Bad Morty
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Posts posted by Bad Morty
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It's pretty well known around here that Bill is 180 degrees different "in real life" than he is doing mandated press conferences during the season. According to almost every ex-player that's ever played for him, he has a tremendous sense of humor. I don't want him to retire, but I'm also dying to read his book after he retires (and I suspect there will be one).
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There were measured at halftime. there were 11 underinflated footballs. The weather was not cold enough to cause that much change. But that's OK if you think they underinflated themselves. No problem.
lol...you're gonna be awfully disappointed soon
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I really think that Seahawks team is going to melt. You have to have a better passing game than what they showed me. Those WR's are mediocre, and between the GB game and the Super Bowl I thought Wilson got exposed. When you play disciplined, contain defense and force him to go through his reads, he's not going to beat you. He throws a good deep ball I guess, and they connected on enough of them to keep them in the Super Bowl, but I just don't think they can rely on that. If the Cardinals get settled at QB next year, that's the team I watch out for in the NFC.
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So exactly how does that explain 11 underinflated footballs? That is fact. We are all in the waiting mode so to say. For you to assume the Patriots are out of the woods on this issue is speculation on your part. Till Goodell has the final results in on the investigation no one is clear.
Of course it's speculation. I don't recall saying that I had any inside information. I'm simply observing that the way the Patriots mouth-pieces are talking about this issue post game is in stark contrast to how I'd expect people with something to hide to be talking about it. Whereas there was something potentially to be gained before the game by the bravado (i.e. deflecting attention so the team could prepare properly), there's no such advantage to be gained NOW, and in fact a strong argument could be made that if they were guilty it would be in their interest to either lay low and let it die down OR to start planting stories out there about how deflated balls don't really provide that big an advantage in an effort to soften the blow. The fact that they continue to take this on head first, in my opinion, is telling.
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As I've stated in several of my initial posts as a newcomer to this Board (Eagles fan who followed a link here a week or so ago and whose heart was broken by the Patriots in SB XXXIX), I'm waiting for the Wells report.
I think that all that an objective observer can say about the recent Kravitz piece is that it is "interesting." One could also speculate that there is probably more going on than we know, but that's speculation. I did however also find it "interesting" that Belichick on Letterman last night implied that he had not yet been interviewed when he suggested that maybe the League would send Dave to do the interview.
In other words, I don't think anyone, from Patriots to Officials to Colts, is out of the woods yet on this one. Wells got to the bottom of the Incognito mess, including by looking at phone records, texts and emails, and he will get to the bottom of this mess. And, God help anyone that he catches out in a lie or improper action. Suspensions, Draft Picks and Fines will definitely follow.
The way the Patriots are still dealing with this publically post-superbowl tells me that they are supremely confident that they are in the clear. While I thought Bill's and Kraft's comments before the game were bold and very likely to be what you'd hear from innocent people with no concern about being caught in a lie, the cynic in me at least allowed for the possibility that it might have been a bit of false bravado in order to eliminate a distraction for the team. But the fact that they continue to double down now that the game is in the books tells me for sure that these guys are completely innocent.
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Gamesmanship and subterfuge is in my opinion a part of the attraction of football. It's a part of the tradition. If you can get away with something, go for it. Hell...I remember as a kid watching a Brady Bunch episode where the plot centered around a player from a rival school trying to steal Greg's playbook. Where'd that idea come from? This stuff has been going on forever and who really cares? The only people I ever hear complaining about it are the fans of the teams who lose.
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You would think the league would want the report to show nothing happened. Makes little sense that the contrary is true.
Goodell has an ego the size of the Grand Canyon. He will look like the world's biggest buffoon if he comes up with no punishment here, so I fully expect that something will be fabricated and handed down to prevent that ego-blow from happening. This, remember, is a guy who paid for an investigation to "prove" to us all that he never saw a videotape that we all know he saw.
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Then why is the investigation taking weeks ? That's a pretty big reach by you as the article does not by any means make that leap. It is saying , IMO , that the initial report was wrong. There were not 11 balls 2 Lb's under but instead just 1. It goes on to say that many of the remaining balls were just a bit under the pressure that is legal.
Problem with many Pat fans.. You and Rich Hill (Pat beat writer) ...."2) While 11 of the 12 measured footballs were underinflated, only one was two PSI below the limit. Rapoport describes the other 10 as "about a pound below," "just a few ticks under the minimum," or "right at the line." Maybe he had info that there were none more than a alb below.. could be.
