Stretch your neck, lower back and hammies, because this will be a long post.
I’ve thought a long time about this, been mad, waxed poetic, been mad again, tried to justify feelings, listened to many talking heads, almost tracked down certain ‘reporters’, got royally ticked off, and then–just laughed. This is all about ‘Deflategate’.
“Think of the children.” No, no I won’t, not until the end.
Full disclosure-I am a New England Patriots fan. I’ve been known to swing from the heels on being a complete homer to being objective. My point of all of this is to get you, maybe a fan of another team, to think about this. What if this happened to your team? Put your QB’s name in this instead of 4x champ Tom Brady. What if it was Peyton? Eli? Rodgers? Rivers? Flacco? Or (the horror), Andrew Luck?
I’m going to go thru why I think, on this day of the appeal, this is all wrong. We’re talking union, sting operation, leaks, horrible reporting, science (and the lack thereof), the agenda, and of course-the punishment. I’ll have links to some great writing to show I’m not the only one who thinks these thoughts. Some of these writers cannot be called homers or Patriots fans, by any stretch. But when it smells like a port-o-potty at the end of a 3 day hippie festival, sometimes you have to note the stench. Here we go.
So I’ve heard the argument, loudly at times, of ‘why didn’t Brady just turn over his phone?’ I’ve got a simple answer for you-he belongs to a union. Whether you like a union or not, he belongs to one. The argument then goes on to state that good ol’ dummy Roger Goodell handed over his phone and emails when he was being investigated about the Ray Rice fiasco. This is a false equivalent argument. Goodell doesn’t belong to a union and is not bound by their rules. Tom Brady is. And, had he handed over his phone, he would have potentially set a precedent for all of his union brothers moving forward. It’s a slippery slope, not one to be taken lightly.
Next up, the proof. Uh, what proof? This so called ‘science’ the Wells report leans toward is horrid. It wouldn’t pass an 8th grade physics fair. Here’s what I remember about that stuff-you have a hypothesis, the tests you’re going to conduct, the results of those tests, and the conclusions reached. Let me know if I’m wrong, but that reads pretty standard to me. So, what did the Wells report do? Uh, to me it looks like they crammed the conclusion to fit a result they wanted. The problem with that is the data is supposed to lead to the conclusion, not the data already fitting a predetermined conclusion. The science is faulty, at best, and embarrassingly foolish at worst. Wait, could it be, a sting operation? We’ll get to that later.
Batting third in this long winded explanation of fun-the organization of the NFL. They would fuck up a ham sammich if you spotted them the bread and the ham. Mark my words. They screwed up the Ray Rice investigation. They screwed up the Adrian Peterson deal. Their way of dealing with these things is to retroactively punish people. You know as well as I do you cannot change the levels of punishments and then go back and punish people based on those new standards. You cannot put sausage back into its casing. This is the NFL’s M.O. It’s why dummy Goodell has lost his last 3 big appeals (New Orleans Saints & ‘Bountygate’, Ray Rice, and Adrian Peterson). It’s all over the place when ol’ Rog has decided to punish people the last year and a half.
A brief interlude-I’m asking if you can be unbiased. I don’t think anyone truly can. We all carry a bias around with us. But the best place to see it, at least when it comes to this, is internet commentary. Says the guy typing up a term paper on this-the irony is not lost. I meant what I asked in the beginning-can you take the name and replace it with your favorite QB? Would you be screaming like Patriots fans? For the record, I’ve rarely stood up for the league when they’ve handed down punishments. I think criminal trials should happen before anything the league can dole out. I don’t think a sports league has any right to deal with certain issues, especially when it cannot own up to their own faults. I mean this with all sincerity-you mean to tell me there isn’t one NFL employee with a domestic dispute on their record? Glass houses, I guess is what I’m saying. I won’t defend Ray Rice nor Adrian Peterson, but I will state that the way they were punished was garbage. I didn’t agree with the crap Roethlisberger had to deal with, because of an allegation of doing something horrible in a bathroom…and then in a hotel room. I don’t have to like someone to defend them, and neither do you. I can’t ask you to take off your fan hat, because it’s not reasonable. You could hate the Patriots, their players, coaches, and especially their fans. Go right ahead. We’re obnoxious. So are most fan bases.
