2014 Official NFL Thread
- Thread starter lgna69xxx
- Start date
Honest Fans,
Haters and their puppets.
I've been saying for months this is about Goodell trying to grab back control after the humiliating Ray Rice debacle. So Roger goes after what, and pseudo issue where no one can prove there was an offense, and the worst that's been said is Brady was "more likely than not aware" something was going on. I've been saying Goodell would never relent on this issue because he needed to pander to the mob to grab back respect...the kind that goes with street gang codes by going along with anything to get what you want and trying to act like you are in charge when you are caving in to gross excess. In his own rule book it say this results in a $25,000 fine IF there's a proven offense. "More likely than not" is far from that.
Now look at the basis of how this was finally decided. It should have been, offense equals a correspondingly balanced judgement with that offense based on evidence. What did we see. Negotiations!
Owners making demands, pressuring a commissioner only too happy to find an excuse to do exactly what he wanted all the time. Let's add a kicker. Now the NFL puts out a statement that Brady destroyed or had his phone destroyed to excite the haters, even though Goodell and the NFL have known otherwise for a long time, as if they could be filled with more hating hysteria than they have been.
This is all great stuff for the Patriots and me personally. Goodell forgets that the more he acts like an irrational populist mob toady who refuses to balance the thinnest guessing of what happened against the precedent for the same facts he already set by imposing record punishment despite failing to prove there was an offense the more the courts are going to question his ability to be fair about anything.
The real kicker is going to be the new procedures he just set for measuring footballs before game, at halftime, and after games is going to be his undoing on this whole debacle if done correctly during game conditions on the field, because the advantage or disadvantage for teams on the field is what the outrage is supposed to be about, even though we know what has happened in only about hate. When the cold weather comes to Green Bay, Detroit, New York, Minnesota, Foxborough and more Goodell's new procedures could instantly make him and the HATERS look like the worst of fools. These procedures will be a time bomb waiting to blow Goodell and his drooling supporters to smithereens.
The only thing the Deflategate scandal is about anymore is Roger Goodell's ego
By: Nate Scott | July 29, 2015 8:09 am
Forget about PSI and procedures and destroyed SIM cards. The Deflategate Scandal, now nearing its seventh month, is about one thing and one thing only: NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell’s pride.
Seriously. How has deflated footballs, something none of us even knew was a thing before the AFC Championship Game, become the center of the biggest scandal of the past year? Because Goodell and Brady are stubborn, and they both refuse to back down, and Goodell would never, ever let a player tell him who’s boss. Brady’s guilt or innocence is totally irrelevant at this point.
This scandal has nothing to do with footballs and it hasn’t since Day 2.
This entire stupid months-long thing is about Brady’s refusal to admit he did anything wrong, and his refusal to ask Goodell for forgiveness.
Even this past week, when the NFL and Brady’s camp were trying to work out a suspension, it all came down to that. Brady had to confess to his crimes, and then the league would drop his suspension down to one or two games. The suspension had nothing to do with Brady’s cheating, or finding a punishment that fit the crime. The only thing that mattered was Brady giving in to the league. That’s it.
Goodell has made this clear throughout his time in charge of this league — Players can commit truly heinous, awful crimes, and he is willing to forgive them, as long as they come forward and admit to their sins, and ask Father Goodell for forgiveness.
Tom Brady refused to do that. He might have refused to do that because he didn’t want to contaminate his legacy by admitting to it (though too late on that front, Tommy), he might have refused to do it because he is just as stubborn as Goodell. He might have refused to do it because he’s innocent, or truly believes in his heart he is.
But Goodell needs to step back and realize there’s more to being a commissioner than proving you’re a bigger man than everyone else. This isn’t the way to run a billion dollar organization. This is two 9-year-old boys standing on their tippy toes, screaming about who is taller.
The whole thing is a joke at this point. Goodell releasing information about Brady’s cell phone is his way of saying he doesn’t have any concrete evidence, but look at this guy, America, huh? Now we’re going to get an injunction, the whole thing will go to court, and this will drag on longer and longer.
Tom Brady refused to kiss the ring. And now we’re all go to pay for it.
Cheers,
Merlot
Haters and their puppets.
I've been saying for months this is about Goodell trying to grab back control after the humiliating Ray Rice debacle. So Roger goes after what, and pseudo issue where no one can prove there was an offense, and the worst that's been said is Brady was "more likely than not aware" something was going on. I've been saying Goodell would never relent on this issue because he needed to pander to the mob to grab back respect...the kind that goes with street gang codes by going along with anything to get what you want and trying to act like you are in charge when you are caving in to gross excess. In his own rule book it say this results in a $25,000 fine IF there's a proven offense. "More likely than not" is far from that.
Now look at the basis of how this was finally decided. It should have been, offense equals a correspondingly balanced judgement with that offense based on evidence. What did we see. Negotiations!
Owners making demands, pressuring a commissioner only too happy to find an excuse to do exactly what he wanted all the time. Let's add a kicker. Now the NFL puts out a statement that Brady destroyed or had his phone destroyed to excite the haters, even though Goodell and the NFL have known otherwise for a long time, as if they could be filled with more hating hysteria than they have been.This is all great stuff for the Patriots and me personally. Goodell forgets that the more he acts like an irrational populist mob toady who refuses to balance the thinnest guessing of what happened against the precedent for the same facts he already set by imposing record punishment despite failing to prove there was an offense the more the courts are going to question his ability to be fair about anything.
The real kicker is going to be the new procedures he just set for measuring footballs before game, at halftime, and after games is going to be his undoing on this whole debacle if done correctly during game conditions on the field, because the advantage or disadvantage for teams on the field is what the outrage is supposed to be about, even though we know what has happened in only about hate. When the cold weather comes to Green Bay, Detroit, New York, Minnesota, Foxborough and more Goodell's new procedures could instantly make him and the HATERS look like the worst of fools. These procedures will be a time bomb waiting to blow Goodell and his drooling supporters to smithereens.
The only thing the Deflategate scandal is about anymore is Roger Goodell's ego
By: Nate Scott | July 29, 2015 8:09 am
Forget about PSI and procedures and destroyed SIM cards. The Deflategate Scandal, now nearing its seventh month, is about one thing and one thing only: NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell’s pride.
Seriously. How has deflated footballs, something none of us even knew was a thing before the AFC Championship Game, become the center of the biggest scandal of the past year? Because Goodell and Brady are stubborn, and they both refuse to back down, and Goodell would never, ever let a player tell him who’s boss. Brady’s guilt or innocence is totally irrelevant at this point.
This scandal has nothing to do with footballs and it hasn’t since Day 2.
This entire stupid months-long thing is about Brady’s refusal to admit he did anything wrong, and his refusal to ask Goodell for forgiveness.
Even this past week, when the NFL and Brady’s camp were trying to work out a suspension, it all came down to that. Brady had to confess to his crimes, and then the league would drop his suspension down to one or two games. The suspension had nothing to do with Brady’s cheating, or finding a punishment that fit the crime. The only thing that mattered was Brady giving in to the league. That’s it.
Goodell has made this clear throughout his time in charge of this league — Players can commit truly heinous, awful crimes, and he is willing to forgive them, as long as they come forward and admit to their sins, and ask Father Goodell for forgiveness.
Tom Brady refused to do that. He might have refused to do that because he didn’t want to contaminate his legacy by admitting to it (though too late on that front, Tommy), he might have refused to do it because he is just as stubborn as Goodell. He might have refused to do it because he’s innocent, or truly believes in his heart he is.
But Goodell needs to step back and realize there’s more to being a commissioner than proving you’re a bigger man than everyone else. This isn’t the way to run a billion dollar organization. This is two 9-year-old boys standing on their tippy toes, screaming about who is taller.
The whole thing is a joke at this point. Goodell releasing information about Brady’s cell phone is his way of saying he doesn’t have any concrete evidence, but look at this guy, America, huh? Now we’re going to get an injunction, the whole thing will go to court, and this will drag on longer and longer.
Tom Brady refused to kiss the ring. And now we’re all go to pay for it.
Cheers,
Merlot
Notice if anyone disagrees with the self proclaimed master Merlot is called a hater. Where did we see this before?