What Rapoport reported...."> Eleven of the 12 footballs used in the first half were judged by the officials to be under the minimum of 12.5 PSI, but just one was two pounds under. Many of them were just a few ticks under the minimum."
Great question why the investigation is taking so long. My guess is that the league wants desperately to punish the Patriots for something and they are trying to concoct a scenario that will allow them to do so despite there being no conclusive evidence that they did anything wrong. As for the Rap report, I think you are really getting into semantics over this. We're talking about 10 balls, right? "Many" were "just a few ticks below", others were "right at the line" and the rest were closer to a pound. That's another way of saying that all but one of the Pats gameballs were not really under-inflated to any eyebrow raising degree, unless you believe the Pats have an illegal operation in place to deflate balls to just a tick below minimum.
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For about the 100th time you and Virdulant were corrected on this ... for the 101th time that is not what Rapoport reported. If it's a translation problem , I'll state the issue again. "Many" does not mean the rest nor would it mean "all" as in the statement you have above.
I think it's pretty obvious that the intent of the Rappaport article was to say that none of the other 10 balls were far enough below the legal limit to where natural causes wouldn't explain the drop.
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what about the other 10 balls?
if you believe the Rappoport story from NFL.com, they were all fine...just barely below legal.
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If Grigson is as stupid as some of these talking heads , I guess it's possible the Colts deflated a football trying to frame the Pats. I can't think of a possible scenario where that would be a "REASONABLE" explanation as to what went down that Sunday night. Just makes no sense. If the Pats were in fact cheating , the Colts didn't need to doctor a football to prove it. If they weren't cheating , there is zero chance doing that the colts doctoring a ball they had possession of would scuccessfully screw the Pats. T
This is one where I don't necessarily think it would be an organized plot from Griggson or Pagano. I kind of saw it as some over-zealous equipment guy on the Colts' sideline who hated the Pats, got his hands on a ball, and did something really dumb.
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If they thought it would "test like the rest of the balls " then why bother ?
Testing balls at half-time is not standard practice. I don't think the refs do it just because the Colts say "hey - we suspect they are deflating their balls...check them". But I think if they go to the refs and say "look at this ball...it's clearly deflated...we want you to check the rest of their balls"...now you have reason to do it. That was my whole point...the only way they could get the refs to agree to do this test would be to give them evidence to back up your claim.
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You are assuming a ton of things that have not been said.
No one has said it appears that just one ball looks to be "artificially deflated." Let's remember that all the Pats balls were under and all the Colt balls tested legal. We need to see what these balls tested at and also need reasonable science as to what would be "normal." They for all we know could come up with something like it's probable that the Pats used a higher temperature air inflating these balls with the knowledge they would deflate more. They could ask what in Gods name they were doing to those balls to raise the PSI a pound as BB explained. Other words it's possible the Pats could have done things they knew would end up in an under deflated ball once they hit the outside air .. rather than using a pin to take air out. Would this be illegal .. I would say so but maybe others would disagree. It could be that they find just one ball deflated badly and the rest not so bad. How did it get that way ? IMO , I don't think the Pats would deflate just 1 ball and hope that was the one that ended up in play. Nor do I think the Colts would do as you suggest ? Makes zero sense as they would have to figure that it would be the only ball that was illegal and it was on their sideline. So it makes little sense that either side would deflate 1 football. More than likely a defective ball . Maybe the process that BB explained where the team is kicking the crap out of the balls where he makes it sound like they're ready to explode damaged a ball. Who knows.... I mean to say that the Colts took a ball they intercepted .. took air out and gave to an official and said "look at these cheaters" is 3rd grade stuff. A * would know that's not going to fly in the end.
I'm obviously guessing based on different reports we've heard about the state of the balls. That's all anyone CAN do. As I said above, one of my first thoughts when the Mort report came out (11 out of 12 balls, all around 2 PSI low) was that they had found a way to do something to the balls pre-game such that they would test legal, then deflate. That completely fits Bill's M.O. as there is no specific rule against it. If you read the rules, all it says is that the balls need to be in that range when the refs check them pre-game and then nobody can tamper with them. I thought and still think that it is highly unlikely that they would do something as risky and flagrantly illegal as sticking a pin into the balls after the refs had checked them. They don't do it that way...they look for angles and interpretations of the rule-book.
