I don't know Kent. I think I'm a pretty decent judge of character, Mr. Kraft doesn't strike me as being a cheat or an idiot. He's got an excellent reputation. I don't know that I've ever read a single negative word about him. His wife passed a few years ago and she was well known in their community for being a wonderful person. Both of them are held in that kind of regard.
As for Tom Brady, I don't know. I just don't think it mattered too much and this whole thing is way, way overblown. That and there is very little to suggest he was involved. I guess next year the NFL will be looking into what kind of socks he wears and do they give him a competitive advantage somehow.
I think issues such as violence and using PED's are much more important than all the time and money they've spent on this.
I'm not even a Patriots fan, or a Tom Brady fan. I do respect and admire what they've accomplished though since about the time Bill Belichick came to the team.
PHM
Thank you all for chiming in. I appreciate your point of view.
PHM
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"It's paradoxical that the idea of living a long life appeals to everyone, but the idea of getting old doesn't appeal to anyone."
Andy Rooney
Paul
This was a train wreck from the get go. The pure amount of nonsense coming from the Patriots was embarrassing. Had he just admitted from the beginning that he liked the ball at a lower pressure, but within spec's, I don't think it ever would have gotten that far.
Their feeble attempt at trying to employ Boyle's law, was so lame, that as a Pat's fan, I cringed.Where did they get their experts.
They created, as an organization, the perception of deceit. Unfortunately,perception can easily become a reality.The Patriots and Tom Brady have no one to blame but themselves.
As an aside.
In not one article did I read that the Patriots, or any other organization was using an NIST traceable gauge for inflation pressure. Without NIST traceability, and standards adherence, there is not one accurately provable, inflated football,anywhere in the NFL. A multi billion dollar entity using junky peanut gauges, is just ridiculous.
The NFL needs to clean their side of the house, just as we'll as the Patriots organization.
Last edited by Mike Cutler; 07-29-2015 at 8:54 PM.
"The first thing you need to know, will likely be the last thing you learn." (Unknown)
Brady handled this poorly from the start. He knew what was going on. The Patriots (Brady, Kraft, and The Hoodie) think they are smarter than everybody else. If they did nothing wrong from the start why did they suspend the equipment guys? If they used science to prove the air came out if the balls naturally during the course of the game, why didn't the same scientific principles happen to the colts balls. Hey Tom, you did the crime now serve the time!
I will say he deserves to be suspended but what he did doesn't compare to Greg Hardy and they get the same suspension length. Maybe these idiots that hit women should have to spend 5 minutes in a ring with Rhonda Rousey.
Is there a science to why wood moves? It's all seems to move for us doesn't it? Is it some god moving it to make us miserable and mess with our projects or can we look to science to explain why wood moves?
Same with footballs. There is an ideal gas law for a reason. Something inflated will decrease in size when it gets cold and reinflate when it gets warm. There have been numerous scientists that have examined the Wells report and shown the balls acted according to the ideal gas law. The data from the Wells report was cooked to prove a point that the balls were deflated.
Yes I'm a Pats fan and Brady supporter but I would support any other team accused give the same facts. The science shows nothing was done and that's what I believe.
Don
I hadn't thought about before,but I think it's easier to justify rule bending on a team as " these guys deserved to win" than carrying the guilt of cheating in individual sports. Bobby Jones once demanded a penalty against himself in a golf tournament when he inadvertantly made the ball move before he hit it. When he was praised for that he said " you might as well thank a man for not robbing a bank ".
Exactly, we need to maintain perspective. I don't condone cheating but we shouldn't make this into something bigger than it was.
At the same time it bugs me to no end that the Patriots are going to take this to the courts. It would be awesome if the judge tacked something onto the punishment when they find for the NFL.
My thoughts on the Patriots:
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...
If I must have an opinion, it is this: I do not like them. They are from the same state that the Red Sox are from...
I am never wrong.
Well...I thought I was wrong once...but I was mistaken.
One of the best QB's in NFL history should know when a football is soft. Tom Brady knew that the footballs were soft (and to his liking) because if they were not, he would have have raised heck to have them fixed.
Brady is just trying to save face by playing dumb and saying he knew nothing.
Doug Swanson
Where are John Keeton and Steve Schlumpf anyway?
Lets say Brady likes his balls on the soft side, maybe especially so in cold weather games. The ball guy knows this so he inflates to the minimum spec in the locker room. Those balls go out onto the field and become acclimated to freezing conditions and it is natural that the pressure in them will drop due to the temperature decrease. In fact, a 12.5 PSI ball in the locker room willl become 11.5 PSI at 32 F (0 C) - thats physics. Brady doesn't know or care what the actual gage pressure of the ball is. In fact the NFL doesn't require that the ball pressure be adjusted as a function of the field temperature - the pressure test is done in the warm and toasty locker room. So in fact, Brady got the soft balls he was looking for and the NFL (Giddell) is somehow acting like Brady did something wrong when in fact the NFL does a poor job of specifying the conditions for the pressure of the ball. Oh, what about the balls not being up to minimum pressure when they got re-tested? Simply stated, the balls were still cold when they were retested in the locker room - if the ref's (no scientists to be sure) had waited for the balls to re-acclimate to the locker room temperature - maybe an hour or so, they would have been back to minimum temperature. All this can easily be demonstrated. It would be just like the OJ case with the glove that doesn't fit. If the NFL does go to court in this case they will end up looking foolish (again)
Well we have to get the figures right.
The balls have to be inflated to a 12.5 PSI minimum.
They measured, at halftime, at 10.5 PSI.
The temps were not brutal, it was 51F at kickoff. For the balls to deflate by 2#, you'd need a 40F differential in temperature, far greater than the temp from locker room to field.
Finally, the Indianapolis balls tested within spec at halftime.