conspiracy thread dedicated to ridiculousness

BTW that independent lab of geeks is looking suspect too. In general the following is agreed upon:
Every 10 degree drop in temperature (F) results in about .2 PSI loss in a football. Its looking more and more like they intentionally deflate footballs in NE and have done so in open violation of the rules to create the competitive imbalance that Beach's PJMedia guy referenced.

Man I never underestimate the NFLs ability to sweep stuff under rugs after burning the spygate tapes but in doing so the NFL has NOT protected the shield, they have actually encouraged more cheating. If the NFL wants any chance at remaining credible in the general publics eyes longterm going forward this may be their last chance. If Patriots are guilty and the NFL does not come down hard on them (I mean really hard) then things will get even worse.

 

I agree, the notion that a drop in temperature for a game in the 50s made a football deflate by 2 psi is just silly. It was something like -2 when the Packers and Panthers played in the playoffs a few years back. The damn balls would be almost flat. I don't recall anyone reporting about half-flat footballs during the game.

 

Also Goodell is on record regarding the standard of proof needed (aka below compelling circumstantial evidence is enough for punishing the Pats despite the intimidation tactics of his boss and buddy Kraft):

?I am disappointed in the way this entire matter has been handled and reported upon. We expect hard facts as opposed to circumstantial leaked evidence to drive the conclusion of this investigation.?

As Sal Paolantonio of ESPN reported in the aftermath of Kraft?s remarks, ?As one source close to the Patriots told me, this was Robert Kraft reminding Roger Goodell who he works for.?

Goodell already has shown a willingness to impose discipline on the team Robert Kraft owns, more than seven years ago in Spygate. In the aftermath of that incident, Goodell pushed for the owners to permit rules violations that undermine the integrity of the game to be proven with reduced evidentiary requirements.

?Too often, competitive violations have gone unpunished because conclusive proof of the violation was lacking,? Goodell wrote to the NFL?s Competition Committee in advance of the 2008 league meetings. ?I believe we should reconsider the standard of proof to be applied in such cases, and make it easier for a competitive violation to be established.?

Therein lies the dilemma for Goodell. He ultimately obtained the power to determine violations with something other than direct evidence, such as a Patriots employee caught with a camera containing video showing he was videotaping defensive coaching signals. But Kraft wants something other than ?circumstantial? evidence, even though plenty of men over the years have ended up imprisoned for life or executed based on circumstantial proof. (Eventually added to that list could be former Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez, who faces murder charges based largely on circumstantial evidence.)

?[Y]ou?re trying to balance the due process with making sure you?re protecting the integrity of the game,? Goodell said in October regarding the challenge of determining the best way to deal with players facing serious criminal charges. ?My No. 1 job is protecting the integrity of the game, and I will not relent on that.?

Do I expect the right thing to be done here: no. The NFL is out of control from an integrity standpoint. The owners are responsible for that.

 

Imagine if PSI worked like the Patriots, the absolutely moronic Boston media, and absolutely clueless Patriot fans say it works. We'd have to put air into our car tires every freaking day after commuting to and from work.

 

My car lets me know when my tire pressure drops below standard acceptable inflation. The range in New England of temperature can be dramatic on a day to day basis.one day it's 70 the next day it's 40. My pressure alarm never goes off. It does go off in the winter after severe cold temperatures. But this extreme cold is over weeks or longer. From a scientific standpoint to suggest a warm to cool atmosphere in a 5 hour window dropping 17% in air pressure to me is an insult to my intelligence.

 

If you have a new car, they probably put nitrogen in your tires which has even more extreme PSI loss in cold weather.

 

BTW Robert Kraft is a low-life, four-flushing, sack of monkey $hit and he's lying out his a$$

 

Him and Goodell are drinking buddies.

 

True, air is 78% nitrogen to begin with. The molecular structure is
more conducive to pressure retention.Pure Nitrogen struggles to
Permeate rubber compounds and escape. Still the theory that Kraft is telling Goodell who runs the NFL holds water. The Patriot Brand in the eyes of many is that if an organization who finds ways to circumvent and bend the rules to their advantage. Winning breeds jealousy but it makes it easier to hate them because Belichick is such a tool to the media and Brady is a whiner to the refs.

 

http://m.bleacherreport.com/article...to-let-brady-and-belichick-play-it-for-a-fool

Love this article. Agree 100% w/ everything except the SB suspension. Next year would be fine w/ me.

 

PS

Nobody saw this?

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/the-ot...4Z2o2BHNlYwNzcgRwb3MDMQRjb2xvA2JmMQR2dGlkAw--

 

Good article. Thanks for that. My favorite excerpts from it are the following:

"I can tell you, I received texts from about a half-dozen current and former team officials, and they all mocked Belichick and Brady. Not a single, objective soul believes them."

"From a philosophical perspective, the league can't trumpet the integrity of the game without protecting it?belief in the integrity of the game is precious and to be cherished. From a philosophical perspective, the league can't enjoy the fruits of being the most popular game in the country without understanding the scrutiny and attention that come with being the most popular game in the country."

"One theory?and I'm going to apply this in general and not say it is about any specific team?goes like this. The ball boy, during the game, keeps the footballs in a large bag, and in the bag is the needle that's used to inflate or deflate the football.

It would be relatively easy, a player told me, for a ball boy to reach inside the bag and drain the footballs of air with no one seeing what he or she was doing.