But on the theory that the Colts did it, here is what I'll say...if they were so convinced that the Pats were deflating the balls, then to me it's possible that somebody might have thought that the ball they turned in would just be one of 12 balls that were all very deflated. So if a Colts guy took a little extra out in order to be sure the refs would do an investigation, he maybe thought that ball would test at around the same level as all of the balls, taking the suspicion off the Colts. If not, they could always fall back on the "one defective ball" theory.
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Here's what really insane about your logic. Who on the Colts would be such a complete , scathing , insane dumbo that would think for a minute what you have would fly.
1) They would need the turnover to get the ball. So already this grand plan is a little flawed.
2) Which genius would think they could take a ball that was in their possession , deflate it .....hand to to an official and subsequently frame the Pats ? That is absolutely insane . Use that thing between your ears and think it through. Are you even sure they took the ball that was in the Colts possession ? And are you sure that's exactly what Rapoport said ? I didn't listen to his verbal explanation but I did read what he wrote. I didn't see where he said only one ball was deflated. I saw where he said "many were a tick under." I've heard others say that the ones that weren't a tick under were at most around a pound under. I also didm' see where it said it was the Colt ball that was albs under. hears others say it. I mean could be it was their ball but what your saying is that some * thought they would pull this out of their butt , deflate the ball they int'd and present it as evidence that the Pats deflated footballs. Not even a 3rd grader would think that would fly...
So these are all good questions. Again - the premise is that there is only 1 ball that is deflated beyond what "science" might explain (which may or may not be the case). Who would be dumb enough to take the air out of the ball on the Colts' side? No idea. Who would be dumb enough to deflate one out of 12 balls on the Pats' side? What would be gained by that? But if there's only one ball that looks artificially deflated, then it's fair to ask who did it and why, isn't it? And I can't come up with a single plausible theory as to why the Pats would deflate just one ball. I CAN come up with that scenario for the Colts, particularly in light of the fact that the Colts were concerned about the Pats deflating balls from prior to the game. But you'd have to have the objective ability to view the Colts as just another pro-sports team that is ready and willing to get dirty like all the other teams in order to see it. I get the sense that a lot of Colts fans view this team and organization in a weird light, as though they were a shining beacon of light, fighting for truth and justice in the otherwise dirty world of big money pro sports.
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$500K fine for Bill and loss of a first round pick seems awfully steep for setting up a camera in the wrong location.
I agree...no other team in the league would have received that steep a punishment. There is a clear league agenda against the Pats.
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The hypocrisy comes from your posts on the initial reports on Deflategate, which implicated the Pats vs your posts since the Rappaport information came out. Also, at no time do I believe that choice number 1 was a possibility to you.
You'll have to take my word on that. My first reaction to the Mortensen report was to believe they were guilty. I'm actually embarrassed of that now, but that's what it looked like initially. I remember at the very outset, before Mort's report, thinking that the story about a defensive player supposedly being able to tell that a ball was slightly deflated didn't pass the sniff test, but then when Mort's report said 11 of 12 balls were 2lbs deflated each, I dropped that and started believing they were guilty. I'm still not comfortable with the guy taking the balls into the bathroom either...that's not a good look no matter what he was doing. But we're now down to 1 of 2 potential stories here the way I look at it...
1) The Mort report was correct and 11 of 12 Pats balls were significantly deflated. If that's the case, my money would be on the Pats doing something wrong.
2) The Rappaport report is correct and only 1 ball was significantly under inflated, that ball being the one that Jackson picked off.
If story #2 is correct, do you not think that shifts suspicion to the Colts? How would only one ball get deflated, that ball being the one that was in possession of the team that demanded the balls be checked?
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I'm not surprised that you do not recognize the hypocrisy, but then again you try to tell others that you are a Colts fan. I will wait until I see the Wells report now that I have seen conflicting information from Mortensen and Rappaport.
Again - what do you see as hypocritical? I am open to any of the 3 possibilities:
1) The Pats did something wrong
2) The Colts did something wrong
3) Nobody did anything wrong
I would venture to say there is not a Colts fan here who is truly open to scenario #2 or #3. But I will say this - if the Rappaport report turns out to be the accurate one, then as far as I'm concerned door #2 immediately becomes the MOST likely scenario.
