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- May 6, 2015
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Been away a bit. Enjoyed the Gibbs thread. Although unable to sign in, I was yelling, "wait! Wait for the signing!" while the thread was developing. Twitter. Helluva drug.
Mayweather. Guy's a genius. Great businessman. Boxing. MMA. Nothing personal about it, but people get really personal about it. Both have a place in the world. Both places are in a state of flux. If any boxing fan puts forth Mayweather/Pac as anything but a bad day for the sport, God bless - you're a true fan. The argument that, "they made 200mil, so bad time to say the sport is in trouble" is an ill-thought out argument. It's like claiming Farah Fawcett was on the rise when she posed for playboy when she was 40 and hitting the wall. 20 years ago, I knew 20 boxers by name and feat. Today, as I close on 50, I know about 4, including the "Klitscho brothers," and I really don't know more than that about them. May/Pac was a bad day for the sport. Maybe a good day for May and Pac and the promoters and Vegas, but a bad day for future earnings. If this was a stock, you'd be well advised to sell. A close, hard fought 12 round battle would have breathed life into boxing. Instead, Mayweather's effective-but-boring style, combined with Pac's I'll-take-the-money even though I'm injured and can't throw a right hook approach, damaged the marginal fan's interest in the sport. And you're always hunting for the marginal fan, not the lifer. MMA was on its way down a mere 12 years ago. Ended up working out, but it was by no means a sure thing. Why is MMA taking boxing fans? Short attention span of the modern man? More thirst for KOs and blood? Who knows. But MMA has its limits too, and I think we're close to reaching them. There are just too many things to do in the world now. Who has the time. Market share, market share. Baseball and boxing are, to an extent, suffering from the same thing - an unwillingness to change when change is the only way to substantially increase market share. Boxing should consider cutting the number of weight classes in half and punishing fighting styles that emulate Mayweather. Sure, you'll sacrifice purity. What is it that you want? Purity or market share?
The Duke game marked a transition for me. I really didn't care whether Duke won or not. Didn't hate this Duke team, although they made a run at it by introducing an annoying, pasty white guy right at the end - that had been missing prior to the Badger game. But the calls? Lord, it looked rigged, and I haven't thought something looked rigged in a really long time. When the #2 guy on Duke pretty much lowered the shoulder and knocked a guy over for a ridiculously clear foul #4, which would have put Duke's best 2 players on the bench with serious foul trouble with a lot of time left, something in me switched off. My interest in the sport waned noticeably. This harkens back to when I fired up an espn link to watch the highlights of a UK game that went to the wire (or OT) during the season. About 12 highlights of UK, with almost zero mention of the other team. The sport has been contaminated. Not sure it will ever recover. I might be Homer's dad waving a fist at the cloud, but that's my call. It just seemed rigged. And the more the media focuses on a few teams, the more it seems that way. It's always been about money at some level, it just seems much worse now.
Regarding Brady, I read the report. The whole thing. I could write a 20 page response, but I'll trim it here. I've been on both sides of reports like this - where an "independent" outsider is hired to do an "independent" review of the facts and draw conclusions. I'll just line item it here, but, in short, it appears that the report got it right that the one guy tampered with the balls - just too odd that he'd go to the bathroom and that he'd lie about it. The report was, in my opinion, way off on Brady - there was virtually nothing to connect him to the ball guy, and, in that regard, it looked like a hit piece. But, you know, I read the posts on the other thread here and there seemed to be just pages of the same conversation everybody had prior to the report. Nobody moved, and nobody really discussed the details of the report. Here are the line items that have to raise your eyebrows if you are a reasonable person:
1. The report suggested strongly that Brady's gift of signed items to the ball carrier was some sort of pay off for breaking rules. But there is no evidence offered as to how that conclusion is reached. How often does Brady give away signed items? How often do QBs give away signed items in general to ball carriers? Did Brady give away items like this 10 years ago? No info.