I believe this is the answer that's on the tip of your tongue:
Notice that the long diatribes that Melot is so fond of copying, posting and highlighting are gone. That's because the press is simply stunned and not apologizing for Brady anymore. He sounds just like Hillary Clinton here per NY Times (even uses the same propaganda outlet that Hillary uses):
“I replaced my broken Samsung phone with a new iPhone 6 AFTER my attorneys made it clear to the N.F.L. that my actual phone device would not be subjected to investigation under ANY circumstances. As a member of a union, I was under no obligation to set a new precedent going forward, nor was I made aware at any time during Mr. Wells’s investigation, that failing to subject my cellphone to investigation would result in ANY discipline."
“Most importantly, I have never written, texted, emailed to anybody at any time, anything related to football air pressure before this issue was raised at the A.F.C. Championship game in January. To suggest that I destroyed a phone to avoid giving the N.F.L. information it requested is completely wrong.”
So in one breath he essentially says that he's destroyed the evidence, but you'll have to take his word for it that he did nothing wrong. Again, just like Hillary Clinton....LOL
Just like Obama, he talks the talk, BUT DOES NOT WALK THE WALK!!
So you may be wondering why I've highlighted my own post. I want to make another point. You see Brady has admitted that he's kept his previous cell phones as he's transitioned from model to model. But he didn't keep this one. So why destroy it at all? I mean Brady's attorney made it clear that he wouldn't turn over the phone under any circumstances. Here's the reality that Brady and his attorney are hoping that a nieve public will simply be too stupid to realize. In a civil case, as Brady has committed to bringing against the NFL, he could be compelled to produce the phone. By destroying the phone, unlike his previous cell phones, it's simply unavailable to produce (a la Hillary Clinton again). The issue here is public perception vs. legal proof. I know of very few people (one here on this board) who would seriously expect you to believe Brady's story. By destroying the cell phone Brady destroyed probably the only evidence of his own crime. Thus while he might win the civil case, the court of public opinion will not judge him so easily or with so much stupidity. Bottom line is just like Hillary Clinton, everyone knows he's guilty and lying, but it's going to be hard to get a conviction in a civil court. Of course this leaves the NFL players union looking like it's assisting in the coverup, so it begins to look totally ridiculous in the average fan's eyes. In other words, the player's union makes itself as dirty as Brady by virtue of its defense.
As this Sports Writer says: DEAR TOM BRADY: Please stop insulting us-explain everything or come clean: http://www.businessinsider.com/tom-brady-football-suspension-2015-7
Hello all,
Funny how the Big Bad Brady Haters say the Final Verdict has been made. They've got the mass mob of public opinion on their side and still they are digging for any flimsy interpretive circumstances for appearances to make their case. What are you afraid of? You've won already ready haven't you? Shouldn't you stop running scared.
Merlot
Funny how the Big Bad Brady Haters say the Final Verdict has been made. They've got the mass mob of public opinion on their side and still they are digging for any flimsy interpretive circumstances for appearances to make their case. What are you afraid of? You've won already ready haven't you? Shouldn't you stop running scared.
Merlot
Brady was his worst ennemy. Had he fully cooperated with the investigation, he probably would have got a slap on the wrist. He got 4 games without the league even knowing about him destroying his cellphone. He should consider himself lucky he ONLY got 4 games. Had the league known about this, he may have been gone for half the season.
Like the league did in Ray Rice's case, they should re-visit the issue and hand out more punishment to Brady for destroying key evidence. I'd throw the book at this cheater and suspend him for the rest of the season!
Like the league did in Ray Rice's case, they should re-visit the issue and hand out more punishment to Brady for destroying key evidence. I'd throw the book at this cheater and suspend him for the rest of the season!
:crazy:
Never happens with Goodell fearing the bloodthirsty mob. His job is the only thing important to him not justice, otherwise Ray Ray would have been out the first time.
When people write about an issue they should know what happened and able to understand it. Goodell and the NFL knew about the phone being gone before this last phony so-called arbitration decision. Nothing prevented Goodell from making the penalty as high as he wanted just like Ray Rice. Honestly, how did you miss that.
Now Goodell took the nearly unprecedented step of filing in court first in another gross attempt to protect themselves from continuing their streak of having their decisions easily overturned. Another obvious power play to protect himself when he knows his purpose is to save his ego.
Merlot
Never happens with Goodell fearing the bloodthirsty mob. His job is the only thing important to him not justice, otherwise Ray Ray would have been out the first time.
When people write about an issue they should know what happened and able to understand it. Goodell and the NFL knew about the phone being gone before this last phony so-called arbitration decision. Nothing prevented Goodell from making the penalty as high as he wanted just like Ray Rice. Honestly, how did you miss that.
Now Goodell took the nearly unprecedented step of filing in court first in another gross attempt to protect themselves from continuing their streak of having their decisions easily overturned. Another obvious power play to protect himself when he knows his purpose is to save his ego.
Merlot
Merlot sometimes I have a hard time figuring out if you're just a fool or think everyone else is. I'm not going to say which one I think it is, but to those that know you this article will answer the question:
NFL goes forum-shopping with pre-emptive lawsuit
Posted by Mike Florio on July 28, 2015, 4:19 PM EDT NBC Sports
At some point over the past few weeks, I considered the possibility that the courtroom portion of the Tom Brady saga could be initiated not by the NFL Players Association but by the NFL. I made a mental note of it, vowed to write about that possibility, and then forgot to do it.
The reminder came today, via the report from Scott Soshnick of Bloomberg that the NFL has filed a pre-emptive lawsuit in federal court in Manhattan, seeking affirmation of the outcome of the Brady appeal.
Although I’ve yet to see the documents (the ask has been made), I’m certain that the NFL filed a case seeking what’s known as a “declaratory judgment” under the Federal Arbitration Act, explaining that a controversy clearly exists on the viability of Goodell’s final ruling in the Brady appeal and asking the court to determine the parties’ legal rights.
It’s not entirely uncommon, but it’s a very aggressive maneuver. As a practical matter, it potentially short-circuits the efforts of the NFLPA and Brady to file in Minnesota (with Judge David Doty presiding) or Massachusetts (with Judge Pats Fan presiding), where the ruling likely would be more favorable to Brady.
Whether through pre-emptive lawsuits or otherwise, forum shopping happens all the time in the legal profession. Part of securing the best outcome for a client is picking the best court for attempting to secure that outcome.
Still, there’s something that feels a bit unseemly about the NFL’s effort, creating a clear sense of coordination between Goodell the supposedly independent arbitrator and Goodell the chief executive at 345 Park Avenue. The ruling, which is required to be made “as soon as practicable” by Goodell the arbitrator undoubtedly was delayed long enough for Goodell the executive to ensure that his lawyers would be able to file immediately a lawsuit calling “shotgun” on the resolution of the legal rights.
The question now becomes whether the NFLPA will proceed with its own lawsuit, and if so whether one of the two judges will defer to the other one.
OK, MERLOT a little basic legal strategy....Sometimes you file in order to gain control of both the Forum and the venue of the legal action. This is called strategy. It's used in order to win a case rather than your method of simply throwing out unfounded acusations and total BS.
I'm personally involved in an arbitration that I initiated even though I've got the funds in question. This was done in order to pick both the venue & the method of solving an anticipated action. By doing this I skip the liberal judges like those that Brady would have tried to use in Minnesota. The Minnesota Venue has an appelate judge that's very sympathetic to the player's union which the NFL wanted to avoid. So much for your characterization of a "Gross Attempt". Hopefully sometime you'll begin approaching both this debate and the members of this board with a little less "flim-flam" and a little more real respect & conversation.
P.S. Merlot, don't you think it would be only correct and following the rules of this board if you referenced where and when you copy text and/or articles from different sources? Or do you really want everyone believing all of that "filler" is your words?
and here was Tom Brady's offer to the NFL Per USA Today:
There was a time, right as he was graduating from Michigan, that Tom Brady didn’t know what he was going to do with himself. Getting drafted wasn’t guaranteed and becoming one of the greatest, and now most notorious, quarterbacks in league history seemed to be a pipe dream, at best. In fact, Brady even came up with a resume just in case the whole football thing didn’t work out.
