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

could be a bid by the robber baron kraft to maybe get a reduced suspension for st. tom as a quid pro quo but if it's not, like if he's just giving up, wtf was that barstool sports-level website bullshit about lol

i think with the way the league is set up, there are few/no options for kraft here. you really can't sue the league

brady is different of course and can still appeal and then go to court.. greg bedard tweeted that this didn't include any deal on brady's suspension but that's what they say.. i have to think they'll cut it down at least

still think the whole thing is garbage btw and completely unjustified

you /can/ remain a fan of the team and accept the notion that idk just maybe they sorta did a dumb thing that was against the rules, you know, and also acknowledge that maybe some of those rules are overly stiff and that league punishments are on a similarly arbitrarily dictated scale...

wtf was that barstool sports-level website bullshit about lol

my theory is that kraft and co figured out that everyone had already chosen sides and wasn't going to change their minds--that site was for fans and supporters pretty much.

i really don't think they did it. too many things don't add up to me - the scientific evidence not proving any tampering, the idea that there was a scheme to have these guys sneakily go to all the trouble to let out a really insignificant amount of air, the idea that you'd need to have a scheme when it was a minor issue in the rulebook, the idea that before the AFC title game a guy would duck into a bathroom and hastily tamper with 12 footballs in a bag in 90 seconds (not worth the risk of effing it up)..

But aside from my opinions on the report, I also don't think they did it because it doesn't make sense that kraft and belichick would have been so insistent that there was no wrongdoing, repeatedly, and kraft/the organization would have continued to state this even after the investigation report was released and push it as far as releasing that whole response and emails and everything. Also because the Pats beat reporters I've been reading for like 8-10 years, who've been covering the team for longer than that, were also quite skeptical and had never had any reason to think brady had lied to them, which was the same thing kraft said - brady had never lied to him. It doesn't make sense to me that these people would lie and insist they did nothing wrong over this if it were true. When the spygate thing happened the pats admitted exactly what they did.

i kind of feel like the whole thing can be attributed to a failure of the nfl, leaking incorrect information about the football psi and the investigation early on.. once they screwed that up and didn't correct the record and had it blow up into a media firestorm, somebody had to be guilty. this shouldn't happen, but it did. i guess other teams and players have found this out before with goodell as commissioner, that the process is driven by media and public perception and is pretty unfair and the penalties are arbitrary with little/no options for appeal, and the agreements in place keep it that way and the owners need to look in the mirror if they have a problem with it because they voted for it (and this is what kraft gets for backing goodell all this time)

i think this whole thing is seriously overinflated, and i really don't care if they, or any other team, did this, or still do this.

but...

t doesn't make sense that kraft and belichick would have been so insistent that there was no wrongdoing, repeatedly, and kraft/the organization would have continued to state this even after the investigation report was released

seriously?

the Pats beat reporters I've been reading for like 8-10 years, who've been covering the team for longer than that, were also quite skeptical and had never had any reason to think brady had lied to them

and, um, seriously?

"i know he was convicted, your honor, but he still says he didn't do it. and he never, ever lies. nope, not him. he has never lied to anybody about anything. he doesn't even lie about snap counts at the line of scrimmage. surely if he had cheated, he would have told you he cheated, because that's the kind of awesome guy that he is. so i am sure you will see fit to dismiss all charges, even though he has already been convicted. thank you, your honor."

the pats counterscientist for their anti wells report thing was a guy working on a project bankrolled by kraft, bought and paid for, just like kraft thought goodell was bought and paid for (which for a long time he was, I mean he destroyed the spygate tapes and while I don't think square was that big a deal one expects you'd keep the evidence for posterity)

*dont think spygate was

fuckin phones

if kraft wanted to go full on against the NFL he would have, but it would require a heel-turn away from the league party line, which kraft clearly is just not prepared or not willing to take. he ain't bout that al davis life, no sirree. corporate ayn-randian exceptionalists usually are not.

