The report is in on “Deflategate” and it does not look good for either the Patriots or Tom Brady. As we discussed earlier, Coach Bill Belichick insisted at the earlier press conference that he not only had no idea how the balls were deflated in New England’s AFC title game against Indianapolis in January. He claimed utter ignorance about virtually anything to do with the subject of air pressure and footballs. He was followed by quarterback Tom Brady who, despite previously saying that he preferred underinflated balls, said that he could not tell that the balls were deflated (even when a Colts employee could immediately feel the difference and report it). It is the immaculate deflation. It just happened by some cosmic coincidence over(1) and over(2) and over(3) and over(4) and over(5) and over(6) and over(7) and over(8) and over(9) and over(10) and over(11) again. Ted Wells does not appear to buy it though absent a confession, he could not conclusively say that the team or Brady was guilty. Instead, he concludes in this 243 page report that “We believe it is unlikely that an equipment assistant and a locker room attendant would deflate game balls without Brady’s knowledge and approval.”
Brady claimed to know nothing about football pressure in his press conference: a performance mocked on Saturday Night Live.
Wells scoffs at Brady’s denials and states “We found these claims not plausible and contradicted by other evidence.” The report found that Brady “was at least generally aware” of all the plans to prepare the balls to his liking and that it was “more probable than not” that two Patriots employees – officials’ locker room attendant Jim McNally and equipment assistant John Jastremski – carried out the plan. McNally is accused of demanding expensive shoes and signed footballs, jerseys and cash. Communications are described as basically a swag grab. One email said “Remember to put a couple sweet pig skins ready for tom to sign.” Another said “Nice throw in some kicks and make it real special.” The report notes that Brady had virtually no communication with the men for the prior six months and then had six telephone calls in three days.
The report does note that, while Brady was known to prefer deflated balls, he actually did better in the second half of the game after the balls had been pumped back up to regulation level.
The next question is now how the NFL will respond. “More probable than not” may be the best you can get without a confession and it has been enough in past disputes. The Patriots could be facing yet another serious sanction in an organization that is viewed as having a highly checkered past and problematic team culture.
While owner Robert Kraft called the conclusion “incomprehensible,” it is the account of the Patriots that seems incomprehensible. McNally took the game balls into a bathroom in the short period between the testing and the resumed game. Referee Walt Anderson’s said that he was surprised when he was unable to locate the previously approved footballs at the start of the game – the first time that had happened to him in 19 years.
The question is whether a penalty would reach just the Patriots or whether it would extend to Brady or Belichick (who seems less of a focus of the suspicions). There could be another draft pick loss or even a suspension of the player and the coach for the next season. That would be a lessen to every team since the Patriots did not need to deflate the balls to beat the Colts. The way the game went, it looked like Brady could have been throwing beachballs and reached the same result.
Jim 22, when you use “capitalism,” you fall into Marx’s trap; you use his pejorative. Americans enjoy freedom and engage in free enterprise. The “economist’s” lexicon was created as a tool used to exert control over the “economy.” Free Americans engaged in free enterprise are free of governmental control and have absolutely no need for a vocabulary, programs, regulations or laws that control their activities. If any tools are used to control free enterprise, people are not free.
issac, Your whole premise seems like a fallacy when you consider that the U.S became a great nation not because of on overbearing govt. and over the past 50 years Americas decline as you even point out has happened as the govt. has grown and our freedoms and liberties have been removed. Your amnesia also shows up when forgetting about the recession that Clinton left Bush. I remember it well, I was a casualty of it.
Also, I love when people point to how wonderful Europe is. You conveniently leave out how our military presence there has cost us dearly and allowed them to basically run their economies without a military. I’m all for pulling out all of our presence there and letting the chips fall. It would be fun to watch. Plus, countries like Greece and Italy look wonderful.
Jim 22, thank you. I stand corrected. The record shows that Ford addressed turnover and that creating more discretionary income was ancillary; secondary.
We are learning more lies about Obamacare every day. We just learned MORE people are getting routine treatment in ER’s now, than prior to Obamacare. We were assured those numbers would decline immediately, since the first folks getting Obamacare would be the poor and uninsured.
I agree w/ your last sentence. But, you knew that.
