Brady 4 Game Suspension Upheld

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Originally Posted by pbmax

I like evidence for my conspiracies. Just because I believe that the Pats might have been prepared to deflate after inspection, it doesn't seem likely in this case (90 seconds is long enough to deflate, but not long enough to deflate and measure). And there is no physical evidence it occurred. Without that, the punishment for phone shenanigans (which is obviously not paramount or Goodell would have used the info eventually provided by Brady) is ludicrous.

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You don't need physical evidence. Some guy stole the balls when the referees weren't looking and took them straight to an area without a camera. Under review they found really suspicious text messages implicating the player that stood to gain the most. Absent someone breaking down the bathroom door, you'll not get a much better case.

I submit that you are focused on the wrong facts. Just because the original evidence was suspect, that doesn't dimimsh what remains.

The employee being released I understand. Connection with Brady is all inference. Which, as you say, is enough in some cases with other evidence. However, the two employees they interviewed denied a scheme under oath, despite losing their jobs. Brady has denied it under oath.

And they do not have compelling evidence of the underlying crime. Natural physical forces could produce the pressure drop they measured.

To draw any other conclusion would require far more stringent procedures that the NFL did not possess (including a log of the original inflation pressure) at the time. This process is ludicrous.

Why release the employees if they have no evidence against them?

Why was one employee threatening to go to ESPN?
Why was Brady giving perks to the employee for something related the the ball pressure?
Why did the employee speak about needles?
Why did the employee take the ball from the referees without them knowing?
Why did Brady destroy the relevant phone?
Ect.
The simplest answer answers all of these questions.

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Originally Posted by sharpe1027

Why was one employee threatening to go to ESPN?
Why was Brady giving perks to the employee for something related the the ball pressure?
Why did the employee speak about needles?
Why did the employee take the ball from the referees without them knowing?
Why did Brady destroy the relevant phone?
Ect.
The simplest answer answers all of these questions.

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I'd think the first question is the most interesting of all. He was apparently threatening to go to ESPN, and they fired his ass. Why didn't he go to ESPN, and/or why aren't they running his story? I've heard nothing of him getting any hush money.

I have not heard threatening to go to ESPN in anything except a joke format in one of the text messages.

Its a very good question why one of the employees was terminated. However the other, the one who absconded with the balls away from the ref, gave them cause to fire them. That is not supposed to happen for any reason.

But if you want to play the "what answers all the outstanding questions" you should add these two:

Why did the Patriots fire an employee who could blow the whistle on them?
Why does anyone believe any air was release from the balls after the ref inspection?

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Originally Posted by pbmax

Why did the Patriots fire an employee who could blow the whistle on them?

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Maybe they took care of that in his severance package.

Speaking of being generally aware, PFT gives us Jay Feely:

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On the surface, free-agent kicker Jay Feely attended Monday’s settlement conference in his capacity as a member of the NFL Players Association’s Executive Committee....

As noted last month, the NFLPA’s initial court filing challenging the Brady suspension pointed out that the NFL suspended a Jets equipment employee in 2009, after an attempt “to use unapproved equipment to prep the K[icking] Balls” in a game against (you guessed it) the Patriots. The NFL did not investigate or discipline the Jets kicker for “general awareness” or specific involvement in the attempted violation of the rules, even though the Jets kicker was the player most likely to benefit from the behavior and, in turn, the player most likely to be aware of the conduct.

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http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com...r-brady-nflpa/

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Originally Posted by Guiness

I'd think the first question is the most interesting of all. He was apparently threatening to go to ESPN, and they fired his ass. Why didn't he go to ESPN, and/or why aren't they running his story? I've heard nothing of him getting any hush money.

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You will not hear about hush money unless they are extremely stupid about it.

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Originally Posted by pbmax

I have not heard threatening to go to ESPN in anything except a joke format in one of the text messages.

Its a very good question why one of the employees was terminated. However the other, the one who absconded with the balls away from the ref, gave them cause to fire them. That is not supposed to happen for any reason.

But if you want to play the "what answers all the outstanding questions" you should add these two:

Why did the Patriots fire an employee who could blow the whistle on them?
Why does anyone believe any air was release from the balls after the ref inspection?

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If you believe Brady was willing to bribe the guy just to do his job, you must be willing to believe Brady would give his first born son to keep him quiet about something that would really put him in a bind.

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Originally Posted by pbmax

I have not heard threatening to go to ESPN in anything except a joke format in one of the text messages.