Seriously, the science. The interviews. The whole thing wreaks. I’ll put it this way-if you knew there was a gripe in your classroom between two students-say one accused the other of moving their stuff in their desk-wouldn’t you take a picture of how things looked first? You know, as a baseline? Well, the NFL knew that the Colts had complained about the pressure of the footballs of the Patriots. No one took written measurements of the footballs. When asked by Ted Wells, referee Walt Anderson said they were all 12.5 psi. No measurement, just a recollection. Yet, the NFL used 2 pressure gauges. When asked which one he used, Anderson told them which one. The Wells report went with the numbers from the other gauge, the one that potentially shows a conspiracy to cheat. They told ol’ Walt that he may have been mistaken in his recollection. So his recollection of pregame psi is ok, but not which gauge they used at halftime? Yes, I’m looking at 100% in or 100% out, you don’t get to pick and choose which recollection works for you…unless you’re trying to manipulate something. And something stinks. Please, feel free to find the Wells report online. Look up the Patriots rebuttal website. It’s weird that a team would do something like this, I know. But what does that tell you about the ridiculousness of it all? Here’s where I’ll throw the real-life curveball at you. How do you prove a negative? Ever been called a racist? How do you prove you’re not a racist? Ever seen anyone get called a racist? It’s sad and pathetic to be accused of something like that and then the attempt at defending that you’re not something is just as bad, if not more comical. Back to the science-there are many things wrong with the assumptions, how things were tested, and the interviewing process. I get it, that this is not a legal proceeding, but it sure reads like referee Walt Anderson was led down a path with the questioning and reasoning to paint a player & organization in a bad light.
My other problem, big problem, with the Wells report is the hunt & peck method of it all. Maybe not so much the report itself but how Roger Goodell and the NFL came to its conclusion. And the wording of it. ‘More probable than not that New England Patriots personnel participated in violations of the Playing Rules and were involved in a deliberate effort to circumvent the rules’. What the hell does that mean? You accuse me of something, you better damn well come up with something better than I probably did it. Otherwise, it’s suspect at best. Did I eat a whole pint of ice cream? Probably, since I’m the only one home. But how do you know if I ate it all in one sitting or over 3 days? You can’t, not by stating it as probably. The other giant flag waving here? When did football pressure become a big deal? Funny, the other punishments (it’s coming, I promise) didn’t come anywhere near this punishment. There’s also the problem with the text messages. And the context to those messages. The whole ‘Deflator’ thing is laughable. For two reasons. First, google ‘nfl network deflator 2009’. Oops, it was about weight loss. Second and more important-context. Hmm, seems the NFL put a ball in play for New England vs the NY Jets that was 16 lbs psi. Gee, isn’t that 2.5 lbs over the maximum? Yup, it sure is. And yet, no one was fined for this-no one reprimanded. My whole point is illegal is illegal. It’s why I love minimum speed limits on a highway. The NFL gives a range for psi’s of a football, it damn well better do its job and make sure of it-don’t overinflate the ball. This seems like common sense. But as we’ve all learned, there is nothing common about common sense, now is there?
Now there’s another thing I want to bring up that the Wells report didn’t touch on, no one has really taken to task the people who leaked this info out. No one has been punished for painting a whole organization in a bad light leading up to the biggest game of the season. This is the first time I can remember a team with such a huge distraction winning a championship in the NFL. Think about the last SB’s with distractions: Cincinnati vs. San Francisco (Stanley Wilson found on a cocaine bender by his coach the night before the game), Atlanta vs. Denver (Man of the Year Eugene Robinson busted the night before for soliciting a prostitute), and Oakland vs. Tampa Bay (Barrett Robbins went AWOL from his team due to not taking his depression medication). Those are the ones I’m repeating from memory. The teams that lost those games had those players on their roster. Do I blame the player or the team? Not necessarily. But I am stating the distraction couldn’t have helped. Here, in this case? It might have. So what happened to Chris Mortenson from ESPN? He reported that 11 of the 12 footballs were severely underinflated. Was there a retraction? An apology? A clarification? No, nope, and nyet. How about Bob Kravitz of the Indianapolis Star. How did he get his info? Who was his source? Was it someone in the league office? How did he get all this information so fast, so precise? Is he that good of a reporter? Did he win an investigative award? Crickets is all you’re going to hear. These leaks came fast and furious for 2 weeks leading up to the biggest game of the year. A great game, and the cloud is still hanging over the NFL like a bad fart. Think of it this way-did we hear about a suspension first? Or did we hear about a potential suspension on a Friday? First it was 6 games, then maybe it was 8. Somehow it landed at 4. Gee, that’s weird. Seems like a lot of pundits thought that was reasonable, and that’s what dummy Goodell went with. Brilliant leadership at its finest, sticking your thumb in the air and seeing which way the wind blows. Again, something smells.
