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

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.

ayo patritos, that's gonna be a rough start to the season
https://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/2015/07/28/nfl-upholds-tom-brady-four-game-suspension/fhOdVIaay3E0lPOIyt4A1J/story.html

lol

hate goodell as much as anyone but i've got a tough time feeling sorry for brady

goodell: brady trashed cell phone

100% brady recycled his phone and SIM when upgrading

not that it matters. fuck goodell for demanding his phone. fuck goodell.

asking for his phone seems like a reasonable measure when conducting an investigation

Would you hand over your personal phone to your boss?

if i thought it would exonerate me, maybe

i mean goodell is a joke and his decision-making process is probably a sham, and i LIKE brady, but he obviously did it so i'm not too torn up about it

I mean, I'd try not to hand over my phone too but I also know everyone would be all "aha that proves guilt" and I'd be like
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFk2_5RkwlA

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/08/29/article-0-1B83791F000005DC-809_638x448.jpg

neat picture of robert kraft at today's press conf

neat picture of robert kraft at today's press conf

Yep. Summary: Kraft said it was a mistake to accept the deal and that he should’ve never trust the NFL.

It was also reported that phone records were handed over (i.e. the destroy phone was a red herring and the NFL is full of shit). Go figure.

so kraft accepted the team penalties, expected a quid pro from the league, and then watched goodell cave to other owners.

basically goodell is so inept and rudderless he can't even manage to pull off a back-channel deal correctly.

show of hands: does anybody really believe brady didn't have anything to do with underinflating footballs?

i'm genuinely asking

i do not believe footballs were underinflated?

admittedly i haven't really read a lot about the situation -- the wells report, the rebuttals -- i just find it very plausible that the pats would bend the rules

great contribution k3v, thanks for stopping by

the basic outline of my belief is that we have absolutely no idea what the pressure of the footballs was at gametime vs. the colts. i believe the most brady would have done at any point is instruct the equipment guys to make sure the balls were at the low end of the allowable range. it is possible that to do this they tampered with the balls after the final inspection, and it is also possible that they did not.

admittedly i haven't really read a lot about the situation -- the wells report, the rebuttals -- i just find it very plausible that the pats would bend the rules

LOL. OK.

fwiw it is entirely plausible imo that the pats (or any team) would bend the rules and could well be subject to the fine laid out in the game handbook which iirc is $25K.

the basic outline of my belief is that we have absolutely no idea what the pressure of the footballs was at gametime vs. the colts. i believe the most brady would have done at any point is instruct the equipment guys to make sure the balls were at the low end of the allowable range. it is possible that to do this they tampered with the balls after the final inspection, and it is also possible that they did not.

OTM.

FWIW: a friend who was a D1 QB made this exact claim on Facebook. Everyone asks for the ball to be pressurized to the very bottom of the range.

He also claimed college refs routinely checked the pressure of the ball.

fwiw it is entirely plausible imo that the pats (or any team) would bend the rules and could well be subject to the fine laid out in the game handbook which iirc is $25K.

OTM, too.

yeah aaron rodgers was talking about that, how most qb's like it at the bottom of the range but he actually likes the ball overinflated a little. my guess is brady was an asshole about how he wanted his balls and maybe the staff got overzealous or more likely just sloppy. after all the leaks it turned out only one ball was outside the parameters and considering everything else w/ the investigation and who's handling it i'd be skeptical of even that. don't blame brady for not turning over his phone, goodell' office leaks like crazy and has a tamed press to do it's bidding (espn was ranting yesterday about how disgraceful it was brady was taking the nfl to court) and goodell refused to turn over his phone to the guy he hand picked to investigate his handling of the ray rice incident.

the funniest part of this yesterday was watching local news work themselves into an apoplexy over this and then say "It's a shame the NFL is overshadowing Pedro's day with this"

maybe the staff got overzealous or more likely just sloppy

hey this is a pro level organization. _if_ the balls were deflated below spec by the deflator, it's because brady told them to do it, and they knew if they fucked it up they would lose their bullshit volunteer vanity nfl gigs.

they would not likely fuck up brady's instructions for ball pressure, he was on them like stink on shit, and that is why they talked so much crap about him behind his back.

