Kraft Still In Denial After Report on Deflategate

I'm expecting to hear Brady & Belichick announce their retirement from the game any minute now.

I get the priors, and I get the lack of cooperation.  I'd argue, that's why you take the picks and the fines - punish the organization.  But 4 games for Brady on top of the organization punishments makes no sense to me.  

 

I also think part of it is that Roger doesn't need the other 31 owners screaming bloody murder that he let his buddy off easy.  

 

It's just the seemingly random "Roger Goodell's Wheel 'O' Punishment™" that I don't get at all.  

 

Knock a woman out?  2 games!

Beat your child with a switch?  A whole freaking year!

Pump crowd noise?  3 months, a draft pick, and a fine!

Texting the sidelines?  4 games and a fine!

Deflating balls?  4 games, 1 MILLION DOLLLARS, and 2 draft picks.

 

It's just bizarre...

Of course the suspension will be appealed and reduced. It always is. Brady will miss no more than 2 games and possible none.

Gisele will file amicus curiae with the NFL if it comes to this

@McCannSportsLaw: If Tom Brady sues & it gets past an NFL motion to dismiss, judge would order Brady to turn over phone records to NFL in pretrial discovery.

Naked pics of Giselle on Tom's phone?

Actually I meant "on the side of the NFL". What woman doesn't want to see what's on her man's phone?

 

I have a Blackberry.

 

Mrs. Blair Kiel found pictures of Wilma Flintstone on  my device.

Above, plus Kraft's weak dick statement. I'm starting to smell the long con. 

Patriots continue to believe this is a criminal trial, demanding "hard or conclusive evidence" to prove "beyond any reasonable doubt" that they are guilty.  Too bad this is more like a civil trial, where "more probably than not" is all they need.  I haven't (and never will) read the Wells report but to me seems obvious that something very shady went on.  Add on that Brady refused to hand his phone over (for which other phones provided the majority of evidence) AND that it's the Pats second time getting caught cheating, and the punishment makes makes a lot sense.   

 

Not sure about anyone else but I'm loving that Goodell turned on Kraft.  And you know Kraft wants to come out and pull the "after all I've done for you" card on Goodell.  But Kraft can't say a thing about their relationship b/c that further shows that Kraft expected (and likely received) favors from Goodell.  

Pats gain $2 million in cap space, I guess?

F Bedard (even when he may be correct)

TJ Lang says F this guy too..

 

 

 

TJ LangVerified account ‏@TJLang70

@AaronNagler c'mon Nags.. Don't start the "everybody cheats" cry

Patriots Punished by NFL; All Other NFL Fanbases Punished by a Future of Enduring Whining Patriots Fans

I'm very curious as to what the other owners think.  I gotta believe the small time owners that run clean ships are applauding.  They have to be sick of the Goodell-Kraft relationship and hearing about "the Patriot Way" every time they win a freaking game.  

 

Hopefully this puts an end to the "if you ain't cheatin', you ain't tryin'" bullsh*t you hear from ex-players (Mike Golic comes to mind....).  If you can't play the game within the agreed upon rules, the punishment should be severe.  Simple as that.  This communicates to every team very clearly that the risk will never be worth the reward.  If 

Patriots are suffering for their lack of humility

bostonglobe.com

by Ben Volin 05-11-2015

 

The Patriots have no one to blame for this but themselves. They have been arrogant and defiant from the start – demanding apologies when none were deserved, ignoring Goodell’s orders of full cooperation and obstructing Ted Wells’s investigation.

 

Why was Wells called in to investigate the matter over three months? Because the Patriots defiantly denied any wrongdoing.

 

Patriots fans point to other incidents involving equipment tampering — the Panthers and Vikings placing footballs under a heater late last season, and the Chargers using “sticky” towels in 2012 — to prove the absurdity of the Patriots’ punishment. The difference between those incidents and Deflategate? Those teams owned up to it. They pleaded guilty and took their medicine. They Patriots kicked and screamed the entire time, and mocked the process.

 

The Patriots refused to make McNally available for a follow-up interview after the investigators discovered new information, ostensibly the “deflator” comments in McNally’s texts. Their rationale was that McNally already had been interviewed four times, and a fifth time would have been excessive, because he lives in New Hampshire and has a job. Sorry. You make him available on the weekend, or after work. If McNally could exonerate the Patriots, they should have made him available 27 times. continue

I think the "Goodell turned on Kraft" talk is off base. Goodell can't turn on Kraft. Hes a puppet. This looks like a group of owners using Goodell to tell Kraft they are sick of him and his team skating every possible corner imaginable. Goodell isn't handing this punishment out without backing. 

 

 

Goodell did Kraft a huge favor during Spygate by burning all the video, shredding all the documents and generally burying everything to do with that investigation

 

And what did Goodell get from the Pats for his generosity ?

 

A sharp stick in the eye and a big fat **** you.