If that is what was done in the Patriots' case, it is extremely devious. Even if it wasn't, and the cheating was done by some other shady means, this puts the Patriots organization in a horrible spot. More than that, it puts the entire NFL in a horrible spot.

What the Patriots did was sleazy. No, it doesn't compare to football players abusing women or other malfeasance, but it does compare to one of the league's most infamous cases, Bountygate.

For that reason, the NFL needs to suspend Belichick for a season, the way Sean Payton was, and Brady for half a season."

"The Patriots reek of cutting corners. Reek of being shady and doing whatever it takes. Reek of not caring about the rules or respecting that the NFL is bigger than them. The fictional football teams in Playmakers, which the NFL hated and said didn't resemble its league, are like monasteries compared to the Patriots."

 

No I hadn't seen this article. This is good too and I've suspected it as well. My favorite parts are (first part below is interview with Blount):



"Did you know you had a job with New England before you left Pittsburgh?"

Long pause. Big smile. No answer.

"Why would you leave if you didn't know in the back of your mind that they were waiting to call you?"

Big smile. Subtle laugh.

"I didn't know nothin'," Blount said.

One more laugh.

It wasn't exactly convincing. And this is why there are those within the NFL community who continue to maintain that Blount's self-induced meltdown and subsequent banishment from Pittsburgh was orchestrated toward a pre-determined end: Get out of Pittsburgh, slide back into New England. Correct a free-agent mistake that never should have been made in the first place."


"What most didn't know over the course of that time ? and what Blount revealed Tuesday ? was that he was in consistent contact with former teammates in New England. That included the Patriots' onetime lead running back, Stevan Ridley, who Blount described Tuesday as being "like a little brother." Ridley knew exactly where Blount's head was when his role was being diminished in Pittsburgh.

"I stayed close with a lot of guys," Blount said. "I stayed close with Ridley. I stayed close with Shane [Vereen]. I stayed close with all of my running backs. I stayed close with Devin [McCourty]. I stayed close with a lot of guys. Like I said, it's a close-knit team. It's really like a brotherhood."



"After all, why would it go any other way? Blount is innocent. As he said when asked if he forced his way into the Patriots' waiting arms: "Naaaah."

Smile. Laugh."

 

Ajm,

I was thinking more like:

These are serious violations and we understand the negative impact it has had on our game," Belichik said. "I have made it clear within our organization that this will never happen again, and make that same promise to the NFL and most importantly to all of our fans."

 

Ben was found guilty by the league of making the league look bad with boorish behavior that we can't be sure about but that got him accused by some ladies (although many of us, myself included, have our suspicions that something more happened). However, Bill was punished by the league for being a cheater due to spygate (and it was presumably something that made the league look so bad that the league destroyed the evidence).

Some may be right for speculating that the Rooneys asked the league to suspend Ben to get his attention since he wasn't even charged with something in either instance but it is obvious he was at least being very boorish with the ladies. It makes sense that the Rooneys would want to get his attention in this way since Ben seems to only learn the hard way (motorcycles, everything else, Ben's way or the highway type of guy). It also makes sense the the league would want to punish him because they were then and are still aggressively trying to promote the game to women and grow the game with more of a female audience. Ben seems to have learned his lesson now married with kids, not being boorish with the ladies, and staying out of the headlines.

Bill, on the other hand, who was already found guilty by the league of cheating is now back in the headlines for presumably cheating again (and there is a ton of smoke here imo). AJM, since I know you are not a huge Big Ben fan, I bet if Ben was found in another compromising position with a lady and accusations were flying, you'd be thinking Ben likely was doing something he shouldn't have been (at the very least more boorish behavior) and you'd have a good reason to be thinking that way. Well, Bill Belichick, too, has lost the benefit of the doubt, but with cheating. Very many people are thinking based on the information that has come out so far, with good reason, that this latest breach of NFL rules could not have happened without the Patriots' involvement.

 

With all but one football being deflated it rules out the weather. The recent articles about the fumble rates of all other NFL teams and the Patriots since teams were allowed to provide their own footballs is even more damning. I'm sure Ernie Adams had let Bill know how much better the Patriots were at holding onto the football since 2006.

It may have started out as a Brady likes deflated footballs but certainly the coaching staff recognized they were gaining a ball controll advantage with the deflated footballs. So much for the thought that it might have just been Brady going rouge with a ball boy.

 

i'm ok with a little rouge, or even a touch of mascara. but i draw the line at lipstick and eye shadow. ;D

 

Thank you beloved Lulz for providing my first belly laugh of the day.

 

Per profootballtalk.com article today:


"The NFL rules are clear: Players with ineligible jersey numbers must report to the referee if they?re going to line up as eligible receivers, and players with eligible jersey numbers must report to the referee if they?re going to line up in ineligible positions. The referee, in turn, must announce those declarations. But in this year?s playoffs, both the Ravens and the Colts have been confused by the Patriots? formations, which have included trick plays with running back Shane Vereen lined up as an ineligible lineman, and plays with lineman Nate Solder lined up as an eligible receiver.

Now, according to Carroll, the officials will change their mechanics so that it?s clearer to the defense whether each player is eligible or ineligible. That?s an advantage to the Seahawks, and something the Ravens and Colts wish would have been done for them."

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.co...help-seahawks-figure-out-patriots-formations/

 

Not sure how much of an advantage it is. Put Brady under center, have Vereen drop 1 yard behind the line of scrimmage at the snap and now you have an uncovered receiver who can run down the field. As long as it's not a forward pass he can catch the ball and advance it. They can't just ignore him.