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That's the one. Call it a joke, but the joke makes no sense unless there was a story for ESPN in the first place.

I haven't gone to ESPN to tell them I am doing a job that 32 other teams do and that nobody cares about. How hilarious!

No, the joke was about him threatening to go to ESPN with some story about inflation of the balls and Brady. Gee, if only we knew what that might be. Any thoughts?

You can't reverse engineer a crime from a joke. Illegal ball tampering is only one of possibly dozens of explanations that would only make sense if you knew the participants and had the whole conversations. Despite that joke, both employees denied the suggestion that they were engaged in tampering after ref inspection. Under oath.

Weak sauce and all by inference.

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Originally Posted by pbmax

You can't reverse engineer a crime from a joke. Illegal ball tampering is only one of possibly dozens of explanations that would only make sense if you knew the participants and had the whole conversations. Despite that joke, both employees denied the suggestion that they were engaged in tampering after ref inspection. Under oath.

Weak sauce and all by inference.

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PB, your not being honest about this. You can't pick one post and say that's all we have been discussing. I am not reverse engineering a crime from a joke, I am explaining how that threat-based joke supports all the other evidence. Of course it is by inference, they didn't break down the door to the bathroom because he stole the balls from the referees and they didn't have a chance. They botched the measurements by not taking more care in how they took them.

Your repeated inference that there is no evidence of a crime, is just flat wrong. Is it iron-clad, no, but there is plenty of evidence.

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Originally Posted by Patler

Maybe they took care of that in his severance package.

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He's under oath denying it, and he is the one responsible in the first place. It is not in his interest to blow the whistle, but yeah, they might have something in his package too.

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Originally Posted by sharpe1027

PB, your not being honest about this. You can't pick one post and say that's all we have been discussing. I am not reverse engineering a crime from a joke, I am explaining how that threat-based joke supports all the other evidence. Of course it is by inference, they didn't break down the door to the bathroom because he stole the balls from the referees and they didn't have a chance. They botched the measurements by not taking more care in how they took them.

Your repeated inference that there is no evidence of a crime, is just flat wrong. Is it iron-clad, no, but there is plenty of evidence.

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There is no physical evidence that air was let out of the footballs. The underlying crime does not appear to have occurred. Do you have a murder conviction sustained when someone has not died?

There is a reason we are on charge #3 for Brady. Its because the first two charges had no basis in evidence. The originally reported PSI numbers were bogus. The science in the Wells report to support the charge in the face of more mundane PSI values uses tortured math like it was a budget projection in order to support the original assumption that the PSI values could only be obtained by manual deflation. Even the Wells report, bought and paid for by the NFL, cannot bring itself to call the evidence against Brady clear and convincing. But Goodell's ruling does.

Ask yourself this question:

If this was a game played in September at 75 degrees and dry, are we having this debate? The answer is obviously no.

This is Capone getting busted for tax evasion. Only this time, the judge is sentencing the perpetrator not according to tax evasion statutes, but by organized crime statutes.

And I don't think I am picking one point or post and objecting to the whole based on one contradiction or gap. There are problems with each piece of evidence which we have covered before, repeating them makes for very dull reading, if this is not already dull enough.

Tea leaf reading. PFT notices that one of the NFL's PR guys is leaving. To go to a firm that has a contract to do PR for the NFL.

However, there is the matter of the leaked and incorrect PSI numbers to Chris Mortensen and Peter King. Coupled with the fact that Judge Berman could issue a ruling "as early as today" makes PFT go hmmm.

It is kinda strange that the NFL never made a statement about that leak. I don't think it clarifies Brady's situation, but it was never addressed even after the Wells Report was released, confirming that the first PSI numbers were bogus.

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com...eaves-the-nfl/

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Originally Posted by pbmax

There is no physical evidence that air was let out of the footballs. The underlying crime does not appear to have occurred.

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There is physical evidence, but subsequent reports suggest that the evidence is not 100% because there are possible ways it could have occurred without intentional deflation.

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Originally Posted by pbmax

Do you have a murder conviction sustained when someone has not died?

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You can have a murder conviction when the body can't be found, but the inference is that the person was killed.

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Originally Posted by pbmax

There is a reason we are on charge #3 for Brady. Its because the first two charges had no basis in evidence.

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It's because of what Brady did after-the-fact. Why push on the other points when you have an easier winner? It happens all the time in criminal proceedings (which this is not).