and brady is not being an asshole to them, he is PRO, and knows how he needs his equipment to feel. for the same reason a pro acquaintance of mine makes and sells a tire pressure gauge accurate to .5 psi (for $150 per!). for him, once he dials in a course, the difference between 21 psi and 22 psi is apparent to him, and to other elite guys. equipment actually matters, no matter how clowny the lackeys are who are responsible.

you are really overestimating the caliber of person that lugs the balls to the field on gameday.

i believe they were intentionally underinflated, but none of my points here really go to whether they were or not- only that the balls were in a condition specified by brady.

xpost

then the patriots need to step their games up. you see how absurd that statement looks, right?

eh this is a good time to reinstate my rule that i don't discuss the specifics of this story

after all the leaks it turned out only one ball was outside the parameters

wasn't it 11 out of 12? or did I miss something?

Hunt3r, you really seem to have an agenda here. as an aside, with your perspective as a fan of afc playoff also-rans the denver broncos, what do you think might've motivated fellow playoff failures the indianapolis colts and the baltimore ravens to set this shitstorm in motion for the patriots?

frogbs, subsequent review has shown that maybe 1, probably none of the balls were unreasonably under the the inflation range. if you're interested in the actual truth, the data is too garbage to have any confidence either way. if you're interested in what can be proven, it doesn't look great for the nfl.

there is a circumstantial case for the balls being tampered with after the officials' inspection. i think you can believe what you want on that. there is no kind of case that the balls were under the legal inflation range. could the balls have been deflated but still within range? some of the other details actually corroborate that possibility. all in all tho, it is a super thin basis for the nfl to go ham on, however you slice it.

there is no kind of case that the balls were under the legal inflation - i should qualify this with demonstrably or similar

no the league leaked 11 of 12 during super bowl week and then iirc the actual report said 'or just one' and it may have been one the league subbed out. despite hunter's protestations that these guys are pros and god knows professional sports organizations tend to favor science over their guts or experience or what feels right i'm skeptical that these guys underinflate these balls w/ any kind of calibration beyond 'eh that should do it'. based on the ballboys texts and that at most 11 of 12 balls had the same psi i feel comfortable w/ that. in any case i don't think brady and greg hardy deserve the same suspension.

they probably did /something/ but by now there's no possible excuse for this to still be a thing, the penalties should've been reduced bc they were absurd

that said, it's pretty amusing to see a corrupt robber-baron turned team owner more or less publicly buy a clearly corrupt/inept NFL commissioner nearly a decade ago and then /completely/ publicly complain that he's corrupt

because he basically had to punish yr team w/ an excessive ruling so it would look briefly like he wasn't yr toady

dude i don't recall what beefs exist between those teams other than brady talking some rulebook-reading shit at his presser, which was hilarious imo. whether that kicked off this whole thing i dunno, don't really care.

xpost

I find it hard to believe that Brady wasn't doing something that at least was skirting the rules a bit, but it's no outrage because teams do this kind of thing all the time across every sport. Pitchers are constantly scuffing balls, NBA and soccer players are flopping to draw fouls, baseball teams are stealing signs or finding ways to spy on each other, it happens, it gets punished, but the idea of losing 1/4th of the season AND a draft pick AND a million bucks is so insanely absurd that I can't help but love how it's blown up on the NFL

yeah as far as 'cheating' goes this is definitely more in line w/ vaseline on the glove or flopping than something like the niners or twolves salary cap shenanigans. then again so is pumping in crowd noise (except that's also by far stupider)(esp if it's already clearly a lost season) and the nfl cracks down on that so this isn't out of line w/ the nfl is incredibly stupid and random when it comes to discipline. i tried to quit this sport last fall (falcons sucked so should've been easy) but by spring was so far back in i was reading mock drafts. love the game but everything surrounding it is so toxic. seriously guys give hoops a chance. i say this as a guy who swore for years the nba would never be as good as it was w/ bird/magic/young jordan - basketball has never been better than it is right now.

yeah I think I need to watch a lot more basketball this season

if I could watch more live west coast nba I def would

im telling myself ill still watch college ftball but way less nfl this yr, I even think the sport at the nfl level is sorta boring now and too random as far as game outcomes

i like basketball but there's too many games. idk why that is such a barrier for me but i can't get invested in individual games when i try and can't get past just being a playoff watcher. also, the learning curve is steep, i already knew about football since a kid but i knew nothing at all about basketball prior to rocking up here.