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And the hypocrisy of this Pats fan, oh I'm sorry "Colts Fan", continues. More than likely without any recognition of the hypocrisy by the above poster.
I just like a who dunnit mystery
. By the way - how am I hypocritical? I'm like a lot of people just trying to guess at what might have happened based on what we know. I may be one of the only objective people here in that I completely accept the possibility that the Pats may have done something sneaky here. For a long time, before the Rappaport story came out, I believed that the Pats had figured out some sneaky way to pump hot air into the balls or to fill them in a sauna or something so that they'd pass the pregame check and then deflate once they hit the outside. Colts fans seem to be the only ones here who believe that it is not even conceivable that their guys might have been involved in something underhanded. -
Here's what happened:
The Colts had suspected the Pats of deflating balls prior to the AFC Championship Game. We've read this. So they came into the game wanting to catch the Pats red-handed at it. The only way to do that would be to get the refs to agree to measure the balls at halftime. From everything I've read/heard, this is not something that is normally done (re-gauging balls at the half). So that means the only way this would get done would be if one of the teams requested it be done, and we know that that in fact happened (Griggson made the request). So here's to me the key thing...would the refs agree to test all the balls without there being any probable cause to do so? In other words, if there had been no Jackson interception and the Colts had never gotten their hands on a ball, would the refs agree to do this test simply because Griggson "had a suspicion"? I highly doubt it...which is why that one ball is so significant here. I think the Colts got that ball and saw an opportunity to get an investigation done that they believed would nail the Patriots. So I could totally see them popping a needle into it, taking it down to an obvious level of deflation, handing it to the refs and saying "look - this ball is clearly deflated...we want an investigation done". The false story that was put out there about Jackson noticing the deflation as soon as he picked it off is important, because it establishes that the ball was in that state of deflation before the Colts got it (i.e. the Pats were the ones who deflated that ball). This is a completely plausible theory that fits the facts we know to be out there.
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Dunno who said it was Jackson and not the ball boy. Dunno who said it was initiated by the Ravens from the week before.... that was circulated also. I don't think there's a lot of significance as to someone saying it was Jackson and not the ball boy. I just don't think it's a big deal that when he was asked about it the next day , he just said heck no .. I didn't notice anything. Do you think maybe there was a big conspiracy that the whole Colt tea knew about and Jackson "chickened out" when he was asks the next day ? I would think that it's a very easy thing to report wrong or get confused about. He's a defensive guy that made an int and handed the ball to the ball boy to keep for him. He didn't notice the deflation as he caught a "bounced around" int and carried it to the sideline. If Tom Brady and your center were handling that ball on every play and didn't notice it , why would Jackson , who like he said is a defensive player. So nothing there .. right ? Now we have a guy that reported it was Jackson instead of the ball boy. It appears to me that that was incorrect. Now what ? Big deal ? I don't see the big deal .. but if I'm missing something .. I'm all ears.
This long ago left the "real news" world for me and entered into "fun conspiracy theory" mode. For all anybody knows, nobody did anything wrong and there was a defective ball that leaked. So with that context, everything I'm saying is pure amateur detective stuff. Here are the only things I think are facts:
1) The Colts turned in the Jackson ball because someone on the Colts sideline thought it was under inflated
2) The balls were measured at half-time and at least some of the Patriots balls were under the minimum by some amount, maybe a lot, maybe a little
3) The air pressure of the balls at the beginning of the game was not noted
Everything else is rumor, right?
So my curiosity starts with the original story, which had details in it which have since been contradicted, either by direct comments from Jackson or by different (but still unconfirmed) reports. That original story was provided to a local Indy reporter, and it clearly painted the worst case scenario for the Patriots, with 11 out of 12 balls being 2 psi too low and Jackson being the one to notice the balls were too low.
It seems logical to me, given the detailed story about Jackson and that Kravitz was the reporter, that the source of this story was someone from the Colts. Do you agree? So we have an extremely negative story about the Pats, provided by somebody from the Colts. Since that story came out, Jackson himself has refuted a part of it, and newer reports seem to pretty significantly contradict the amount the balls were underinflated. So now we have not just a story provided by the Colts, but an at least partly made up story. If someone inside the Colts was * off enough about the Pats to plant a partly fabricated story into the news about them, how big a stretch is it to then think they may have gone a step further than simply making up a story and may have actually tampered with the ball to support that story?