Nick
Even if one were to accept that your statements have any merit at all, given that Obama’s over stepping of executive powers and other alleged crimes are par for the course when compared with the past several Presidents, you conveniently left out Reagan and Bush. Reagan’s stupid economic policies cost the US a seven year recession, at the time the greatest recession since the great depression. He traded cocaine for missiles and other acts that make Obama and others look like saints. Then we have the midget cowboy and his two handlers. They are in another league when it comes to incompetence, corruption, and general arrogance. Bush created the worst recession since the Great Depression. So, the choice is, go with the proven catastrophes, the Republicans or Hillary and see how a few things play out. It is possible to take ACA and refine it. It is possible to get rid of the private health insurance parasites, the real problem. It is possible to reign in health care costs. It is possible to continue to do a lot of things that will benefit Americans. It is possible to raise the standard of living of Americans. It is possible to energized American industry and the middle class. It is possible to return American wealth to the US. But not with a Republican administration. They have proven that they can raise spending and put the US in dire economic straights. What is scary is that both Reagan and Bush increased spending drastically. What is even scarier is that they both reduced taxes which compounded the problem and brought America the two greatest recessions since the 30s.
Compare and contrast all you want. The Republicans are dysfunctional, disruptive, and place the best interests of Americans well behind their garnering of power.
Now if there were only another choice.
Obama is more crooked than Nixon and more incompetent than Carter. This is from someone who voted for the corrupt Chicago pol in 2008. History will prove this so. Both Carter and Nixon people are thankful Obama has taken them off the hook.
looks like we have some Patriot fans here.
Jim22
The missing part of your equation is the reality of life. There is only so much room at the top. Not everyone can open their own business and create an empire. Using the military as an analogy, there has to be a preponderance of privates compared to higher ranks and very few generals. The facts of life don’t change. The only thing that changes is how the privates are treated. Those that wish to rise to the top will always try. Those that realize and accept their limitations and wish to simply work for a living should not be ignored. They are the ones that create the wealth for those rising to the top.
The ignorance of this caused the extremes that swung the pendulum the other way creating unions. The extremes of mistreatment of workers resulted in the extremes of the unions. There has to be a governing or ‘ruling’ group. However those who provide the engines of society must also be rewarded. The more advanced democracies have balanced a social responsibility with the opportunities to ‘get rich’.
Your arguments, and those of others who seem to view society as an all right or an all left situation constantly refer to the extremes. If the US were to become more realistic vis a vis workers rights and those aspects that should be socialized such as health care and education, the only results will be better educated and less stressed, perhaps healthier citizens, not necessarily a dictatorship. Where your argument fails is when one looks at the reality of the US demographic of a visibly shrinking middle class and a visibly richer 1%. The very people who were supposed to and did for a while, obtain the rewards due the ‘everyman’ have lost and continue to lose those rewards. In the past fifty years, that I have been paying attention, the peer nations of the US have evolved robust economic societies partnered with the appropriate social rewards and guarantees, proving that your predictions of dictatorships resulting from democracy and social responsibility are not warranted. If anything the world is moving from the extreme right and the extreme left to a center where both ideologies perform. Kind of like the Greeks said almost three thousand years ago, ‘Nothing to excess.’
Your argument regarding Henry Ford is one sided. There are two sides. Ford wanted to acquire the best tradesmen and keep them under his roof. The by product of this happened to be his workers becoming consumers and buying his cars. I’m sure this wasn’t missed by him. The private sector can and does provide the social benefits ‘everyman’ wants and works for. However, if left unfettered the results are typically the maxim that is the number one foundation of capitalism, ‘what the market can bear’. Those who organize and run the economy will naturally charge as much as they can for their product and pay as little as possible. Left to the oligarchs the best condition of the worker is to be with as little choice and ‘freedom’ as possible. Replacing workers lowers the profit margin. Paying workers more lowers the profit margin. If one digs a little one will find that in almost every case where the private sector, most visibly the tech industry, treats its workers as they should be treated, it is the workers in the US. The, many times more, workers that make the gadgets, clothes, and computers live in societies run by dictator like rulers. The question is, would you pay more for a big screen TV if it were made in the US and created a stronger middle class?
The one fact that seems to surprise most of the right is that without workers there is no profit margin, no 1%. The reality of the situation is that you can replace one CEO a lot easier than you can 10,000 trained workers. The extremes of those that stepped on the workers a hundred years ago and created the unions and their excesses are reappearing.
