Johnw1104 said:
To start I should mention that I'm a Dolphins fan, so I certainly have no love for Brady haha To me, I think it's extremely unlikely that Tom Brady wasn't aware of tampering with the footballs. Somehow, though, the NFL succeeded in making a lifetime Dolphins fan and man who believes Brady was guilty into a Brady sympathizer. First, they approached this investigation with all the subtlety and responsibility of TMZ. They publicized every step of the process, violated his CBA granted rights, and mislead the public whenever possible, such as saying Brady "destroyed" his cell phone. Second, they not only invaded his privacy, but they allowed the entire world to invade his privacy. When people began reporting on one of Brady's private emails regarding Manning, it being completely unrelated to the matter at hand, I was just floored. That this was "leaked" (i.e. further attempts to damage his reputation) is unforgivable and incredibly irresponsible, and I hoped Brady would sue the crap out of them and still hope that now. Seriously, who the hell do they think they are? This made me feel actual anger on behalf of the bane of my NFL experience; well done Goodell. Finally, I think we should not lose sight of the fact that this all stems from slightly deflated footballs in a 45-7 rout. I feel I should copy-paste this as it seems people are acting as if he drop kicked an infant: "this all stems from slightly deflated footballs in a 45-7 rout". The penalty for this was just ridiculous. The alleged crime is a tactic that many quarterbacks admit to having done for decades, and it's something that no one in the league is surprised by. While a violation, four games is just a hilariously over-the-top penalty when you see how the league handles other matters. For instance, while I forgot what team it was, I recall one being caught heating the footballs on the sideline. Heck, the Atlanta Hawks were pumping artificial crowd noise into their stadium, a violation with far more impact on the game, and simply received a fine. This was, to be blunt, a witch hunt. The other teams envy the consistency of their franchise and went after them. If this had been Matt Ryan, Andrew Luck, Russel Wilson etc, it'd have been a fine and we'd be done talking about it after a week or two. Believe me, I long for the days of my childhood where the patriots were a non factor (and we had Marino :D) more than most people, but this experience made me into a Patriots and Brady sympathizer, which makes me want to puke on a puppy (not really, I like puppies I swear O_o). A reasonable penalty was in order, but the league never showed a desire to be reasonable. The NFL was just so outrageously unfair throughout this process that any objective observer could not hope for their success. |
The problem is, the NFL fucked up the process of the actual testing of the balls, so badly, no reasonable person could actually come to the conclusion that any tampering happened. You have to assume a great many things, including but not limited to, rejecting the recollection of a Head Ref (Walt Anderson), when they accepted every other thing he had to say.
IF any tampering did happen, and that's a BIG if, we're talking .4 PSI, at most (You must take into account the natural deflation that would've occurred between a 71 degree officials locker room and the 51-48 degree playing field, AND include precipitation (Which Wells' team, did not), which increases the surface area of leather, which would lower the PSI further). EDIT: Just to be clear, the .4 PSI number represents the difference between the Logo and Non-logo gauges used by the refs to measure the balls in the AFCCG. In the span of 90 seconds, from 11 Footballs. And here's the sticky part to that assumption, the NFL Refs (Who are full-time employees during a league year, and thus, handle a SHITLOAD of balls), couldn't measure all Colts and Pats balls w/in the ENTIRETY of half-time. But, this part-time employee, who only works during home games...he's suddenly capable of doing that?
I'll be the first to admit that the 'deflator' text, sounds odd, but it was in May (the Off-season), given we have a plausible natural explanation here, you'd also have to assume that the deflator text is taken out of context (unless the NFL can reproduce the entire sequence of events, sans extreme fuckups).
Couple the issues with the science, and the oddity of ignoring testimony to suit your ends, you have the very, very odd behavior of the NFL throughout all of this. Instead of making this story about .4 PSI (as it should've been from the beginning), they allowed Mortensen's report to go unchecked, for months. Allowing the public to assume that was a correct statement. You have Goodell, mischaracterizing Brady's sworn testimony during the appeal, and then raising his certainty level of guilt, beyond that of the Wells Report, afterwards. You have Goodell denying Brady due process. You have Goodell violating the Law of the Shop (Proper notice), you have Goodell attempting to punish a player for a team penalty. You have Goodell, attempting to apply an arbitrary and capricious punishment for something that similar infractions from the past haven't warranted anything more than a warning. (See Jets Kicker Feely, and Panthers v Vikings game from last year).
How people come away from this, believing Goodell, The League, ESPN, or NFLN in any way shape or form is beyond absurd. We have provable example, after example of Goodell straight up lying about several aspects of this case, and yet, people still come away thinking Brady was involved. I mean, I appreciate your pragmatism in this, but it's still pretty shocking anyone can look at the facts of this case and say with any level of certainty that Brady (or anyone) was involved in lowering the pressure in Footballs below the 12.5 threshold.