Well, good thing he never had to use that resume in the real world because Brady doesn’t exactly seem cut out for business life, as he and the art of negotiating apparently go together like oil and that water around the Rio Olympic venues. According to George Atallah, the NFLPA’s longly worded Assistant Executive Director of External Affairs, Brady was counter-offering the NFL’s minimized suspension deal with, get this, no games and a fine that was probably less than the $1.1 million he’ll lose from the four games he’s scheduled to miss
Good work, guys. And for that, what, Don Yee is getting $1,100 per billable hour? That’s like going into a car dealership and the salesman says, “I think we can get you in this car at $24,500, but that’s as low as my manager will let me go.” And you pause for a few seconds and finally say, “how about you pay me $500 to take it off your hands and give me some coupons to Chili’s for the trouble.” Had Brady and his lawyers been at the Reykjavik Conference, they’d have been all, eh, just give it all to the Soviets. If they were representing you at a shoplifting trial, you’d be in Supermax next to the Unabomber.
This was the entire problem with Brady’s misguided sense of Deflategate and the first lesson of Negotiation 101: You can only operate from a place of power if you have the leverage to do so. What Brady’s team never realized is that the NFL is teflon right now, even if no one likes Roger Goodell. Through the Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson debacles of 2014, people kept watching football in record numbers. While Brady might have thought the NFL was never going to go through with suspending him, the Golden Boy, he failed to understand that the NFL is far bigger than Tom Brady.
I mean, Roger Goodell can’t do anything right in the eyes of the press and public but none of that affects people’s interest in football every Sunday. He could have been caught hunting with that lion dentist and it wouldn’t have had any impact on the ratings for the Thursday Night Opener, one that will be a huge game for the league due to Brady’s lack of involvement. And then when he comes back, on a Sunday night against Indianapolis, the very team Deflategate started against, it’s another win for the league.
Tom Brady didn’t get that. The league always wins, even when it loses. And that’s why you don’t go in with an insane offer of no games and a fine. Start in the very middle at least. Negotiate. Don’t expect your image to get you out of it, because when it comes down to Roger Goodell and anyone else, Goodell always comes out on top.
There was a time, right as he was graduating from Michigan, that Tom Brady didn’t know what he was going to do with himself. Getting drafted wasn’t guaranteed and becoming one of the greatest, and now most notorious, quarterbacks in league history seemed to be a pipe dream, at best. In fact, Brady even came up with a resume just in case the whole football thing didn’t work out.
Well, good thing he never had to use that resume in the real world because Brady doesn’t exactly seem cut out for business life, as he and the art of negotiating apparently go together like oil and that water around the Rio Olympic venues. According to George Atallah, the NFLPA’s longly worded Assistant Executive Director of External Affairs, Brady was counter-offering the NFL’s minimized suspension deal with, get this, no games and a fine that was probably less than the $1.1 million he’ll lose from the four games he’s scheduled to miss
Good work, guys. And for that, what, Don Yee is getting $1,100 per billable hour? That’s like going into a car dealership and the salesman says, “I think we can get you in this car at $24,500, but that’s as low as my manager will let me go.” And you pause for a few seconds and finally say, “how about you pay me $500 to take it off your hands and give me some coupons to Chili’s for the trouble.” Had Brady and his lawyers been at the Reykjavik Conference, they’d have been all, eh, just give it all to the Soviets. If they were representing you at a shoplifting trial, you’d be in Supermax next to the Unabomber.
This was the entire problem with Brady’s misguided sense of Deflategate and the first lesson of Negotiation 101: You can only operate from a place of power if you have the leverage to do so. What Brady’s team never realized is that the NFL is teflon right now, even if no one likes Roger Goodell. Through the Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson debacles of 2014, people kept watching football in record numbers. While Brady might have thought the NFL was never going to go through with suspending him, the Golden Boy, he failed to understand that the NFL is far bigger than Tom Brady.
I mean, Roger Goodell can’t do anything right in the eyes of the press and public but none of that affects people’s interest in football every Sunday. He could have been caught hunting with that lion dentist and it wouldn’t have had any impact on the ratings for the Thursday Night Opener, one that will be a huge game for the league due to Brady’s lack of involvement. And then when he comes back, on a Sunday night against Indianapolis, the very team Deflategate started against, it’s another win for the league.
Tom Brady didn’t get that. The league always wins, even when it loses. And that’s why you don’t go in with an insane offer of no games and a fine. Start in the very middle at least. Negotiate. Don’t expect your image to get you out of it, because when it comes down to Roger Goodell and anyone else, Goodell always comes out on top.
, It's no wonder people who meet you say they can't stand you. CA and everyone else was and is right!!!
NFLPA files suit, angered by way NFL portrayed destruction of Tom Brady's phone
http://www.usatoday.com/story/sport...-union-nflpa-appeal-jeffrey-kessler/30854665/
Attorney Jeffrey Kessler has battled the NFL and its owners for years in court on behalf of the league's players. So it was unusual he found himself agreeing Wednesday morning with a regular adversary: New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft.
Hours after Kraft ripped the NFL in the wake of Commissioner Roger Goodell's decision to uphold quarterback Tom Brady's four-game suspension, Kessler — retained by the NFL Players Association to represent Brady at his appeal hearing last month — also derided the decision, and in particular the gravity Goodell gave to the destruction of Brady's old cellphone.
"It's just grasping at straws to try to divert attention from their complete lack of evidence or legal process to justify what's happened here," Kessler told USA TODAY Sports by phone. "You heard the outrage today from Mr. Kraft. That was completely justified. I've never more agreed with Robert Kraft in my life, about anything."
The union's suit comes one day after the NFL Management Council filed its own lawsuit in Manhattan and asked that court to confirm Goodell's decision — a move Kessler called "very, very peculiar" and an obvious ploy to secure a more favorable venue.
The NFLPA can't reargue the facts of the case in court. It must target the process through which the discipline was issued and confirmed. But Kessler made clear he wasn't pleased about the way Goodell's decision presented the destruction of the phone, which Brady says he does regularly when he gets a new one, before an interview with investigators as evidence of a cover-up.
Kessler said every text in the league-commissioned Wells Report appeared in Brady's phone logs, which were turned over. In a footnote, Goodell wrote the records should've been turned over sooner, and a suggestion by Brady's agents that the NFL could track down the people Brady texted and ask them to provide the records was "simply not practical."
"The NFL has made no claim that somehow they're missing something," Kessler said. "They made this argument, 'Well, maybe if they looked at his phone, they'd find some incriminating e-mail like from Tom to his father.' Really? That's what they're arguing about?"
The NFL did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment on the union's lawsuit, which Kessler said would be designated as a related case to that of Minnesota Vikings running back Adrian Peterson.
The hope is it lands before U.S. District Judge David S. Doty, who in February vacated the arbitration award issued by the appeals officer Goodell designated, Harold Henderson, and thus is "in the best position to determine to what degree his decision in Peterson already requires this discipline be thrown out for lack of notice," Kessler said. (The league appealed the Peterson decision, which is headed for a settlement conference Aug. 13.)
The new lawsuit quotes Kraft's remarks at length and says Goodell's decision should also be vacated because it fails to draw its essence from the collective bargaining agreement; Goodell denied Brady access to evidence and witnesses; and Goodell was an evidently partial arbitrator.
Goodell's decision was far stronger than the Wells Report, which found it was "more probable than not" that Brady was "at least generally aware" of the actions by two low-level Patriots employees that led to footballs being deflated below permissible levels in January's AFC Championship Game rout of the Indianapolis Colts.
Though Brady denied any involvement, Goodell discredited his statements and wrote the evidence fully supports his findings Brady "participated in a scheme to tamper with the game balls" and "willfully obstructed the investigation" by, among other things arranging to have his phone destroyed.
"(Goodell) has no possible basis to do that, because (NFL executive vice president) Troy Vincent, who imposed the discipline, said he only relied on the Wells Report," Kessler said. "There's no other basis for them now to say something else. And if (Goodell) did do something else, it's beyond his authority, just like with Henderson."
GOBRADYGO,
Merlot
Hello Honest Fans,
With Tom Brady suspension and Patriots DeflateGate saga, Roger Goodell in a battle he can't win
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Friday, July 24, 2015, 12:39 AM
http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/f...rady-deflategate-suspension-article-1.2302848
There have been other heavyweight fights between sports commissioners and star players, all the way back to the ’60s when Pete Rozelle suspended Paul Hornung, when he was still one of the golden boys of pro football, from the NFL for a year for gambling. The late Bart Giamatti slugged it out with Pete Rose more than 25 years ago, over Rose’s gambling, a fight that in so many ways is still going on.