And I have something-that a reporter has failed to follow up on a lie. Here’s the link to Peter King’s interview with Goodell and the quote below:
One storyline during the deflated-balls saga was that the league was trying to catch the Patriots in the act of using the balls, and suspected prior to the AFC title game that the team was taking air out of the footballs before using them in games. Countered Goodell:“I was not personally aware of it until after the game.”
We now know that to be patently false. A complete and utter lie. Indianapolis Colts dirtbag, sorry-GM, Ryan Grigson emailed the NFL about this the day before the AFC Championship. You mean to tell me that before its primetime conference championship game, one of the teams raised a concern, and the head of the league didn’t know about it? Oh come on! I may be naive but I’m not stupid. Quit playing all of us fans for fools, I’m begging you. And yet, not a peep from Mr. King about this falsehood. Keep playing the game, Peter. I really thought after Goodell played King & Schefter for fools that they would’ve held him to a different, better standard. Guess not.
One more thing about the Wells report-if it was done so well, and everything is on the up & up, why did Wells come shrieking out of the gate to defend his report? Things don’t make sense. Not the crime, the punishment, and all the ugliness in between. The NFL has mishandled this from the jump, and I’ve got more on that.
The biggest tangent, excuse, or reasoning you might here is that it doesn’t matter. No, not that Brady cheated-I hope I’m getting my point across that at best the evidence is circumstantial. At worst you’ve got a bunch of people with law degrees who are trying to tell you what the word ‘is’ means. No, this excuse is more reasonable-what difference does a deflated football make? If you point to the study that shows the New England Patriots clearly have been cheating due to a statistical analysis of fumbles, stop reading that study. It’s faulty on its premise. It only used lost fumbles. For example, Julian Edelman fumbled twice vs. Baltimore in the AFC divisional round, but they were recovered by New England. Those stats wouldn’t be included in this study, so it’s flawed. My biggest gripe about this is that the NFL wants offense. Scoring puts butts in the seats, more DirecTV Season Ticket passes, bigger Thursday night football viewership, more advertising money. And who has helped make the offense shine in the last decade? None other than Tom Brady and Peyton Manning. Yes, I know-Brees, Rivers, Roethlisberger, Luck, and Rodgers have all contributed, but it’s Brady and Manning that the viewership really cranks up for. Heck, we love football. Look how many people are playing fantasy football now. When I started playing over 25 years ago (damn, I’m old), I was called a dork for playing fantasy football. Now it’s so mainstream that even the NFL Network has a daily show dedicated to it. Either way, people want scoring, and the easiest way to score is to pass the ball.
Go back to the 2003 playoffs. The New England Patriots beat the Indianapolis Colts in the AFC Championship game. Peyton Manning threw 4 picks. After the season the President & GM of Indianapolis, Bill Polian, griped to the competition committee about receivers being beaten up, pointing to this game in particular. And so dawned a new era of defensive pass interference, and receivers being held less at the line. Who benefited most? Well wouldn’t you know it, Peyton Manning set a then record of 49 TD passes, breaking Dan Marino’s mark. Didn’t matter in the playoffs, as Manning and the Colts again fell to New England. Here’s the quote of quotes from Patriots LB Tedy Bruschi after the game:
“What rules do they want to change now?” Bruschi asked after the game. “I’m tired of hearing them complain. All I know is we took it away from them today.”
