Robert Kraft-Patriots won't appeal ruling

[MADem]

31. I honestly don't know. I know that they cherry-picked the conversations, and they used

Exponent "Thank You For Smoking" Consulting to cough up their "findings" so it's impossible to know what is truth and what is not.

No one is saying anything about the 16 lb. balls that were found at another game. Of course, that doesn't fit the myth of advantage, so that information is deemed not salient.

I think if the NFL wants the balls at a certain PSI, the NFL needs to take the lead on putting the air in them. THEY need to maintain positive control of them, and THEY need to do the filling, not leave it to part-time underlings.

Otherwise, they're going to get what they get if they abdicate their responsibility.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/redskins/in-trying-to-restore-his-authority-goodell-undermined-his-credibility/2015/05/21/142c8d2c-ffd4-11e4-805c-c3f407e5a9e9_story.html

In trying to restore his authority through Deflategate, Roger Goodell undermined his credibility

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell predetermined guilt in DeflateGate; that’s clear now. He has smeared Tom Brady and the New England Patriots without proper evidence or a competent investigation, and turned an unimportant misdemeanor into a damaging scandal, as part of a personal power play to shore up his flagging authority. In other cases, he just looked inept. In this one, he looks devious.

Wednesday night at the NFL owners meetings in San Francisco, Goodell as much as admitted that the Wells report is incomplete, despite the fact that it took four months, cost millions in legal fees, and was supposed to be comprehensive. After all, the league used it to levy historically harsh penalties against Brady and the Patriots, claiming they deflated footballs in the AFC championship game. Nevertheless, Goodell opened the door to walking it back, saying he wants to talk personally to Brady, who has appealed his four-game suspension. ... Now this is the height of disingenuousness. Because we already know the Wells report missed crucial information and didn’t consider important facts. Ted Wells either overlooked or ignored crucial text messages, he used a firm with a reputation for bending science to fit predetermined conclusions, and he cherry-picked the memory of an NFL referee. But that’s not all. The Wells report left completely unexamined the fact that the NFL has never once considered the inflation of footballs to be a matter of great integrity or competitive advantage, before now.

And this is where Brady can blow the commissioner out of a courtroom. And perhaps out of his job.


... That the league has never particularly enforced standards is evident in a hilarious section in which the Wells report eats its own tail. According to Wells, in a game between the Patriots and Jets it was discovered that the refs had inflated the balls to 16 psi. Brady got upset when he found them hard to handle. That’s how uneven ball inflation in the NFL is, and how weak the Wells report is. The only firm evidence that Brady ever had a conversation with anyone about ball pressure comes in this instance, when the ball was wildly over-inflated to 16 psi — by the league’s own refs.

....

I smell toast. And it ain't Patriots toast, either. Bob Kraft, it is becoming apparent, did what's called "stooping to conquer." He got out of the way in order for the Brady action to proceed--and the commish should be very worried, indeed. He tried to feed the public horsehit covered with maple syrup--and now the real stink is starting to rise.

The long game on this issue suggests that Brady and the Patriots will prevail. Read the whole article--it's elucidative.