There was a time when David Stern had to investigate Michael Jordan, the biggest star we had at the time, over gambling Jordan was alleged to have done in his free time away from the Bulls. You know the conspiracy theory on that one, that the reason Jordan went off later to play minor-league baseball was because it was that or get suspended for a year.
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Stern has always laughed that off, along with the notion that he issued the secret suspension at a meeting at his home.
“My wife still wants to know where she was that day,” Stern told Bill Simmons
But in so many ways, there has never been a fight like the one going on right now between Tom Brady and Roger Goodell, now that Brady has appealed the four-game suspension that Goodell handed down along with a million-dollar fine to the Patriots over DeflateGate. Brady might not be the star Jordan was, but he is close enough, and bigger than ever with the Patriots having won Super Bowl 49 and Brady playing as great a fourth quarter as any quarterback ever played in the big game.
Goodell has suspended him, essentially, for being at least complicit in Patriots footballs used in the AFC Championship Game being below the league’s legal limit, and additionally for obstruction of a league-sponsored investigation into all that. Now Goodell, because he will not relinquish power he collectively bargained for, and won from, the NFL's players’ union, is acting as the arbitrator for Brady’s appeal. And you must know that Goodell can’t win here no matter what he does, because if he does anything except wipe out, entirely, a suspension he handed down, he is most likely going to end up in federal court.
REPORT: NFL BLOWS OFF BRADY'S DEFLATEGATE SETTLEMENT OFFER
As one executive from another sport said on Thursday: “Being judge, jury, and ------ing executioner finally caught up with Roger.”
Goodell simply can't win here, in a story that has been going on for six months and shows no signs of ending anytime soon. After having survived his own year of living dangerously with Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson and Greg Hardy and the other miscreants from his sport accused of violence against women and children, Goodell is now in the ring with the glamorous face of his sport, and a guy who has a perfect right to say he’s the best to play that sport’s most glamorous position after winning his fourth Super Bowl, and played in his sixth overall.
Oh no, Goodell can’t win, no matter how he rules, when he finally gets around to ruling on Brady’s appeal.
And Brady thinks he shouldn’t lose anything except maybe some money; has clearly indicated that he doesn’t think he should serve four minutes of any suspension, much less four games. If he does, that is the same as pleading guilty to being a cheat with those footballs, whether or not he officially ordered the code red on them or not
In that way, he and Goodell are the same, each man worried about his own legacy, and how he will be viewed by the public — and by history — when this thing ends.
The irony here is that the immense power that Goodell sought, power that once put him on the cover of Time magazine, posing as “The Enforcer,” is what might have him end up in federal court, even though our courts hate to waste time settling workplace disputes. If this thing does grind its way through the court system, it won’t be because of bad science in Ted Wells’ report about DeflateGate, or circumstantial evidence, or even logic that makes you believe that those two equipment guys in Foxborough took the air out of those balls without Brady’s advice or consent.
It will be because Goodell is the arbitrator for his own case against Brady, in a system of justice that no longer works in pro football, one Goodell should have abandoned long ago. Still, he seems to be inexorably moving toward a place where the NFL usually does about as well as the Jets do in the AFC East against Brady and the Patriots:
Court.
The league lost in court on BountyGate, after Goodell’s predecessor, Paul Tagliabue, overturned Goodell’s ruling against the Saints. The one truly independent arbitrator the NFL has had lately — former U.S. District Judge Barbara Jones — overturned the second suspension Goodell handed down to Ray Rice. And Judge David Doty, who routinely body-slams the NFL, overturned Goodell’s suspension of Adrian Peterson. Each one of those results points to how ridiculous the league’s collective bargaining agreement is on crime and punishment, whether the NFLPA handed this kind of power to Goodell, with both hands, or not.
It was Jones who ruled that Goodell’s second, indefinite suspension of Rice was “arbitrary” and “an abuse of discretion.” The league tried to argue in front of Doty that Jones’ ruling should have had no bearing on Adrian Peterson. But Doty did what he has done a lot to the NFL, and shook his head, no.
“The court finds no valid basis to distinguish this case from the Rice matter,” he wrote at the time.
If you’re Goodell, and you commission the Wells Report and trust it, you have no choice by to suspend Brady. But from the start, you wondered if Wells’ report could ever stand up in a court of law. Now we may be about to find that out. A crime that wasn’t much to begin with has turned into the fight of the century. Who says heavyweight boxing is dead?
:thumb:
Merlot
With Tom Brady suspension and Patriots DeflateGate saga, Roger Goodell in a battle he can't win
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Friday, July 24, 2015, 12:39 AM
http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/f...rady-deflategate-suspension-article-1.2302848
There have been other heavyweight fights between sports commissioners and star players, all the way back to the ’60s when Pete Rozelle suspended Paul Hornung, when he was still one of the golden boys of pro football, from the NFL for a year for gambling. The late Bart Giamatti slugged it out with Pete Rose more than 25 years ago, over Rose’s gambling, a fight that in so many ways is still going on.
There was a time when David Stern had to investigate Michael Jordan, the biggest star we had at the time, over gambling Jordan was alleged to have done in his free time away from the Bulls. You know the conspiracy theory on that one, that the reason Jordan went off later to play minor-league baseball was because it was that or get suspended for a year.
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Stern has always laughed that off, along with the notion that he issued the secret suspension at a meeting at his home.
“My wife still wants to know where she was that day,” Stern told Bill Simmons
But in so many ways, there has never been a fight like the one going on right now between Tom Brady and Roger Goodell, now that Brady has appealed the four-game suspension that Goodell handed down along with a million-dollar fine to the Patriots over DeflateGate. Brady might not be the star Jordan was, but he is close enough, and bigger than ever with the Patriots having won Super Bowl 49 and Brady playing as great a fourth quarter as any quarterback ever played in the big game.
Goodell has suspended him, essentially, for being at least complicit in Patriots footballs used in the AFC Championship Game being below the league’s legal limit, and additionally for obstruction of a league-sponsored investigation into all that. Now Goodell, because he will not relinquish power he collectively bargained for, and won from, the NFL's players’ union, is acting as the arbitrator for Brady’s appeal. And you must know that Goodell can’t win here no matter what he does, because if he does anything except wipe out, entirely, a suspension he handed down, he is most likely going to end up in federal court.
REPORT: NFL BLOWS OFF BRADY'S DEFLATEGATE SETTLEMENT OFFER
As one executive from another sport said on Thursday: “Being judge, jury, and ------ing executioner finally caught up with Roger.”
Goodell simply can't win here, in a story that has been going on for six months and shows no signs of ending anytime soon. After having survived his own year of living dangerously with Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson and Greg Hardy and the other miscreants from his sport accused of violence against women and children, Goodell is now in the ring with the glamorous face of his sport, and a guy who has a perfect right to say he’s the best to play that sport’s most glamorous position after winning his fourth Super Bowl, and played in his sixth overall.
Oh no, Goodell can’t win, no matter how he rules, when he finally gets around to ruling on Brady’s appeal.
And Brady thinks he shouldn’t lose anything except maybe some money; has clearly indicated that he doesn’t think he should serve four minutes of any suspension, much less four games. If he does, that is the same as pleading guilty to being a cheat with those footballs, whether or not he officially ordered the code red on them or not
In that way, he and Goodell are the same, each man worried about his own legacy, and how he will be viewed by the public — and by history — when this thing ends.
The irony here is that the immense power that Goodell sought, power that once put him on the cover of Time magazine, posing as “The Enforcer,” is what might have him end up in federal court, even though our courts hate to waste time settling workplace disputes. If this thing does grind its way through the court system, it won’t be because of bad science in Ted Wells’ report about DeflateGate, or circumstantial evidence, or even logic that makes you believe that those two equipment guys in Foxborough took the air out of those balls without Brady’s advice or consent.
It will be because Goodell is the arbitrator for his own case against Brady, in a system of justice that no longer works in pro football, one Goodell should have abandoned long ago. Still, he seems to be inexorably moving toward a place where the NFL usually does about as well as the Jets do in the AFC East against Brady and the Patriots:
Court.