um spygate was def fuckin phones

a somewhat overblown scandal and an iphone procreating is def a scary thought

xpost -- as for am i serious -- yeah sure am. it doesn't square to me that brady would look at the coach and owner of the team where he's played his entire professional career, and lie to their faces over something like this. it's not worth it. being a hyper competitive, short tempered, kind of obnoxious jerk on the field who yells at guys and complains to the refs is fine, but straight up lying to the coach and owner does not seem in character whatsoever. i could be wrong but to change my mind there would need to be a smoking gun or for brady to personally admit he did something

only thing i could speculate is maybe 1) outside the specific scope of the investigation (tampering in the AFC title game) and unknown to brady, there was something going on with the preparation of footballs in the past that the pats don't want revealed or 2) some tampering was done on some occasions in the past (but not in the AFC title game) based on a very narrow reading of the rules under which they thought it was acceptable, which it would do no good to explain today because the public wouldn't believe you.

one of the NE beat reporters (curran maybe?) mentioned recently that not all the spygate tapes were not destroyed, only some of them, and that they were incredibly boring

is it conceivable to you that a successful capitalist businessman who wears ugly button-down shirts like kraft would lie? i am just guessing here, but i am going to guess that successful capitalist businessmen in many fields lie quite routinely as part of their day-to-day duties.

i'm too focused on the condescension to be able to remember whether or not, in my life, it has ever occurred to me that a business guy might lie

eh forget about it. not worth it

https://usatthebiglead.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/sanchez31.gif

i'm too focused on the condescension to be able to remember whether or not, in my life, it has ever occurred to me that a business guy might lie

― seriously, THIS GUY (daria-g), Tuesday, May 19, 2015 9:31 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

http://i.imgur.com/ondGXtr.gif

butt fumble heals all wounds, repairs all relationships

truly the greatest of fumbles

much like this is the greatest of passes:

http://gifrific.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Tim-Tebow-Hit-in-Head-with-Pass.gif

amen

daria, what do you think those text messages were about then? I think the punishment is ridiculous (especially the draft pick part of it) but I dunno, it seems really clear that something shady was going on

butt fumble might not have been a fumble at all if mark sanchez had the good sense to use a deflated football. then it would just have been a butt.

but... butt

I think the questions I'm curious about is how much longer does Brady go and when he goes will Bill head out too. SF was able to keep a streak of winning going across three head coaches until it finally fell apart.

http://files.ctctcdn.com/bf3d8d8c001/e915dc0d-296b-46dd-9a44-8e1992a19399.jpg

“My drink is usually vodka with water because it gets you hydrated and drunk at the same time,” he explains after the sommelier has departed. “I never drink wine. There’s only one wine I like, but I forget what it’s called. It tastes like Sprite.”

-- gronk

hell yea gronk

lol his reaction to his dad getting emo

https://twitter.com/tedcruz/status/605756951994077184

I feel very conflicted about that tweet...

lol is he fuckin serious

i think he made a joke, and you know good for him

could be, could also be morbs taking control of cruz's twitter account

Brian David Stockman ‏@Carlisleboy 3h3 hours ago
@tedcruz If It was #Killary He'd be Dead, Like Vince #Foster and the Lybian #Benghazi Ambassador and Agents And anyone who gets in her way

http://awfulannouncing.com/the-locker/rob-gronkowskis-family-will-be-on-family-feud.html

oh hell yes this is like a dream come true

otm what will steve make of these goobers

how will steve work his book into conversation with the gronk clan

gronk to be new face of delightful.com

http://www.gronkspartyship.com/

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

didn't the vikings get in trouble for that

o m g

buying my ticket now

New England Patriots Envy: The NFL's Ill-Advised Obsession With Bill Belichick Castoffs

challop-ed

http://www.patriots.com/news/2015/06/18/so-slash-guns-n%E2%80%99-roses-huge-patriots-fan

the pats stuff is really ancillary, the lede here is which if either of those bedrooms is slash's

http://espn.go.com/boston/nfl/story/_/id/13265711/veteran-ol-dan-connolly-new-england-patriots-retires

big dan connolly decides to retire instead of sign for tampa. presumably he received a desperate admiral ackbar text from logan mankins

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=222IkMwrIpE

as churlish as it may be to not just enjoy the greatest kick return of all time i can't help but feel that that not going for a td is basically humanity's greatest crime. if i were a benevolent superintelligent alien monitoring earth transmissions and saw connolly get dragged down on the 5 there i would be like nope and turn my space car around.