2. The report implicates Brady early on by citing texts to the guy in charge of prepping the balls, in which Brady says, "you okay?" The clear implication the report makes is that Brady is checking to see if his co-conspirator is holding up under the pressure. But the report doesn't mention until much later that the immediate next text from Brady said, "you'll be fine, you didn't do anything wrong." Very important, and exculpatory evidence that was ignored.
3. The report implicates Brady by noting that he hadn't texted the ball prep guy for 6 months prior to deflategate being reported, but then texted him and talked to him thereafter. Problem here is that that makes no sense. If Brady was innocent, of course the first thing he would do when hearing tAhe news would be to pick up the phone and call the guy in charge of balls. If it was me, I'd be on the phone asking, "WTF is going on?" given that it would be my ass they would be coming for. This is not inculpatory evidence.
4. The report ignores a very important text from the guy in charge of prepping balls, in which that guy says that Brady was furious after the Jets game because the balls were 16 psi, and not "the 13psi they are supposed to be. The refs screwed us." That is exculpatory, and is very important, because it strongly suggests that Brady, and the ball guys, were very leery of the Refs over inflating balls, rather than conspiring to drop the balls well below the league minimum.
5. The report compares Colts' balls to Pats' balls for the purpose of measuring halftime deflation, but uses only 4 Colts balls. This is very suspicious. There was a lot of variation in the Pats' balls, so it seems odd and unfair to only use 4 Colts balls, regardless of the lame excuse that there was not time to check the rest. The report claims that McNully deflated 12 balls in 110 seconds, but doesn't point out that it's asinine that only 4 Colts balls could be checked during halftime (20 minutes or longer) because of time pressure?
6. The report concluded that physics alone would suggest that the expected halftime pressure of balls inflated to 12.5 psi in the locker room would be about 11.42 (they provide a range of 11.32 to 11.52). The actual measured Patriot balls from one gauge were 11.8, 11.2, 11.5, 11.0, 11.45, 11.95, 12.3, 11.55, 11.35, 10.9, and 11.35. It's irresponsible for the report not to point out that 6 of the Patriot balls, by one gauge, were above the predicted value, and only 3 fell below the lower limit.
7. The report admits that there was an up to 0.4 psi difference between the two gauges the official (Anderson) may have used, and that he didn't know which one he used. It's insincere to not point at at the start that the NFL is such a joke, and the whole ball-pressure process is such a joke, that the entire permissible range of PSI in footballs is 1 PSI, but the official may have used a gauge that was off up to 50% of that range. Unbelievable and embarrassing, and shame on the NFL that it won't own it.
8. The report fails to point out a very obvious failure on the part of the NFL. Anderson (lead official) was contacted by the head NFL official guy, and told, prior to the game, that the Pats might be tampering with the balls after the ref's checked them. Anderson claimed that he never let McNully leave with the balls without going with him or without giving him permission. What? Why not just say that like it is??? Which is, "the guy sometimes took the balls without me." Why throw in the "with my permission" part? Fact is, Anderson was doing such a piss poor job that he admits, albeit in a blended fashion, that he had, in the past, allowed the Pat's scrub guy to take the balls out of his site "with his permission." What the hell? Where is the outrage about that? What is the point of checking the balls if you then give permission to let the guy walk away with them? Further, why on earth, after having been informed of the suspicion of Pat's cheating, would you let the guy take them? Why would the NFL not have had a guy sitting on them? Or, better yet, why wouldn't an official just take them out? And then, after it was determined the balls were gone, and it was thereafter determined that McNully had them on the field, WOULD YOU NOT RE-CHECK THE BALLS RIGHT THEN AND THERE? It stinks, and it stinks badly.
Ask this question - how bad of a ref is Anderson that he 1. Was told by the head of officials before the game that the Pats might be deflating balls, 2. Thereafter lost track of the balls. 3. Was told the balls had been brought to the filed by a Pat's employee, who was unaccompanied, then 4. Did not check the balls prior to letting the Pats use them? What? He should be fired immediately, and the Colts should be furious with him for potentially allowing the Pats to cheat.