The league lost in court on BountyGate, after Goodell’s predecessor, Paul Tagliabue, overturned Goodell’s ruling against the Saints. The one truly independent arbitrator the NFL has had lately — former U.S. District Judge Barbara Jones — overturned the second suspension Goodell handed down to Ray Rice. And Judge David Doty, who routinely body-slams the NFL, overturned Goodell’s suspension of Adrian Peterson. Each one of those results points to how ridiculous the league’s collective bargaining agreement is on crime and punishment, whether the NFLPA handed this kind of power to Goodell, with both hands, or not.
It was Jones who ruled that Goodell’s second, indefinite suspension of Rice was “arbitrary” and “an abuse of discretion.” The league tried to argue in front of Doty that Jones’ ruling should have had no bearing on Adrian Peterson. But Doty did what he has done a lot to the NFL, and shook his head, no.
“The court finds no valid basis to distinguish this case from the Rice matter,” he wrote at the time.
If you’re Goodell, and you commission the Wells Report and trust it, you have no choice by to suspend Brady. But from the start, you wondered if Wells’ report could ever stand up in a court of law. Now we may be about to find that out. A crime that wasn’t much to begin with has turned into the fight of the century. Who says heavyweight boxing is dead?
:thumb:
Merlot
Honest Fans,
Roger Goodell's overkill on Tom Brady DeflateGate suspension is offensive
http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/f...-suspension-brady-offensive-article-1.2307393
There is the notion suddenly, six months into a Deflategate controversy that feels as if it has been going on for six years, that Roger Goodell nailed Tom Brady good on Tuesday, like a blitzing linebacker, when he told the whole world that Brady destroyed a cell phone that Goodell’s investigator, Ted Wells, wanted to see. That is the centerpiece of Goodell’s statement that his four-game suspension of Brady over Deflategate stands and that if Brady and his union don’t like it, then sue him.
It is exactly what the union will do now on Brady’s behalf, and clearly have been waiting to do for weeks. Because even if you think that cell phone being destroyed right before Brady sat down with Wells makes this an airtight case over this stupid action, one thing did not change on Tuesday.
FOLLOW THE DAILY NEWS SPORTS ON FACEBOOK. "LIKE" US HERE
There is still no more hard evidence against Brady, which means evidence that will stand up in a real court rather than Goodell’s, than there has been all along, and that includes text messages the league had all along.
RELATED: ROBERT KRAFT CALLS GOODELL'S DECISION 'UNFATHOMABLE'
Now this may hurt the sales on the Free Tom Brady T-shirts I saw being sold in Kenmore Square on Monday night after the Red Sox-White Sox game, and take some of the air out of the notion that Brady has become more of a political prisoner than Nelson Mandela. But still, what Goodell really seems to be doing here is using obstruction against Brady as his own defense for convicting Brady as being complicit in taking the air out of those footballs when the Patriots played the Colts in the AFC Championship game in Foxboro.
“I’m sorry, but at the end of the day, there is still zero credible evidence that Brady had a hand in deflating those footballs,” the noted sports attorney, Jay Reisinger, was saying from Pittsburgh late Tuesday afternoon.
“There is still no direct witness and no electronic evidence.”
RELATED: A COMPLETE DEFLATEGATE TIMELINE
Reisinger is one of the smartest guys to ever work in or around sports, even if he did represent Alex Rodriguez once. I said to him, “Well, yeah, but Goodell is basically saying that there’s no electronic evidence because Touchdown Tom destroyed it.”
“That is pure conjecture,” Reisinger said. “He weaves in the phone, and what he provides is the adverse inference that there definitely WAS incriminating evidence on that phone. And because he is inferring that there was incriminating evidence, that gives him a basis to uphold his suspension.”
So now the NFL Players Association finally files its papers against Goodell and the league, something that was as inevitable as the tide. The union lawyers will attempt to prove that the entire procedure here was tainted, then ask a judge to substitute his or her judgment for Goodell’s.
Reisinger believes that what may ultimately sink this discipline against Brady, whether you think he did it or not, is that Goodell was the one acting, as one sports executive said to me the other day, as “judge, jury and f---ing executioner” in the case of the NFL vs. Tom Brady.
MYERS: ROGER GOODELL FUMBLES DEFLATEGATE SITUATION
“You keep coming back to that,” Reisinger said. “The person who imposed the discipline is the one who heard this thing, which I believe was a tremendous mistake on his part. I’ve believed all along that there was a much better shot (for the league) to uphold the discipline if they had appointed somebody else to hear the appeal. But they clearly weren’t willing to take that risk.”
It was clear the day Ted Wells’ report was released that Goodell was going to suspend Brady, the only question was for how long. Five days later, we found out it was four games. All along there was a theory, from a lot of us, that the suspension would be cut in half. But perhaps Goodell, convinced that Brady and the union were taking him to court, didn’t see any point in knocking anything off those four games.
Near the finish of Goodell’s statement he once again talked about the original language of the Wells report, how it was “more probable than not” that Brady was one of the guilty parties here, along with his buddies, those two equipment guys. What the NFL commissioner wants you and me and everybody to believe now is that it’s even more probable now than it was before.
Except for this. Except the commissioner still can’t seem to decide whether Brady’s crime here was deflating those balls, or not fulfilling his requirement, under the league’s collective bargaining agreement, to cooperate fully with a league-sanctioned investigation. So what he seems to be doing in Deflategate is conflating those two things.
“If you want to punish him for obstruction, issue a separate punishment for that,” Reisinger said. “But what Goodell seems to be doing here, at least in my opinion, is weaving obstruction in as an excuse for punishing him on the air coming out of those balls. I actually think he would have been on much safer ground on obstruction than the footballs.”
NFL TRAINING CAMP INTERACTIVE: GET THE TEAM-BY-TEAM LOOK
Then Reisinger laughed and said, “It would have been a variation of getting mobsters on things like income tax evasion.”
Then he was talking again about how the court will eventually make a determination about whether or not the decision-maker in this case, meaning the commissioner of the National Football League, was impartial.
Of course, that is the irony of the pro football version of a third-rate burglary. In the end, the one who may end up on trial here isn’t Brady. It is Roger Goodell.
GOBRADYGO,
Merlot
Roger Goodell's overkill on Tom Brady DeflateGate suspension is offensive
http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/f...-suspension-brady-offensive-article-1.2307393
There is the notion suddenly, six months into a Deflategate controversy that feels as if it has been going on for six years, that Roger Goodell nailed Tom Brady good on Tuesday, like a blitzing linebacker, when he told the whole world that Brady destroyed a cell phone that Goodell’s investigator, Ted Wells, wanted to see. That is the centerpiece of Goodell’s statement that his four-game suspension of Brady over Deflategate stands and that if Brady and his union don’t like it, then sue him.
It is exactly what the union will do now on Brady’s behalf, and clearly have been waiting to do for weeks. Because even if you think that cell phone being destroyed right before Brady sat down with Wells makes this an airtight case over this stupid action, one thing did not change on Tuesday.
FOLLOW THE DAILY NEWS SPORTS ON FACEBOOK. "LIKE" US HERE
There is still no more hard evidence against Brady, which means evidence that will stand up in a real court rather than Goodell’s, than there has been all along, and that includes text messages the league had all along.
RELATED: ROBERT KRAFT CALLS GOODELL'S DECISION 'UNFATHOMABLE'
Now this may hurt the sales on the Free Tom Brady T-shirts I saw being sold in Kenmore Square on Monday night after the Red Sox-White Sox game, and take some of the air out of the notion that Brady has become more of a political prisoner than Nelson Mandela. But still, what Goodell really seems to be doing here is using obstruction against Brady as his own defense for convicting Brady as being complicit in taking the air out of those footballs when the Patriots played the Colts in the AFC Championship game in Foxboro.
“I’m sorry, but at the end of the day, there is still zero credible evidence that Brady had a hand in deflating those footballs,” the noted sports attorney, Jay Reisinger, was saying from Pittsburgh late Tuesday afternoon.
“There is still no direct witness and no electronic evidence.”
RELATED: A COMPLETE DEFLATEGATE TIMELINE
Reisinger is one of the smartest guys to ever work in or around sports, even if he did represent Alex Rodriguez once. I said to him, “Well, yeah, but Goodell is basically saying that there’s no electronic evidence because Touchdown Tom destroyed it.”
“That is pure conjecture,” Reisinger said. “He weaves in the phone, and what he provides is the adverse inference that there definitely WAS incriminating evidence on that phone. And because he is inferring that there was incriminating evidence, that gives him a basis to uphold his suspension.”