I tell you that story to tell you this one; the one where Tom Brady led the charge to control his footballs? Yeah, not entirely true. See, it was both Brady and Manning who went to the competition committee before the 2006 season and asked for control. Lately it seems that this was all Brady’s doing, and Manning tagged along. Based on this NY Times piece, I think it might be viewed differently. Now here’s where things get real fun, and go more to my point that the NFL wants more passing. Since 2006, 13 out of the 20 highest single season TD passes thrown in the league have happened. Both Brady and Manning have broken the record. Side note-when Brady broke the record with 50 he was accused of running up the score. When Manning threw 55 in 2013, no one said a thing about running it up. See, there’s that bias thing I had mentioned earlier. Oh yeah, forgot to mention the yardage-16 of the highest 20 single seasons in passing yardage since 2006, with the record being broken twice…by Drew Brees and Peyton Manning. And if you think I’m picking on passing, one more for you-since 2006, 19 out of 20 of the highest passing completions. These are just numbers, and you can manipulate them to whatever you want them to be. That’s the joy of numbers. Also, it’s a rule of a accountant-‘what do you want these numbers to say?’ Anyone else want to tell me that this ruling to let teams control their own footballs didn’t help? How did the league do in their last 2 TV contract negotiations?
I think this whole thing smells like a setup. Like it could have been avoided. Like the NFL knew something and tried to catch one of their teams in the act. As though the league was in on it. There are too many things that could’ve buttoned this thing up and instead the league let it fester, put out leaks, and has never-not once-been in front of the news cycle.
Take a look at Mike Kinsel. Interesting character. At one point he was an executive of the New York Jets. At the same time that Bill Belichick was their head coach (for a full day), the hoodie left the Jets to go on to fame and fortune up in Foxboro. Kinsel is reported to have said that he would get him one day. What does Kinsel do today, you ask. Funny, he’s the NFL VP of game operations. Hmm, I bet he knew about that email that Colts GM Grigson sent over the day before the AFC Championship. I wonder, maybe he could be the person that leaked some of this to Mortenson and Kravitz? You think he might have an ax to grind with New England? If you read that link, is it suspect to you-that Ted Wells might leave out some information? Again, I’m asking. I am honest enough to say that I think the NFL is crooked. This certainly doesn’t help their case in my eyes.
How about the league’s lack of controls? If the NFL got this email the day before the AFC Championship, how hard would it have been to pick up the phone and say ‘hey we’ve got a complaint, knock it off’? Or better yet, ball security. Yup, ball freaking security. To be clear, you knew there was a complaint and you didn’t lock the footballs in the referees locker room? Are you nuts? Why wouldn’t you lock the footballs up? I feel like DeNiro in the scene from ‘Casino’ where he has to fire the slots guy; “Listen, if you didn’t know you’re bein’ scammed, you’re too fuckin’ dumb to keep this job. If you did know, you were in on it. Either way, you’re out!” So, is this a sting? Were you trying to catch someone in the act? Why would you possibly let those footballs out of your sight? I’m sorry, why would I want a multi billion dollar entity to have such rules in place? I’m the crazy one. Meanwhile, at every office across this country you have to fill out a requisition form to get a stapler and some post-it notes.
Let’s talk about the punishment. It’s unprecedented. 4 games for Brady. Why? For failure to cooperate-when the report says that he did, he just wouldn’t give up his cellphone. Sorry, did the NFL supply his cellphone? Does the NFL have a BYOD policy? If the answer is ‘no’, then there’s no leg to stand on. Hell, I know this isn’t a court case, but that wouldn’t even fly in an arbitration hearing. Oh, I forgot to mention, I had role in developing & researching BYOD policies along with some security discussions. Earlier in the season, Green Bay QB Aaron Rodgers was quoted as stating he likes his footballs slightly overinflated, and to see if the officials catch him. Any suspension? Fine? Verbal warning? Nope x 3. In a game where Carolina visited cold Minnesota and were caught on camera heating up the footballs, what happened? $25,000 fine. Years ago Brett Favre-as a member of the Jets-was involved with sending a dick pic to a reporter-when Favre wouldn’t give up his phone, what happened to him? $50,000 fine.
The New England Patriots, exonerated by the Wells report as an organization, and both the owner and the head coach, singled out for their cooperation, what do they get? The team is fined $1,000,000 and loses their 2016 1st round pick and 2017 4th round pick. What does Tom Brady get for not handing over his cellphone? 4 games. Read that again. 4 games. 1/4 of a season. For not handing over his cellphone when you already had the messages from the two people going back and forth with him. This smells awful.
I’ll ask it this way-would you put it past the NFL and Roger Goodell to make an example of someone who everyone says is your Puppet Master? Is there anything in you that looks at Goodell and sees a “I’ll show them” glimpse in his eye. Better yet, does any of what I’ve laid out make you think “something really does stink”? That’s all I ask. I appreciate you reading, I’ll try and keep on writing.
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