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According to BB , his 2 QB's could only tell the difference 50% of the time with a ball deflated by 2 LB's per square inch. Plus factor in that they knew that they were doing a "testing of the football " type thing. Not that I really believe that Tom Brady could be handed a football that was that deflated and be asked if it felt deflated and only be right 50% of the time. That I think is a blatant lie . But I can believe him when he said in game conditions , he wouldn't notice it. That's a far more believable statement. So the point is , he (Virdulant) believes Brady and BB ... that they can't tell the difference when they are LOOKING FOR DEFLATION , but a LB that caught a ball and carried it off the field would know if it was deflated. From there he went on to the conspiracy theory. To his credit , he has now backed off that statement and I respect that.
What I'm saying is that the initial story very specifically put out a narrative that said that Jackson picked off the ball, noticed it felt deflated, and handed it to the equipment guy to check it out...i.e Jackson was the one who initiated this whole thing. Then Jackson immediately distanced himself from it, saying he didn't notice anything and just wanted to keep the ball as a souvenir. That's a significantly different account and makes me wonder who passed along the first story...because it's apparently a complete fabrication.
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Nothing is going to come out. They can't say New England blatantly cheated.
They won the Super Bowl.
It's in the NFL's best interest to sweep this under the rug and say it was minimal.
works for me
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There is no article, just a projection out. Again, after the smoke clears, voters will have to weigh these issues, along with the accomplishments. There have been other very successful organizations in many sports, but no other organization has this stigma like the Patriots do. The Red Sox are also successful, but other than the PED's that most organizations have, don't have the same negative feeling many have about the Patriots. So it's not the success, because you didn't get that about the 70's Steelers, or other top teams.
You acknowledge that it would be silly to claim the Red Sox titles were "tainted" because they had PED users on their teams, and I agree, as do most people (since there is no national dialogue calling their titles into question). Why is that? It can't simply be the "everyone else does it too" argument, because if so that should apply to the Patriots as well. It all boils down to the fact that the Patriots are viewed as an arrogant team by fans of other teams. Belichick isn't "user friendly", Brady looks like a guy who came from Central Casting....it's that stuff that drives the hatred, not the actual things they are accused of doing. If Belichick had a media friendly personality, stories like this would never be blown up the way they are.
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You realize how stupid any team would have to be to deflate one ball and go hey the other team is deflating balls knowing there is no way the other balls are going to show up deflated? Forget the Colts and Pats thing for a moment and just think about any team doing that. They would have to be beyond dumb because there is no way once it's checked it's going to hold up. There is also the report that says the league was tipped off to this before the game and they were watching it which is how they got the video of the ball boy. That also means they would have been watching the Colts to look for this, So far there has been no evidence brought fourth that honestly supports this theory it's just that a theory.
The "how dumb would they have to be?" argument was pretty much the reason I stopped buying into the original story of the Pats deflating balls that had already been certified by the refs pre-game. That never added up to me...the risk of being caught was too enormous for the negligible advantage. Look - I'm not going to sit here and pretend that Belichick doesn't scour the rulebook obsessively looking for angles and loopholes. I'm fairly certain that he does. So if you had told me that they found a way to treat the balls prior to inspection such that they would pass the pre-game test but then deflate naturally once the game started, I would totally buy into that. Why? Because it would be technically within the rules. That's their M.O..not blatantly violating rules. Even Spygate came from Bill thinking he had found a loophole that the league shot down.
Also, just another point...the league didn't get video of the old guy because of being tipped off....that was just regular/normal security cam footage from the stadium.
. By the way - how am I hypocritical? I'm like a lot of people just trying to guess at what might have happened based on what we know. I may be one of the only objective people here in that I completely accept the possibility that the Pats may have done something sneaky here. For a long time, before the Rappaport story came out, I believed that the Pats had figured out some sneaky way to pump hot air into the balls or to fill them in a sauna or something so that they'd pass the pregame check and then deflate once they hit the outside. Colts fans seem to be the only ones here who believe that it is not even conceivable that their guys might have been involved in something underhanded.
Bob Kravitz' Story
in NFL General
Posted
Direct quote:
"We're gonna bring you in," Belichick said to Letterman, "to testify when we get the investigation next month."