So now the NFL Players Association finally files its papers against Goodell and the league, something that was as inevitable as the tide. The union lawyers will attempt to prove that the entire procedure here was tainted, then ask a judge to substitute his or her judgment for Goodell’s.
Reisinger believes that what may ultimately sink this discipline against Brady, whether you think he did it or not, is that Goodell was the one acting, as one sports executive said to me the other day, as “judge, jury and f---ing executioner” in the case of the NFL vs. Tom Brady.
MYERS: ROGER GOODELL FUMBLES DEFLATEGATE SITUATION
“You keep coming back to that,” Reisinger said. “The person who imposed the discipline is the one who heard this thing, which I believe was a tremendous mistake on his part. I’ve believed all along that there was a much better shot (for the league) to uphold the discipline if they had appointed somebody else to hear the appeal. But they clearly weren’t willing to take that risk.”
It was clear the day Ted Wells’ report was released that Goodell was going to suspend Brady, the only question was for how long. Five days later, we found out it was four games. All along there was a theory, from a lot of us, that the suspension would be cut in half. But perhaps Goodell, convinced that Brady and the union were taking him to court, didn’t see any point in knocking anything off those four games.
Near the finish of Goodell’s statement he once again talked about the original language of the Wells report, how it was “more probable than not” that Brady was one of the guilty parties here, along with his buddies, those two equipment guys. What the NFL commissioner wants you and me and everybody to believe now is that it’s even more probable now than it was before.
Except for this. Except the commissioner still can’t seem to decide whether Brady’s crime here was deflating those balls, or not fulfilling his requirement, under the league’s collective bargaining agreement, to cooperate fully with a league-sanctioned investigation. So what he seems to be doing in Deflategate is conflating those two things.
“If you want to punish him for obstruction, issue a separate punishment for that,” Reisinger said. “But what Goodell seems to be doing here, at least in my opinion, is weaving obstruction in as an excuse for punishing him on the air coming out of those balls. I actually think he would have been on much safer ground on obstruction than the footballs.”
NFL TRAINING CAMP INTERACTIVE: GET THE TEAM-BY-TEAM LOOK
Then Reisinger laughed and said, “It would have been a variation of getting mobsters on things like income tax evasion.”
Then he was talking again about how the court will eventually make a determination about whether or not the decision-maker in this case, meaning the commissioner of the National Football League, was impartial.
Of course, that is the irony of the pro football version of a third-rate burglary. In the end, the one who may end up on trial here isn’t Brady. It is Roger Goodell.
GOBRADYGO,
Merlot
Don't know who CA is and frankly I don't care. Wait, what happened to your promise to ignore me? You got a really serious credibility problem. You say one thing and then do another. Who else do we know that does this on a consistent basis?
The Summer Practice Drill reports coming out of Davie Florida on the Fins Defensive Line are absolutely amazing. Published accounts are that Miami's Defensive Line is going to be nothing short of a monster for teams to handle. The depth of skill on the line is nothing short of impressive. The rotaional ability to keep itself refreshed is sure to wear down opposing OL's. Let's make sure that Brady is on the field (i.e. no suspension) for their matchups with the Pats. I want to throughly enjoy watching that smug asshole's backside hit the astroturf all day long.
There's a story posted on NBC Sports, a portion of which reads as follows:
"There were multiple reports last week that the league might have been willing to reduce Brady’s suspension by at least two games under certain conditions. Some of those connected to the case believe that meant the league was seeking an admission of guilt by Brady, presumably tied to the deflation of footballs and not merely to a lack of cooperation with the investigation."
If this is true I think that Goddell has simply gone too far. There does not exist an outcome that has Brady admitting to any form of cheating, unless Goddell has got something up his sleeve that we're not publicly aware of. That being said, even if Brady is guilty (and I believe he is) it would be beyond stupid for him to admit it. As I've said before (if it's actually an available alternative) Brady should not contend the failure to cooperate charge, take his two weeks and go somewhere and cry about it. If Goddell isn't offering that alternative he's either a fool or he's got something up his sleeve that we're not privy to.
P.S. the stories coming out of Davie regarding Miami's Left side defense (Suh, Wake & Grimes, all Pro-Bowlers for the last few years) are positively scary for opposing teams. Apparently this Left side has given little or nothing to Tannehill's 1st Team Offense in the first four practices.
"There were multiple reports last week that the league might have been willing to reduce Brady’s suspension by at least two games under certain conditions. Some of those connected to the case believe that meant the league was seeking an admission of guilt by Brady, presumably tied to the deflation of footballs and not merely to a lack of cooperation with the investigation."
If this is true I think that Goddell has simply gone too far. There does not exist an outcome that has Brady admitting to any form of cheating, unless Goddell has got something up his sleeve that we're not publicly aware of. That being said, even if Brady is guilty (and I believe he is) it would be beyond stupid for him to admit it. As I've said before (if it's actually an available alternative) Brady should not contend the failure to cooperate charge, take his two weeks and go somewhere and cry about it. If Goddell isn't offering that alternative he's either a fool or he's got something up his sleeve that we're not privy to.
P.S. the stories coming out of Davie regarding Miami's Left side defense (Suh, Wake & Grimes, all Pro-Bowlers for the last few years) are positively scary for opposing teams. Apparently this Left side has given little or nothing to Tannehill's 1st Team Offense in the first four practices.
Honest Fans Only,
NFL Footballs Can LEAK Right Out of the Box.
Now we get a report from the NFL's Central Region supervisor of officials Gary Slaughter that for year it's been known new NFL footballs have been found to leak right out of the box and it's often not detectable at first.
Goodell can't be happy that one of his own people put out this information two weeks before the court hearing on the Deflategate case. Or could he? Remember this is all about an average of about 1 PSI missing from some footballs belonging to the Patriots AND the Colts. Yes, no one remembers Colt's footballs were under the rule limit too. So how could Goodell be happy about this report that new footballs leak?
Goodell let a minor incident turn into the Kennedy Assassination for one reason. Profits! Deflategate is so big now the NFL is guaranteed a huge increase in profits from viewers who have become obsessed by the scandal to watch the games. The record punishment, the refusal to clear up very bad reports, deliberately characterizing reports like Brady's phone disposal as willful destruction to hide information has been orchestrated by the hand of a poisonous snake oil salesman to bait Patriots haters for maximum effect...ie...PROFITS. Everyone will be watching more than ever this year because of Goodell's manipulation of the whole episode. A job very well done.
The big problem looming is the scandal has forced Goodell to put in place rigid football measurement procedures before, during, and after games. Footballs without leaks or weather issues still get fucking POUNDED ON all game long. Running backs and receivers drop on them, defensemen target hitting footballs in hopes of fumbles. That's a big risk of damage and leak issues in itself. Now add in hundreds of games in cold, very cold, and bad weather and a man made object like a football with all it goes through is going to produce a slew of readings outside the rules that will make the entire Deflategate scandal look like the world's greatest sports farce.
The timing of the Leaky footballs news will not help in court but why does Goodell care about that. It was always about exploiting an opportunity for bigger profits and the Deflategate sham has guaranteed that. The Leak news gives him the excuse he needs to save face with all those coming measurements that will make Deflategate look like the phony circus it is. It's a ready-made excuse that gives Goodell a win-win. The NFL makes maybe a $$$billion$$$ more and the leak revelation let's Gooodell of the hook so he can say, well, based on the information applied to the case he did the best he could. Never mind officials KNEW about the leaks for years. Get that out after bigger profits are assured.
The key phrase..."MORE LIKELY THAN NOT"...was the perfect wiggle room for all the shady handling that gave Goodell everything he and the other owners, minus Kraft, always wanted.
http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.co...officials-acknowledges-slow-leak-possibility/
Posted by Mike Florio on August 2, 2015, 1:27 PM EDT
The Ted Wells report should have resulted, in the opinion of PFT and not necessarily anyone else, in a finding that the results of the investigation were inconclusive as to whether the Patriots had tampered with footballs prior to the AFC title game.
Inconclusive, because the NFL had (as former NFL official and supervisor of officials Jim Daopoulos has told PFT) never regarded the inflation of footballs as a science.
Inconclusive, because the NFL had never even checked air pressure in footballs during or after any game in the 95-year history of the league.
Inconclusive, because of the significant gap between the two gauges made available to the officials responsible for setting the air pressure in the footballs used for the AFC Championship Game.