9. Why is the length of the report cited virtually every time it's referenced? 243 pages. You've read it, you've heard it. The reason is that the length is cited to support the notion that it must be thorough and good. Truth is? Minus the Appendix, the report is only 139 pages long. Minus the kicking ball non-issue, it's 131. Minus the Table of Contents and Summary, and it's 110. Minus the unnecessary tables and the footnotes, and it's less than 100. Change the unnecessary double spacing to single spaced, and what you end up with is about a 45 page report, which doesn't sound anywhere near as compelling as a "243 page report."
10. Why is Anderson referred to in the report as "professional"? Why does the report repeatedly point out that "there was no indication of bias by any employee of the NFL?" Is that what the law firm was tasked to do? Review the NFL for bias? Review Anderson's demeanor for "professionalism," whatever that means?
Ultimately, I'm embarrassed for the NFL. This report was a hit piece, and while it did elucidate the likelihood that McNully probably lowered the pressure in the balls, it goes way overboard in trying to tie Brady to it. But the NFL got what it wanted. 99.99% of fans will only ever hear "Patriots probably deflated," which is a bastardization of "more probably than not," and will never read the report or understand that it was a hit piece.
My best guess as to what happened, which is just a guess, as that Brady bitched constantly about the balls and did not want them overinflated. The ball prep guy worked hard to get the balls to 12.5psi. The refs were poor about leaving them at or getting them to that number. The refs, by the report, are known to have used gauges that were off by almost 50% of the allowed PSI range. McNully, at the direction of ball prep guy, was told to let some air out of the balls on the way to the field. It's entirely possible that Brady knew about it or was involved in telling ball prep guy to make it happen. But there is just nothing substantive to support it. Given the text on the Jet's game, where Brady was livid that the balls were hard and they ended up testing at 16psi after the Jets game, it's possible that ball prep guy was doing what he thought was his job. In any event, the NFL's handling of the entire thing is suspect at best.
Mayweather. Guy's a genius. Great businessman. Boxing. MMA. Nothing personal about it, but people get really personal about it. Both have a place in the world. Both places are in a state of flux. If any boxing fan puts forth Mayweather/Pac as anything but a bad day for the sport, God bless - you're a true fan. The argument that, "they made 200mil, so bad time to say the sport is in trouble" is an ill-thought out argument. It's like claiming Farah Fawcett was on the rise when she posed for playboy when she was 40 and hitting the wall. 20 years ago, I knew 20 boxers by name and feat. Today, as I close on 50, I know about 4, including the "Klitscho brothers," and I really don't know more than that about them. May/Pac was a bad day for the sport. Maybe a good day for May and Pac and the promoters and Vegas, but a bad day for future earnings. If this was a stock, you'd be well advised to sell. A close, hard fought 12 round battle would have breathed life into boxing. Instead, Mayweather's effective-but-boring style, combined with Pac's I'll-take-the-money even though I'm injured and can't throw a right hook approach, damaged the marginal fan's interest in the sport. And you're always hunting for the marginal fan, not the lifer. MMA was on its way down a mere 12 years ago. Ended up working out, but it was by no means a sure thing. Why is MMA taking boxing fans? Short attention span of the modern man? More thirst for KOs and blood? Who knows. But MMA has its limits too, and I think we're close to reaching them. There are just too many things to do in the world now. Who has the time. Market share, market share. Baseball and boxing are, to an extent, suffering from the same thing - an unwillingness to change when change is the only way to substantially increase market share. Boxing should consider cutting the number of weight classes in half and punishing fighting styles that emulate Mayweather. Sure, you'll sacrifice purity. What is it that you want? Purity or market share?
