2014 NFL Season Thread

[Magnus]

They should be seriously punished because they're repeat offenders and because a lost draft pick and a fine clearly isn't enough to make them stop flouting the rules of the league.

Exactly. One team shouldn't think it can be above the rules.

[The_Admiral]

mod edit

[CLEstones]

If all this comes out to be true... the entire legacy of the Patriots Dynasty/Brady/Belichick has to be questioned, does it not? You are talking spying AND doctoring of balls. I understand the whole "if you aren't cheating, you aren't trying" but it has to at least be questioned what else have they done in the regular/post-season to rack up the wins?

Its hard to make a similar comparison in another sport because in football, they use their owns balls. I'm trying to think of Spurs analogy, but I'm not sure there is one except its a similar time frame, with a similar number of championship and similar number of appearances.

[IceCap]

They should be seriously punished because they're repeat offenders...

Agreed, but three things really mitigate the outrage here.

The first is that you're assuming guilt before it's been proven. IF they're found guilty they should be seriously punished because they're repeat offenders.

Secondly? It's been pointed out that teams do what they can to modify balls all the time. Aaron Rogers lets air out. The Panthers were seen heating theirs up. It's still entirely within the realm of possibility that the balls in question (ha) lost air naturally. The NFL hasn't actually come out and pinned anything malicious on the Pats as of yet.

Finally, did you even watch the AFC Championship game? The Colts never stood a chance. It's not like some great miscarriage of justice occurred. The better team won that game. Lighter game balls didn't help the Pats win. The Colts' inability to stop the running game did.

Sorry, this just looks like much ado about nothing.

[TheOldRoman]

It seems dumb that the NFL gives teams the opportunity to even consider doctoring the balls. This isn't little league where each team has to bring two new baseballs to each game. The league should control all the balls and the players who prefer scuffed or deflated balls can just deal with it. If teams are not supposed to alter balls anyway, why even have each team supply or care fot their own? Both teams should play with the same balls.

[2001mark]

Yeah, I'm surprised the teams not only get to keep & select their own balls, yet that they do so without official oversight beyond 2hrs before kickoff.

What is this, the PGA Tour??

As for the Patriots of whom I am a fan, I would suspend Belichick 60days asap + take away 2nd & 3rd round picks. Repeat offender is repeat offender.

Not sure how this'll seep into the game, I'm sure Richard Sherman will go off about it win or lose. 'Dem Soft Ballers can't handle us hardballahs!' or 'Dem Soft Ballers cheated they way in & now they have to live with it while God's team enjoys the karma of losing'.

[Sport]

They should be seriously punished because they're repeat offenders...

Agreed, but three things really mitigate the outrage here.

The first is that you're assuming guilt before it's been proven. IF they're found guilty they should be seriously punished because they're repeat offenders.

Secondly? It's been pointed out that teams do what they can to modify balls all the time. Aaron Rogers lets air out. The Panthers were seen heating theirs up. It's still entirely within the realm of possibility that the balls in question (ha) lost air naturally. The NFL hasn't actually come out and pinned anything malicious on the Pats as of yet.

Finally, did you even watch the AFC Championship game? The Colts never stood a chance. It's not like some great miscarriage of justice occurred. The better team won that game. Lighter game balls didn't help the Pats win. The Colts' inability to stop the running game did.

Sorry, this just looks like much ado about nothing.

People keep focusing on the score of the game and I think that's missing the point. IF TRUE, the Patriots still broke the rules (again) and that's not okay. If anything the score shows that the Patriots didn't have to cheat and still chose to anyways, which makes it worse in a way. Again, if true.

This does bring up the question about whether they pulled this against the Ravens when it could've made the difference in that game.

I've always thought it was weird that the teams get to fiddle with their balls to their liking (phrasing intentional). The league should just have a ball guy at every game that inflates them to the same level and then sorry if your little hands are too small that's the ball you have to play with. The NBA and Soccer leagues don't let teams mess with their inflated balls, do they?

[OnWis97]

Yeah, I'm surprised the teams not only get to keep & select their own balls, yet that they do so without official oversight beyond 2hrs before kickoff.

