pats fans i know irl

xp

i totally understand that, i think one of the first super bowls i watched as a kid was packers-pats, the last parcells one, and i remember my mom talking about how much they usually sucked and how surprised she was by them even being there

shit is sad

the turn of how the fandom viewed them - from lovable scamps to unassailable saint-creatures - once they started winning was so much faster and so much of a harder skid than even the first two red sox titles, it was like WHOA.

yeah they were an after thought in the boston sports hierarchy

I want to draw a cartoon where Brady is doing his pre-game football routine where he is picking out the balls when suddenly he notices that they feel a little deflated. He jumps up, runs for the nearest ref crying "HALP HALP THESE BALLS ARE SQUISHY!! PLEASE REF, SAVE THE DAY FROM THESE SQUISHY BALLS".

okay maybe it wouldn't be that funny, but goddamn, even if Brady didn't know about teamsters and their needles, who the hell would report it?

the penalty seems to be about arrogance on both sides - how far it escalated without getting anyone to admit they did something, and therefore showing what happens if you don't cooperate 100% with the all powerful nfl.

watching closely how NE has operated over the past 10+ years, if kraft/belichick believe brady is also responsible, i'd expect they would do something - bench him, even. kraft cares way more about the brand of the pats organization than he does about any one player.

i wish the season was starting and there could just be football without all this drama

it's true we all diminished for this

eh I think that is true for everyone but touchdown tom if only bc brady is the root of everything, he is the ultimate belichick vanity reclamation project, the proof of his brilliance (and kraft's but less so) that validates those years where he was (in his mind of have to assume) an underappreciated assistant

(xp)

*i have to assume

everyone is on the table & no one matters because the system etc. but I really don't think that will ever apply to brady

brady IS the system!

yeah kraft and beli shd prob retire as soon as toms gone

i've always assumed beli and brady will retire together. no need for kraft to retire, though. money still gonna come in.

kraft needs to like "put one of his sons in charge" so he can blame him

absolutely that's how it worked for the steinbrenners, no one blames the unsustainable groundwork laid by george, they blame the dumbass sons

or the buss family but tbf the groundwork was quite sustainable but jim buss is an idiotic garbage child

everything i've read about belichick/brady gives me the impression that they are not exactly friends and brady gets yelled at same as anyone on the team in practice, and I really think if kraft and belichick believe brady is at fault here, something would happen. this is the coach who benched welker during the first series of a playoff game for joking around at a press conference. i read that the pats already suspended the two equipment guys when the report came out. i know, it's brady, but kraft cares about the brand first.. there was already plenty of talk early last season (when they were 2-2) on how brady's exit from NE would not be on his terms.. the moment the next guy played better he'd be gone.. that's how they are

basically i don't think kraft would stand behind him if he believed brady was guilty here so i'm curious to see if pats put out another statement

there was already plenty of talk early last season (when they were 2-2) on how brady's exit from NE would not be on his terms.. the moment the next guy played better he'd be gone.

but that was just talk, and it was outsider talk. they've dealt harshly with stars galore through the years, from welker and mankins and woodhead back to seymour, milloy, law, etc., but they've never done anything that even remotely suggest brady isn't the one untouchable centerpiece of their galaxy. (and as a fan i have no problem with that!)

and i don't think either belichick or kraft gives two fucks if brady underinflated his footballs.

r u kidding they LOVE it

he's only untouchable because there isn't a better QB available for less money. i was trying to think of the last quote i read on this & it was brady's father telling reporters before the super bowl that he fully expected things in NE to end badly, eventually

kraft cares a LOT about the value of the franchise. if most of the public decides the pats are shady cheaters because of this he definitely cares

as sports crimes go, i'd equate throwing underinflated footballs with a baseball pitcher throwing spitballs.

there isn't a better QB available for less money

there, that's better.

and i'm just saying all this because i don't believe the nfl finding fault with brady here. if kraft/belichick do something to indicate brady is also to blame for this, then i'd believe it