The Duke game marked a transition for me. I really didn't care whether Duke won or not. Didn't hate this Duke team, although they made a run at it by introducing an annoying, pasty white guy right at the end - that had been missing prior to the Badger game. But the calls? Lord, it looked rigged, and I haven't thought something looked rigged in a really long time. When the #2 guy on Duke pretty much lowered the shoulder and knocked a guy over for a ridiculously clear foul #4, which would have put Duke's best 2 players on the bench with serious foul trouble with a lot of time left, something in me switched off. My interest in the sport waned noticeably. This harkens back to when I fired up an espn link to watch the highlights of a UK game that went to the wire (or OT) during the season. About 12 highlights of UK, with almost zero mention of the other team. The sport has been contaminated. Not sure it will ever recover. I might be Homer's dad waving a fist at the cloud, but that's my call. It just seemed rigged. And the more the media focuses on a few teams, the more it seems that way. It's always been about money at some level, it just seems much worse now.
Regarding Brady, I read the report. The whole thing. I could write a 20 page response, but I'll trim it here. I've been on both sides of reports like this - where an "independent" outsider is hired to do an "independent" review of the facts and draw conclusions. I'll just line item it here, but, in short, it appears that the report got it right that the one guy tampered with the balls - just too odd that he'd go to the bathroom and that he'd lie about it. The report was, in my opinion, way off on Brady - there was virtually nothing to connect him to the ball guy, and, in that regard, it looked like a hit piece. But, you know, I read the posts on the other thread here and there seemed to be just pages of the same conversation everybody had prior to the report. Nobody moved, and nobody really discussed the details of the report. Here are the line items that have to raise your eyebrows if you are a reasonable person:
1. The report suggested strongly that Brady's gift of signed items to the ball carrier was some sort of pay off for breaking rules. But there is no evidence offered as to how that conclusion is reached. How often does Brady give away signed items? How often do QBs give away signed items in general to ball carriers? Did Brady give away items like this 10 years ago? No info.
2. The report implicates Brady early on by citing texts to the guy in charge of prepping the balls, in which Brady says, "you okay?" The clear implication the report makes is that Brady is checking to see if his co-conspirator is holding up under the pressure. But the report doesn't mention until much later that the immediate next text from Brady said, "you'll be fine, you didn't do anything wrong." Very important, and exculpatory evidence that was ignored.
3. The report implicates Brady by noting that he hadn't texted the ball prep guy for 6 months prior to deflategate being reported, but then texted him and talked to him thereafter. Problem here is that that makes no sense. If Brady was innocent, of course the first thing he would do when hearing tAhe news would be to pick up the phone and call the guy in charge of balls. If it was me, I'd be on the phone asking, "WTF is going on?" given that it would be my ass they would be coming for. This is not inculpatory evidence.
4. The report ignores a very important text from the guy in charge of prepping balls, in which that guy says that Brady was furious after the Jets game because the balls were 16 psi, and not "the 13psi they are supposed to be. The refs screwed us." That is exculpatory, and is very important, because it strongly suggests that Brady, and the ball guys, were very leery of the Refs over inflating balls, rather than conspiring to drop the balls well below the league minimum.
5. The report compares Colts' balls to Pats' balls for the purpose of measuring halftime deflation, but uses only 4 Colts balls. This is very suspicious. There was a lot of variation in the Pats' balls, so it seems odd and unfair to only use 4 Colts balls, regardless of the lame excuse that there was not time to check the rest. The report claims that McNully deflated 12 balls in 110 seconds, but doesn't point out that it's asinine that only 4 Colts balls could be checked during halftime (20 minutes or longer) because of time pressure?
6. The report concluded that physics alone would suggest that the expected halftime pressure of balls inflated to 12.5 psi in the locker room would be about 11.42 (they provide a range of 11.32 to 11.52). The actual measured Patriot balls from one gauge were 11.8, 11.2, 11.5, 11.0, 11.45, 11.95, 12.3, 11.55, 11.35, 10.9, and 11.35. It's irresponsible for the report not to point out that 6 of the Patriot balls, by one gauge, were above the predicted value, and only 3 fell below the lower limit.