Inconclusive, because the measurements generated by the Patriots footballs (the real ones, not the false ones leaked to ESPN) on one of those gauges — the one the referee specifically recalled using before kickoff to set the air in the Patriots footballs — fell within the range expected by the Ideal Gas Law.
Inconclusive, because one of the gauges showed three of four Colts footballs to be under the 12.5 PSI minimum at halftime, even though they started at 13.0 or 13.1 PSI.
Inconclusive, because a $1,000-an-hour lawyer wasn’t able to parlay troubling Beavis-and-Butthead text messages into a pants-pissing confession from a day-of-game employee who carries around a bag of footballs on Sundays.
And, now, inconclusive, because a current NFL supervisor of officials has acknowledged that some footballs are defective, when it comes to keeping air inside them.
“These are man-made products,” Central Region supervisor of officials Gary Slaughter said during a via to the Steelers, via Mark Kaboly of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. “There is a bladder and a valve. We have all checked them for many years. Sometimes when you check the ball in the locker room right out of the box, there could be a problem. They could have a slow leak, and you wouldn’t even know it at the time.”
The possibility of a slow leak doesn’t exonerate the Patriots. But it’s another reason for concluding based on the information available to Ted Wells that the evidence of cheating prior to the AFC Championship Game is inconclusive.
The sheer volume of the evidence generated by Ted Wells allows for a 243-page decision supporting any outcome Wells wanted to reach. Whatever outcome he wanted to reach, the end result should have been that the evidence is inconclusive.
Cheers head-nodders, :crazy:
Merlot
NFL Footballs Can LEAK Right Out of the Box.
Now we get a report from the NFL's Central Region supervisor of officials Gary Slaughter that for year it's been known new NFL footballs have been found to leak right out of the box and it's often not detectable at first.
Goodell can't be happy that one of his own people put out this information two weeks before the court hearing on the Deflategate case. Or could he? Remember this is all about an average of about 1 PSI missing from some footballs belonging to the Patriots AND the Colts. Yes, no one remembers Colt's footballs were under the rule limit too. So how could Goodell be happy about this report that new footballs leak?
Goodell let a minor incident turn into the Kennedy Assassination for one reason. Profits! Deflategate is so big now the NFL is guaranteed a huge increase in profits from viewers who have become obsessed by the scandal to watch the games. The record punishment, the refusal to clear up very bad reports, deliberately characterizing reports like Brady's phone disposal as willful destruction to hide information has been orchestrated by the hand of a poisonous snake oil salesman to bait Patriots haters for maximum effect...ie...PROFITS. Everyone will be watching more than ever this year because of Goodell's manipulation of the whole episode. A job very well done.
The big problem looming is the scandal has forced Goodell to put in place rigid football measurement procedures before, during, and after games. Footballs without leaks or weather issues still get fucking POUNDED ON all game long. Running backs and receivers drop on them, defensemen target hitting footballs in hopes of fumbles. That's a big risk of damage and leak issues in itself. Now add in hundreds of games in cold, very cold, and bad weather and a man made object like a football with all it goes through is going to produce a slew of readings outside the rules that will make the entire Deflategate scandal look like the world's greatest sports farce.
The timing of the Leaky footballs news will not help in court but why does Goodell care about that. It was always about exploiting an opportunity for bigger profits and the Deflategate sham has guaranteed that. The Leak news gives him the excuse he needs to save face with all those coming measurements that will make Deflategate look like the phony circus it is. It's a ready-made excuse that gives Goodell a win-win. The NFL makes maybe a $$$billion$$$ more and the leak revelation let's Gooodell of the hook so he can say, well, based on the information applied to the case he did the best he could. Never mind officials KNEW about the leaks for years. Get that out after bigger profits are assured.
The key phrase..."MORE LIKELY THAN NOT"...was the perfect wiggle room for all the shady handling that gave Goodell everything he and the other owners, minus Kraft, always wanted.
http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.co...officials-acknowledges-slow-leak-possibility/
Posted by Mike Florio on August 2, 2015, 1:27 PM EDT
The Ted Wells report should have resulted, in the opinion of PFT and not necessarily anyone else, in a finding that the results of the investigation were inconclusive as to whether the Patriots had tampered with footballs prior to the AFC title game.
Inconclusive, because the NFL had (as former NFL official and supervisor of officials Jim Daopoulos has told PFT) never regarded the inflation of footballs as a science.
Inconclusive, because the NFL had never even checked air pressure in footballs during or after any game in the 95-year history of the league.
Inconclusive, because of the significant gap between the two gauges made available to the officials responsible for setting the air pressure in the footballs used for the AFC Championship Game.
Inconclusive, because the measurements generated by the Patriots footballs (the real ones, not the false ones leaked to ESPN) on one of those gauges — the one the referee specifically recalled using before kickoff to set the air in the Patriots footballs — fell within the range expected by the Ideal Gas Law.
Inconclusive, because one of the gauges showed three of four Colts footballs to be under the 12.5 PSI minimum at halftime, even though they started at 13.0 or 13.1 PSI.
Inconclusive, because a $1,000-an-hour lawyer wasn’t able to parlay troubling Beavis-and-Butthead text messages into a pants-pissing confession from a day-of-game employee who carries around a bag of footballs on Sundays.
And, now, inconclusive, because a current NFL supervisor of officials has acknowledged that some footballs are defective, when it comes to keeping air inside them.
“These are man-made products,” Central Region supervisor of officials Gary Slaughter said during a via to the Steelers, via Mark Kaboly of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. “There is a bladder and a valve. We have all checked them for many years. Sometimes when you check the ball in the locker room right out of the box, there could be a problem. They could have a slow leak, and you wouldn’t even know it at the time.”
The possibility of a slow leak doesn’t exonerate the Patriots. But it’s another reason for concluding based on the information available to Ted Wells that the evidence of cheating prior to the AFC Championship Game is inconclusive.
The sheer volume of the evidence generated by Ted Wells allows for a 243-page decision supporting any outcome Wells wanted to reach. Whatever outcome he wanted to reach, the end result should have been that the evidence is inconclusive.
Cheers head-nodders, :crazy:
Merlot
Honest fans,
Today Goodell's hand picked judge in the Deflategate court battle went against Goodell's wishes to keep all testimony sealed, and all 450 pages (or so) were sent out to the media and anyone interested. One revealed tidbit exposed how shady the start of all this nonsense was. First, NFL rules say absolutely no one connected to any team is allowed in the officials room for any reason. According to WEEI reading from testimony as it was being printed out for the first time around 5:20 pm, Ryan Grigson the Colts GM and another Colts team official were both in the official's room as the original footballs in question were being tested for their PSI. Does that mean their was any undue influence aside from breaking the rules by being there. Remember 3 of 4 Colts' footballs were found to be deflated also, then the testing of the other 8 Colts' footballs suddenly stopped for no reason. Grigson, who started this whole sham has denied he was ever in the room. It all smacks of orchestrated manipulation from the beginning.
In case you missed it those of you who thought Goodell's phony arbitration decision was the last word have been given a wake up call. Judge Berman, Goodell's own choice to be heard in court, has decided that Goodell's version of so-called justice where he essentially agreed with himself to keep the earlier 4-game suspension is not going to stand. Berman has ordered a negotiated settlement signaling his dissatisfaction with Goodell's handling of the entire issue.
Deflategate judge’s orders hint at reduced Brady ban
http://nypost.com/2015/07/31/deflategate-judges-orders-hint-at-reduced-brady-ban/
FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — The chances Tom Brady’s Deflategate suspension could be reduced appeared to improve Friday when the federal judge hearing his case ordered the NFL and the Patriots star to hold a settlement conference.
U.S. District Judge Richard Berman said commissioner Roger Goodell and Brady must appear in person at the conference, set for Aug. 12 in Manhattan. If that doesn’t work, Berman will hold an Aug. 19 oral-argument conference — essentially a mini-trial — with Goodell and Brady also required to attend.
And in case the sides weren’t clear on how he hopes the dispute will be decided, Berman used the word “settlement” five times in his order. The judge also agreed to the request of both sides to decide the matter before the Patriots’ Sept. 10 season opener, when Brady’s four-game ban is set to begin.
“I request that you all engage in comprehensive, good-faith settlement discussions prior to the [settlement] conference,” Berman wrote to the league and the NFL Players Association, which is acting on Brady’s behalf.