That's why the cheaters are feeling the heat this time around

Don't **** with Roger

Found this in the archives of the WSJ

 

Arthur Blank: I remember when I first bought the team I had breakfast with Robert Kraft, who is the owner of the New England Patriots. He said all of the things you did to build Home Depot are exactly the same here. What you're going to find that's very different is the amount of media attention you get.

 

I still remember saying to Bob, 'Listen, we built the second-largest retail company in the United States. They are a [New York] Stock Exchange company. We had a fair amount of media attention.

' He looked at me, smiling and winking and said, 'You don't quite get it, but you will.' WSJ-2008-12-18

Please everyone pray for Tom Brady as he will have to stay in this prison during his suspension pic.twitter.com/KKVMlyxDAP

— Will Ferrell (@Will___Ferrell) May 11, 2015

I'm rather surprised that even some people here are willing to give the Patriots and Brady a pass on this.  To me there is a major difference between trying to get away with something, like sticky towels, pumping in crowd noise, footballs under a heater, etc, and what the Patriots did. All those things should have consequences but the Patriots had multiple levels of deceit.  They didn't just try to inflate the balls outside the acceptable limits and then hope it would get past the refs.  They presented the balls for inspection and then changed them afterward.  In my opinion, that takes the offense to a different level.  And then the lack of cooperation with the investigation and publically demanding an apology make it an even greater offense.  Nothing is going to make authority come down harder with a punishment than not ackowledging that authority.

 

 

Two salient points IMO.

 

 

Why didn’t Belichick receive punishment for #DeflateGate?

profootballtalk.com

by Mike Florio 2015-5-11

 

Goodell’s decision to tiptoe around Belichick lends credence to one of the popular rumors/urban legends surrounding the NFL’s curious decision to hastily destroy the SpyGate evidence surrendered by Belichick in 2007.

 

As the rumor/urban legend goes, the Spygate-related information given to the NFL consisted of evidence of cheating not only by the Patriots but also by multiple other teams, in multiple other ways. 

 

As the folklore also goes, Belichick vowed to go public with chapter-and-verse detail about cheating throughout the league if the league were to mess with the Patriots again. continue

Maybe Brady protected Belichick because Billy Boy was on double secret probation and one more slip up and he's out of the league 

 

 

 

 

I'm available for some of that charity, where do I sign up? 

It'll be reduced to 2 games, and then everywhere but Boston will go nuts. Goodell should let it stand, but he an Kraft are working out a deal as we speak. Goodell is the worst commissioner in sports since Kinnesaw Mountain Landis.

I hope League rules are changed to keep ALL balls under guard after the ref tests them to prevent any reoccurance. Stupid, I know, but that's life in Billyland.

Goodell doesn't do anything without Kraft's blessing. This is a calculated move by the league to win back some favor with the fans. They want the appearance to be that they treat all players the same if they break the rules so Tom will have to be the fall guy. In a pre-Ray Rice world this would have been swept under the rug like everything else, but Goodell couldn't go soft on another scandal. Brady is going to appeal, get it reduced to 2 games and this will be forgotten.

Personally I don't think this should be any kind of scandal, but the majority of fans disagree. I think the Pats broke the rules and should be punished, but I don't think it's any different than piping in crowd noise or using stickum. It's just one of those little cheats that all teams try to get away with. Doesn't make it okay; but it doesn't destroy the integrity of the game IMO. I think it's funny that they're using these deflated balls the whole game and the not one of the refs, who handle the ball every play, noticed that the ball was a little squishy. I think they probably noticed, but didn't say anything because it probably happens all the time and goes completely unnoticed. Just my opinion though, I'm not a Patriots fan, but I don't think they're getting some kind of really unfair competitive advantage.

If you don't think the pats are receiving an unfair advantage you need to read that Walter football article on fumbles & how the pats are amazingly better at not fumbling than the other 31 teams. Eye opening.

Heard a good point on the radio about the appeal.......why would Goodell reduce it?  If Brady refuses to come clean and apologize and still refuses to cooperate, what is the basis for appeal?  You can't just say "I want less games" and appeal.  Usually there is an explanation of what happened and why the action wasn't as bad as it seemed, an apology, a show of sincerity, and a promise to not do it again.  Right now Brady can't do any of those things, so what would an appeal consist of?  

If they did nothing wrong then why did they suspend Jastremski and McNally indefinitely?  They just did everything on their own huh?

 

I don't think the suspension will be reduced.

Derrick Brooks and Ted Cottrell hear appeals so they will decide if the punishment is correct. I don't think the Wells report is conclusive enough to suspend Brady, but I think his obstructing the investigation by refusing to cooperate is worth a suspension...not 4 games though.

Yeah, the logical disconnect with many fans is hilarious. Why would two equipment guys, on their own, come up with a plan to abscond with the game balls after referee inspection, deflate them, and sneak them back in to their normal spot? Even if they were bored just before game time (yeah, right), why would they hatch such a ridiculous, PITA plan that may cost them their jobs?

 

And anyone who thinks BB doesn't know everything and exactly what's going on in that facility should never go to a timeshare presentation.

I think the only thing we know for certain about this suspension is that the true intent was to screw over Micah Hyde