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Originally Posted by pbmax

The originally reported PSI numbers were bogus. The science in the Wells report to support the charge in the face of more mundane PSI values uses tortured math like it was a budget projection in order to support the original assumption that the PSI values could only be obtained by manual deflation.

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This is your opinionated generalization. The only basis for this opinion is two studies that provide alternative theories, that rely upon various assumptions that are not necessarily true.

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Originally Posted by pbmax

Even the Wells report, bought and paid for by the NFL, cannot bring itself to call the evidence against Brady clear and convincing. But Goodell's ruling does.

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The attorneys were only asked to satisfy one standard. I doubt they would stick there necks out and offer up another standard, even if they thought it was beyond reasonable doubt.

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Originally Posted by pbmax

If this was a game played in September at 75 degrees and dry, are we having this debate? The answer is obviously no.

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Yes.

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Originally Posted by pbmax

And I don't think I am picking one point or post and objecting to the whole based on one contradiction or gap. There are problems with each piece of evidence which we have covered before, repeating them makes for very dull reading, if this is not already dull enough.

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Not really. You basically offer generalizations about inferences and no physical evidence. Some of the individual points you made some comments about, but they were pretty weak arguments. You have admitted the evidence suggests they were trying to skirt the rules, but are hung up on the PSI evidence.

The guy stole the balls and took them directly into the bathroom. He talked about having a needle (not a pump, or a gauge, a needle). He called himself the deflator. He made a threat-based joke about going to ESPN if Brady didn't give him something. He was told he was getting things signed from Brady for something relating to game ball pressure. He got fired by the Pats for whatever it is he did or did not do. Brady destroyed his new phone presumably so that he didn't have to answer questions about the text messages.

What may have happened is he let out a little air from each ball, but not enough to make a huge difference that would be 100% provable absent very scientific measurements. Thus, any evidence they have would fall within the realm of "possible" natural deflation.

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Originally Posted by Guiness

I'd think the first question is the most interesting of all. He was apparently threatening to go to ESPN, and they fired his ass. Why didn't he go to ESPN, and/or why aren't they running his story? I've heard nothing of him getting any hush money.

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I thought he was not fired but suspended indefinitely?

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Originally Posted by sharpe1027

There is physical evidence, but subsequent reports suggest that the evidence is not 100% because there are possible ways it could have occurred without intentional deflation.



You can have a murder conviction when the body can't be found, but the inference is that the person was killed.



It's because of what Brady did after-the-fact. Why push on the other points when you have an easier winner? It happens all the time in criminal proceedings (which this is not).



This is your opinionated generalization. The only basis for this opinion is two studies that provide alternative theories, that rely upon various assumptions that are not necessarily true.



The attorneys were only asked to satisfy one standard. I doubt they would stick there necks out and offer up another standard, even if they thought it was beyond reasonable doubt.



Yes.



Not really. You basically offer generalizations about inferences and no physical evidence. Some of the individual points you made some comments about, but they were pretty weak arguments. You have admitted the evidence suggests they were trying to skirt the rules, but are hung up on the PSI evidence.

The guy stole the balls and took them directly into the bathroom. He talked about having a needle (not a pump, or a gauge, a needle). He called himself the deflator. He made a threat-based joke about going to ESPN if Brady didn't give him something. He was told he was getting things signed from Brady for something relating to game ball pressure. He got fired by the Pats for whatever it is he did or did not do. Brady destroyed his new phone presumably so that he didn't have to answer questions about the text messages.

What may have happened is he let out a little air from each ball, but not enough to make a huge difference that would be 100% provable absent very scientific measurements. Thus, any evidence they have would fall within the realm of "possible" natural deflation.

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I didn't realize he was fired.

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Originally Posted by pbmax

There is no physical evidence that air was let out of the footballs. The underlying crime does not appear to have occurred. Do you have a murder conviction sustained when someone has not died?

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WTF kind of bullshit question is this? This is perhaps the worst analogy I've ever seen you make. The 'body' here is a slightly deflated football. (like a subtle attempted murder, perhaps with maybe one very low dose of rat poison).

What kind of evidence do you want? There's plenty of circumstantial evidence for an effort to adjust the inflation of the footballs. It's not well supported (I guess there is a missing phone or something?) but it exists.

Ya know, there was nothing on those 18 minutes of White house tapes and nothing on that server either. "Absence of proof is proof of absence!" :)