On Thursday, Berman had ordered all sides to tone down the heated rhetoric, but the odds of a settlement before the Aug. 12 conference seemed to dim Friday when the Patriots released reams of private correspondence with the league about Deflategate from last winter.
Goodell has painted himself into a corner with the owners pressuring him to keep the 4-game suspension, while the judge orders compromise. Goodell can't give in. The owners might have his job if he does. Meanwhile the NFLPA and the Patriots are getting what they wanted. All records are being unsealed and exposed.
cheers,
Merlot
Today Goodell's hand picked judge in the Deflategate court battle went against Goodell's wishes to keep all testimony sealed, and all 450 pages (or so) were sent out to the media and anyone interested. One revealed tidbit exposed how shady the start of all this nonsense was. First, NFL rules say absolutely no one connected to any team is allowed in the officials room for any reason. According to WEEI reading from testimony as it was being printed out for the first time around 5:20 pm, Ryan Grigson the Colts GM and another Colts team official were both in the official's room as the original footballs in question were being tested for their PSI. Does that mean their was any undue influence aside from breaking the rules by being there. Remember 3 of 4 Colts' footballs were found to be deflated also, then the testing of the other 8 Colts' footballs suddenly stopped for no reason. Grigson, who started this whole sham has denied he was ever in the room. It all smacks of orchestrated manipulation from the beginning.
In case you missed it those of you who thought Goodell's phony arbitration decision was the last word have been given a wake up call. Judge Berman, Goodell's own choice to be heard in court, has decided that Goodell's version of so-called justice where he essentially agreed with himself to keep the earlier 4-game suspension is not going to stand. Berman has ordered a negotiated settlement signaling his dissatisfaction with Goodell's handling of the entire issue.
Deflategate judge’s orders hint at reduced Brady ban
http://nypost.com/2015/07/31/deflategate-judges-orders-hint-at-reduced-brady-ban/
FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — The chances Tom Brady’s Deflategate suspension could be reduced appeared to improve Friday when the federal judge hearing his case ordered the NFL and the Patriots star to hold a settlement conference.
U.S. District Judge Richard Berman said commissioner Roger Goodell and Brady must appear in person at the conference, set for Aug. 12 in Manhattan. If that doesn’t work, Berman will hold an Aug. 19 oral-argument conference — essentially a mini-trial — with Goodell and Brady also required to attend.
And in case the sides weren’t clear on how he hopes the dispute will be decided, Berman used the word “settlement” five times in his order. The judge also agreed to the request of both sides to decide the matter before the Patriots’ Sept. 10 season opener, when Brady’s four-game ban is set to begin.
“I request that you all engage in comprehensive, good-faith settlement discussions prior to the [settlement] conference,” Berman wrote to the league and the NFL Players Association, which is acting on Brady’s behalf.
On Thursday, Berman had ordered all sides to tone down the heated rhetoric, but the odds of a settlement before the Aug. 12 conference seemed to dim Friday when the Patriots released reams of private correspondence with the league about Deflategate from last winter.
Goodell has painted himself into a corner with the owners pressuring him to keep the 4-game suspension, while the judge orders compromise. Goodell can't give in. The owners might have his job if he does. Meanwhile the NFLPA and the Patriots are getting what they wanted. All records are being unsealed and exposed.
cheers,
Merlot
Honest Fans,
Release of Records Signals Judge Berman's Dissatisfaction With Deflategate Process and Goodell.
http://www.si.com/nfl/2015/08/04/tom-brady-appeal-roger-goodell-ted-wells-transcript
Ted Wells declined to endorse a punishment for Brady in regards to his cooperativeness. Although Wells sharply criticized Brady’s unwillingness to share electronic materials, calling it “one of the most ill-advised decisions I have ever seen,” Wells also testified, “I did not tell Mr. Brady at any time that he would be subject to punishment for not giving*—not turning over the documents. I did not say anything like that.” If Brady is being honest, it is difficult to understand why the NFL would suspend him, let alone suspend him for four games. He categorically denied the allegations and the NFL lacks evidence that refutes Brady’s denial. The suspension would instead be based on Brady refusing to turn over electronic records, even though no collectively bargained rule required that he do so.
Based on the rules there's no cause to suspend anyone for refusing to turn over a phone.
Vincent entrusted NFL vice president and former New York Jets executive Mike Kensil to investigate. Kensil, it should be noted, is alleged to have played a role in spreading a false story in the days following the AFC Championship Game that 11 of the Patriots 12 game balls during the AFC Championship Game were underinflated by two pounds of air. Fans can also read about how Wells’ “independent” investigation seemed anything but independent from the NFL, which according to the transcript paid Wells between $2.5 million and $3 million. In his testimony, Wells cited the attorney-client privilege between himself and the NFL in responding to questions posed by Kessler. He also admitted that NFL attorneys, including Lorin Reisner who cross-examined Brady in the appeal, assisted in the preparation of the report.
The report was prepared by those either paid who work for Goodell or those who had already demonstrated a predisposed bias against the Patriots.
Tuesday’s disclosures could advantage Brady. This seems particularly true in regards to the NFL’s contention that Goodell, as the hearing officer of Brady’s appeal, was partial. As the transcript shows, Goodell’s attorneys worked with Wells in editing drafts of his report. Wells' reference to the attorney-client privilege with the NFL in response to questions by Kessler likely also troubles Judge Berman in evaluating whether Goodell could have been fair. After all, Goodell would have essentially had to rule against multiple people who work for him to rule for Brady. Judge Berman may conclude that the deck was inescapably stacked against Brady from the start.
Goodell set up conditions where he couldn't rule in favor of Brady unless he wanted to contradict those working for Goodell.
GOBRADYGO,
Merlot
Release of Records Signals Judge Berman's Dissatisfaction With Deflategate Process and Goodell.
http://www.si.com/nfl/2015/08/04/tom-brady-appeal-roger-goodell-ted-wells-transcript
Ted Wells declined to endorse a punishment for Brady in regards to his cooperativeness. Although Wells sharply criticized Brady’s unwillingness to share electronic materials, calling it “one of the most ill-advised decisions I have ever seen,” Wells also testified, “I did not tell Mr. Brady at any time that he would be subject to punishment for not giving*—not turning over the documents. I did not say anything like that.” If Brady is being honest, it is difficult to understand why the NFL would suspend him, let alone suspend him for four games. He categorically denied the allegations and the NFL lacks evidence that refutes Brady’s denial. The suspension would instead be based on Brady refusing to turn over electronic records, even though no collectively bargained rule required that he do so.
Based on the rules there's no cause to suspend anyone for refusing to turn over a phone.
Vincent entrusted NFL vice president and former New York Jets executive Mike Kensil to investigate. Kensil, it should be noted, is alleged to have played a role in spreading a false story in the days following the AFC Championship Game that 11 of the Patriots 12 game balls during the AFC Championship Game were underinflated by two pounds of air. Fans can also read about how Wells’ “independent” investigation seemed anything but independent from the NFL, which according to the transcript paid Wells between $2.5 million and $3 million. In his testimony, Wells cited the attorney-client privilege between himself and the NFL in responding to questions posed by Kessler. He also admitted that NFL attorneys, including Lorin Reisner who cross-examined Brady in the appeal, assisted in the preparation of the report.
The report was prepared by those either paid who work for Goodell or those who had already demonstrated a predisposed bias against the Patriots.
Tuesday’s disclosures could advantage Brady. This seems particularly true in regards to the NFL’s contention that Goodell, as the hearing officer of Brady’s appeal, was partial. As the transcript shows, Goodell’s attorneys worked with Wells in editing drafts of his report. Wells' reference to the attorney-client privilege with the NFL in response to questions by Kessler likely also troubles Judge Berman in evaluating whether Goodell could have been fair. After all, Goodell would have essentially had to rule against multiple people who work for him to rule for Brady. Judge Berman may conclude that the deck was inescapably stacked against Brady from the start.
Goodell set up conditions where he couldn't rule in favor of Brady unless he wanted to contradict those working for Goodell.
GOBRADYGO,
Merlot
Thank you Roger Goodell for sticking to your original decision, there is no doubt that we will meet one day.:thumb:
Where all good, HONEST, decent people eventually end up.
Where all good, HONEST, decent people eventually end up.
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