NFL probing Patriots' possible use of deflated balls during AFC Championship

San Antonio - where tanking is "doing it the right way".

 

I feel like it's so easy to just say this, but if this is true, why is the only franchise to get caught the Golden Boy franchise in New England? Many teams get caught in some sort of controversy, but why are the Patriots the only ones who get caught cheating?

I'm sure some other teams do, in fact, bend the rules, but the Patriots are obviously the only franchise to go above and beyond with their efforts to cheat. I would not say without any sort of evidence that cheating is "rampant throughout the league" when only one team is consistently in the headlines.

 

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">THIS is the banner the <a href="https://twitter.com/Patriots">@Patriots</a> would have unveiled tonight if Tom Brady did not play <a href="https://twitter.com/nflnetwork">@nflnetwork</a> <a href="http://t.co/VemK9oNyY6">pic.twitter.com/VemK9oNyY6</a></p>&mdash; melissa stark (@melissastark) <a href="https://twitter.com/melissastark/status/642098353594060800">September 10, 2015</a></blockquote>
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Motivated. Yes. But they can't cheat tonight. So Big loss. Pittsburgh 27 New England 6.

 

This is going to be a very high scoring game...
38-30 Patriots...

 

Or, four TD passes by Brady and a win.

Either way.

This dude is challenging passing records this season. Watch. He's on a mission.

 

I said what I said.

<blockquote class="twitter-video" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Tomlin / headsets <a href="http://t.co/DzjpvfnHEf">pic.twitter.com/DzjpvfnHEf</a></p>&mdash; Danny (@recordsANDradio) <a href="https://twitter.com/recordsANDradio/status/642184553403129856">September 11, 2015</a></blockquote>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">This is an ugly accusation from the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Steelers?src=hash">#Steelers</a> website about <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Patriots?src=hash">#Patriots</a>: <a href="http://t.co/jVkUJOEXbe">pic.twitter.com/jVkUJOEXbe</a></p>&mdash; Jason Cole (@JasonColeBR) <a href="https://twitter.com/JasonColeBR/status/642313617304633344">September 11, 2015</a></blockquote>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Steelers did not and will not file a complaint to NFL about headset communication last night, per team official.</p>&mdash; Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) <a href="https://twitter.com/AdamSchefter/status/642389129569792000">September 11, 2015</a></blockquote>
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Hilarious. HeadSetGate!!! Belichick has an implanted radio jamming device into his Terminator eye ball. I'm pretty sure the NFL, not the home team, manages all the communications equipment that the coaches use.

 

The head set fiasco was most likely caused by some troll fan near the sidelines...Doubt the Patriots intentionally did anything, but it becomes irritating that problems like this only happen in Foxboro...

 

Easy to interfere with radio signals.

 

What amazes me is how these things continue to expose how exceptionally stupid NFL leadership is.

Deflategate: Possible why? Well because the NFL has each team supply their own footballs. Makes sense. There's only millions of dollars on the line. No one would EVER do anything to tamper with them to give themselves an edge. Right?...... Right?

Headsets: Everyone is assuming the NFL controls this. Others are saying the home team provides them. If so, again.... what? So the league would allow home teams to provide and control something like this, why? With no backup or other means to compensate if there's a problem?

This is a multi-BILLION dollar industry. That's billion. Multi-billion dollar. It's unbelievable to me that a business this big has such inadequate safeguards to prevent things like this from happening.

If the Patriots cheated, then Patriots cheated. That's all fine and good and they should pay the price.

But the NFL as an entity/company/whatever you wanna call it has been so shockingly negligent in all of these "scandals" that if it was a major company in almost any other sector, the CEO and the entire board would likely be swept from power. That the same power structure remains after so many failures on such a fundamental level as the fairness of the game is honestly baffling.

 

Sound to me like it was intentional. Who did it? I don't know. But certainly seemed intentional. Would like to know more.

 

I'm neither for nor against your rant, but I just wanted to inform you of some of the reasons why teams had their own balls because you are ignorant of them. The NFL used to control the balls, but Manning and other QBs went to the NFL a few years ago to make a case for handling their balls before games. They'd want to scuff em up to their liking. The NFL wanted to be more QB friendly, so when the QB's wanted their balls to themselves, the ok'd it. Deflategate also should have been handled within the confines of the CBA, but Goodell was pushed by the owners to make up for his leniency for Spygate. Deflategate probably was way overblown and Brady probably should have been fined both for his balls and for not cooperating separately. Even the league's own lawyers were unable to answer to the fed judge what penalties were for which offense.

 

Nah...that part about walking to the sideline of the Pats and the Steelers communication clearing up...then walking away from the Pats sideline and the Steelers communication going bad again...that's just the antenna affect like when you could stand at a certain spot in the old days to clear up your TV antenna signal...but then you move and the signal goes bad again. Bah hah hah. Steelers should have brought some tin foil. That's all I'm saying. :grin:

 

Fair.

That being the case, if they want to make Quarterbacks happy by allowing them to scuff them up to their liking, maybe they shouldn't make an international incident (hyperbole, I know) out of one liking his a little lighter on air?

Thanks for the details, but it actually makes me blame the NFL even more. No matter what the quarterbacks "want", it's the NFL that is responsible for the integrity of the game. In this case Roger Goodell is given that authority in the CBA, right? That you would say, sure, go do whatever you want with the footballs before the game.... WE TRUST YOU.... is asinine.

At the very minimum they should be checked and turned in for gameplay with no ability to alter them again after a certain point.

 

I noticed that if you connect the footballs from both sidelines on Thursday they form a pentagram. A secret waiting to be deciphered by those patient enough to see clearly the templar code.

 

Waiting for sometime this year for an announcer to say ...

That was a wicked hit on Brady ... Must have broken his cell phone on that hit!

 

I get the integrity of the game thing and I think the Patriots are cheaters. But according to the CBA, they never agreed upon allowing such a harsh penalty for such a light infraction. I think I'm with you that you should throw the book at Brady. The problem is, the book says it should be a penalty of only a fine (I know it's more complicated an issue than that, but I think that's a fair interpretation). And Goodell knew that if he went by the CBA and worked with the players union to find an independent arbitrator to work on Brady's punishment, it would probably end up as a fine only, which is why he didn't work with the players Union, arbitrated the case himself, and violated like 4 precedents.

Goodell messed up from the beginning by being way too light with the personal conduct penalty, and then retroactively being harsh (or fair) after the public backlash. The players Union and everyone knows Ray Rice hit his girl. But they got Goodell's punishment overturned because Goodell didn't follow the CBA. Goodell also lost on the bounty gate penalties. Goodell just gets whipped all the time in court because he screwed up from the beginning and is trying to makeup for his mistakes, but the CBA doesn't allow for that type of action. They should have started suspending players from the beginning for not cooperating with league investigations. But instead, they just fined Bret Favre for not turning over his cell phone when he sent those dick pics to the team massage girl. And because of that, they're not allowed to suspend Brady for destroying evidence, but Goodell did it anyways because perhaps the owners wanted him to.

And from what I've heard, Brady's personal feeling about deflategate is that he's being singled out when he thinks everyone manipulates ball sizes...or at least many QBs do.

 

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