7. The report admits that there was an up to 0.4 psi difference between the two gauges the official (Anderson) may have used, and that he didn't know which one he used. It's insincere to not point at at the start that the NFL is such a joke, and the whole ball-pressure process is such a joke, that the entire permissible range of PSI in footballs is 1 PSI, but the official may have used a gauge that was off up to 50% of that range. Unbelievable and embarrassing, and shame on the NFL that it won't own it.
8. The report fails to point out a very obvious failure on the part of the NFL. Anderson (lead official) was contacted by the head NFL official guy, and told, prior to the game, that the Pats might be tampering with the balls after the ref's checked them. Anderson claimed that he never let McNully leave with the balls without going with him or without giving him permission. What? Why not just say that like it is??? Which is, "the guy sometimes took the balls without me." Why throw in the "with my permission" part? Fact is, Anderson was doing such a piss poor job that he admits, albeit in a blended fashion, that he had, in the past, allowed the Pat's scrub guy to take the balls out of his site "with his permission." What the hell? Where is the outrage about that? What is the point of checking the balls if you then give permission to let the guy walk away with them? Further, why on earth, after having been informed of the suspicion of Pat's cheating, would you let the guy take them? Why would the NFL not have had a guy sitting on them? Or, better yet, why wouldn't an official just take them out? And then, after it was determined the balls were gone, and it was thereafter determined that McNully had them on the field, WOULD YOU NOT RE-CHECK THE BALLS RIGHT THEN AND THERE? It stinks, and it stinks badly.
Ask this question - how bad of a ref is Anderson that he 1. Was told by the head of officials before the game that the Pats might be deflating balls, 2. Thereafter lost track of the balls. 3. Was told the balls had been brought to the filed by a Pat's employee, who was unaccompanied, then 4. Did not check the balls prior to letting the Pats use them? What? He should be fired immediately, and the Colts should be furious with him for potentially allowing the Pats to cheat.
9. Why is the length of the report cited virtually every time it's referenced? 243 pages. You've read it, you've heard it. The reason is that the length is cited to support the notion that it must be thorough and good. Truth is? Minus the Appendix, the report is only 139 pages long. Minus the kicking ball non-issue, it's 131. Minus the Table of Contents and Summary, and it's 110. Minus the unnecessary tables and the footnotes, and it's less than 100. Change the unnecessary double spacing to single spaced, and what you end up with is about a 45 page report, which doesn't sound anywhere near as compelling as a "243 page report."
10. Why is Anderson referred to in the report as "professional"? Why does the report repeatedly point out that "there was no indication of bias by any employee of the NFL?" Is that what the law firm was tasked to do? Review the NFL for bias? Review Anderson's demeanor for "professionalism," whatever that means?
Ultimately, I'm embarrassed for the NFL. This report was a hit piece, and while it did elucidate the likelihood that McNully probably lowered the pressure in the balls, it goes way overboard in trying to tie Brady to it. But the NFL got what it wanted. 99.99% of fans will only ever hear "Patriots probably deflated," which is a bastardization of "more probably than not," and will never read the report or understand that it was a hit piece.
My best guess as to what happened, which is just a guess, as that Brady bitched constantly about the balls and did not want them overinflated. The ball prep guy worked hard to get the balls to 12.5psi. The refs were poor about leaving them at or getting them to that number. The refs, by the report, are known to have used gauges that were off by almost 50% of the allowed PSI range. McNully, at the direction of ball prep guy, was told to let some air out of the balls on the way to the field. It's entirely possible that Brady knew about it or was involved in telling ball prep guy to make it happen. But there is just nothing substantive to support it. Given the text on the Jet's game, where Brady was livid that the balls were hard and they ended up testing at 16psi after the Jets game, it's possible that ball prep guy was doing what he thought was his job. In any event, the NFL's handling of the entire thing is suspect at best.