Look to societies like that of Germany and other successful paradigms where management, government, and labor seem to have worked out a ‘holy trinity’ of cooperation, rather than an oligarchy as is found in the US. Ask yourself how different is our oligarchy from that of Russia’s?
ForgotwhoIam, – “Henry Ford wanted to create consumers as well” The article I posted shows how this is not true. His decision was purely based on seeing the value of his workers skill and that it cost more to retrain than to keep them. He also established the 40 hour work week. this all smacks in the face of the socialists who love to say capitalists are only interested in taking advantage of the worker. It’s no wonder that Henry Ford hated the unions.
I couldn’t agree more with your quote about democracy. It is my belief that the American experiment will fail faster than previous democracies do to technology/communication accelerating the downfall.
People like issac should be happy since the lazy will inherit their dictator soon.
Henry Ford wanted to create consumers as well as address turnover.
Since 1965, $22 Trillion spent on the :”War on Poverty” and Poverty won.
Russia suffered communism from 1917 to Ronald Reagan.
Collectivism is finite. A temporary “Fool’s Paradise.”
Alexander Fraser Tytler –
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the people discover they can vote themselves largess out of the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that democracy always collapses over a loose fiscal policy–to be followed by a dictatorship.”
Issac, “The only real rights an American worker has is to like it, lump it, or leave.” The only statement in your post that I agree with. It’s called freedom. As for minimum wage anyone who strives for it deserves only getting it. Raising minimum wage to raise it is just stupid. Henry Ford did his famous $5/day because he realized the value in reducing production worker turnaround. I find it odd that socialists want people to be happy flipping burgers for a living. I personally want more for people.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2014/05/25/henry-fords-5-a-day-and-the-ridiculous-15-an-hour-mcdonalds-minimum-wage/
Also, all of your examples of America’s downfalls are not a result of the people being more free. These problems stem mostly because of a govt. that has grown and is in the way. i.e. the govt.’s monopoly on education.
P.S. Did the NFL officials (or jealous losers) check the dimension and torque of Brady’s cleats?
Did officials make sure that Brady’s eyeblack was applied at the right angle, juxtaposed with the nose centerline, or using the league-specified longitudinal dimension and radius of the eyeblack, if applicable?
What a joke.
“All Hail Tom Brady!”
NFL officials KNEW about the problem before the game started. The officials allowed the game to begin with a “football” problem. The NFL has to explain WHY the game wasn’t delayed by officials for further inspection and correction of football air pressure.
The NFL specification is not an absolute but a range. It is scientific fact that football air pressure varies. Weather can affect football air pressure. Does anyone KNOW the precise air pressure in every football of every game for the past 100+ years? What a joke.
The next thing you know, it will be found that some granules were shaved off the puck in the Ice Hockey Championships.
First half football air pressure meant nothing in the 45-7 Patriots WIPEOUT of the Colts. Brady played better in the second half.
“A tempest in a teapot.”
Other motivations, ranging from jealousy to racism, exist for “attacking” Brady, Belichick and the Patriots. We KNOW for example, that abject STUPIDITY was the definitive and irrefutable cause of the historic and HUGE Super Bowl LOSS by the Seattle SeaCOOTS.
All you Brady/Patriot wannabes will have to look elsewhere for excuses.
All you Brady/Patriot wannabes will have to do better than this.
As an avid New England sports fan, I now know what it’s like to be a Yankees fan!
Jim22
Don’t confuse socialism with dictatorships. In the more socialist democracies the ‘people’ have more power, and more of the pie. In America the ‘people’ have less of the pie but more of an illusion that they can get more. Study the workers’ rights in other countries and compare them to those of American workers. The only real rights an American worker has is to like it, lump it, or leave. Statistics prove that American workers make less, and get less from their government. The fight for a $10.00 an hour minimum wage is so sad, it would be funny if it weren’t so shameful. The average minimum wage of our peer nations is $10.00+ an hour. In the US $7.25 is the norm and on top of that the costs of medical insurance is between two and three times as much. Public education is better in our peer nations. America, on top of all that, is the richest country in the world. America has a lot of ‘socializing’ to do.
My comment is in moderation for some reason.
earsoftheworld,
You might not have noticed this but the comment went into moderation because the link had a prohibited word.
http://seattletimes.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/seahawks/files/2015/01/dali.jpg
I. Annie, Warren’s a lier too.