What is this, the PGA Tour??

As for the Patriots of whom I am a fan, I would suspend Belichick 60days asap + take away 2nd & 3rd round picks. Repeat offender is repeat offender.

Not sure how this'll seep into the game, I'm sure Richard Sherman will go off about it win or lose. 'Dem Soft Ballers can't handle us hardballahs!' or 'Dem Soft Ballers cheated they way in & now they have to live with it while God's team enjoys the karma of losing'.

Sherman may make a crack if the Seahawks win but I don't see him saying much about it if they lose.

[Lights Out]

The argument that the game wasn't close so the cheating doesn't matter is so idiotic, it's not even funny. By that "logic," if a student cheats on a test and gets 100 on it, they should be exonerated because their score was so high that it didn't matter.

Rules are rules. The whole point to having a rulebook is to clearly lay out how the game is and isn't supposed to be played at all times. If all of that was actually contingent on the margin of victory, either the NFL would have to come out and say how big the lead needs to be for the rules to stop applying or they'd have to do away with the rulebook altogether since there'd be no point.

Additionally, the fact that the Patriots did this in a game where they didn't really "need" to cheat to win suggests that it's habitual, and therefore, there's a good chance they were doing this in close games where it actually could have made a difference. Personally, I find it highly doubtful that the Patriots would only use this tactic in one game against a team they own with or without cheating.

[See Red]

They should be seriously punished because they're repeat offenders...

Agreed, but three things really mitigate the outrage here.

The first is that you're assuming guilt before it's been proven. IF they're found guilty they should be seriously punished because they're repeat offenders.

Secondly? It's been pointed out that teams do what they can to modify balls all the time. Aaron Rogers lets air out. The Panthers were seen heating theirs up. It's still entirely within the realm of possibility that the balls in question (ha) lost air naturally. The NFL hasn't actually come out and pinned anything malicious on the Pats as of yet.

Finally, did you even watch the AFC Championship game? The Colts never stood a chance. It's not like some great miscarriage of justice occurred. The better team won that game. Lighter game balls didn't help the Pats win. The Colts' inability to stop the running game did.

Sorry, this just looks like much ado about nothing.

People keep focusing on the score of the game and I think that's missing the point. IF TRUE, the Patriots still broke the rules (again) and that's not okay. If anything the score shows that the Patriots didn't have to cheat and still chose to anyways, which makes it worse in a way. Again, if true.

This does bring up the question about whether they pulled this against the Ravens when it could've made the difference in that game.

I've always thought it was weird that the teams get to fiddle with their balls to their liking (phrasing intentional). The league should just have a ball guy at every game that inflates them to the same level and then sorry if your little hands are too small that's the ball you have to play with. The NBA and Soccer leagues don't let teams mess with their inflated balls, do they?

I can understand letting teams treat the balls before hand and supply balls that have been used in practice or whatever since QBs seem to dislike playing with new balls, but I think once the balls are supplied to the league prior to the game and inspected, they should no longer be handled by the teams.

You nailed it with the point about the Ravens game. Sure, these balls had no impact on the Colts game but we don't know that they didn't do the same thing against Baltimore, a much closer game, and that it didn't maybe have some impact.

According to Adam Schefter, the Colts suspected the Patriots of under-inflating balls in their last game and the league was aware of the issue prior to the game, so it's likely this isn't an isolated incident.

Also, I don't know how the fact that they were in the cold and lost some PSI is relevant. Wouldn't the temperature from being indoors have put them back at or near their original PSI?

[8BW14]

Okay I've got to say my piece about this whole #deflategate nonsense. 11 of the Patriots' 12 balls were found to be under-inflated, okay great. How much air was in the illegal balls, 6 psi, 8 psi? No, the balls were all found to have about 11.5 psi of air in them, about 1 psi below the minimum of 12.5 psi. The balls were pressure tested before the game inside a room that was probably about 70 degrees Fahrenheit (room temperature) and were found to be within the acceptable range. During the game the temperature on the field was about 45 degrees. Is it not possible that Tom Brady's preference for balls on the loweend of the acceptable range, normal air leakage, which is minimal but present, and that wonderful miracle we all call science was responsible for the low pressure inside the balls rather than a scheming Bill Belicheck trying to slip one past the officials by taking 1 to 1.5 psi out of the footballs? Maybe I'm being too naive but I have a really hard time believing this was an intentional attempt to break the rules and I will be very disappointed if the Patriots are were found to be complicit in this. I am going to make an educated guess that the Patriots's balls had right about 12.5 psi pregame and were OK'ed by the officials and they lost some air as the game went on.

I'm not in any way accusing the Colts of using under-inflated balls, but were the Colts' balls pressure tested afterwards as well? I mean if there' s a similar discrepancy in air pressure from pre-game to post-game pressure we have to take a look at the weather (the effects wouldn't account for a whole 1-1.5 psi) and the effects of a football game on the air pressure inside a football instead of just jumping to the conclusion that the Patriots took an amount of air out of a football that is hardly noticeable at all.

Feel free to tear this apart but I just wanted to say this because all I have heard from every sports media outlet the last two days is all about this "cheating scandal" that everyone wants to put right up there with shaving points but really is more like George Brett's pine-tar incident at Yankee Stadium.

[NJTank]

[LMU]

Something I'd like to bring up: just as how Suh avoided a suspension due to his repeat offender tag elapsing, shouldn't Belichick also have the repeat offender tag elapse? Spygate happened in 2002. It's been 13 years. It really should have no impact on any punishment assuming that Belichick even had anything to do with this in the first place.

Also, both spygate and this (if proven) were cases of NE getting caught doing something that other teams have done. Anyone thinking that Belichick needs to receive the same punishment as Payton or that the Pats have to forfeit don't know what the hell they're talking about.

[Cosmic]

Does Belichick's repeat offender status elapse? Players collectively bargain, and coaches don't. Should it? IMO, no. Not for cheating like this.

Edit: allegedly allegedly allegedly

[JayMac]

Also, both spygate and this (if proven) were cases of NE getting caught doing something that other teams have done.

People do illegal things all of the time and are not punished if they aren't caught. The thing is, the Patriots GOT caught.

[Still MIGHTY]

Something I'd like to bring up: just as how Suh avoided a suspension due to his repeat offender tag elapsing, shouldn't Belichick also have the repeat offender tag elapse? Spygate happened in 2002. It's been 13 years. It really should have no impact on any punishment assuming that Belichick even had anything to do with this in the first place.

Also, both spygate and this (if proven) were cases of NE getting caught doing something that other teams have done. Anyone thinking that Belichick needs to receive the same punishment as Payton or that the Pats have to forfeit don't know what the hell they're talking about.

Spygate was 2007. So eight years.

[Lights Out]

Something I'd like to bring up: just as how Suh avoided a suspension due to his repeat offender tag elapsing, shouldn't Belichick also have the repeat offender tag elapse? Spygate happened in 2002. It's been 13 years. It really should have no impact on any punishment assuming that Belichick even had anything to do with this in the first place.

Also, both spygate and this (if proven) were cases of NE getting caught doing something that other teams have done. Anyone thinking that Belichick needs to receive the same punishment as Payton or that the Pats have to forfeit don't know what the hell they're talking about.

They got caught for Spygate in 2007, not 2002. Now that they've been caught red-handed again so soon after the last scandal, you'd have to be blind not to see that there's a pattern of cheating in that organization.

RE: the "other teams did it" argument - those "other teams" include Josh McDaniels having someone illegally tape the Niners' walkthroughs while he was head coach of the Broncos, and Charlie Weis sneaking a laptop filled with God knows what on it into the coaches' box at Notre Dame. If anything, that argument only serves as further proof of the systemic cheating that is clearly going on in Foxboro.

[Still MIGHTY]

And it doesn't matter whether or not Belichick had anything to do with it. He's the head coach. He's the guy in charge. It comes down on him. Isn't that similar to what happened with Payton in New Orleans? I'm not saying that Belichick should get a year, but he should be suspended for the Super Bowl.

-----

"Say it with me... I misinterpreted the rules"

[IceCap]

Also, both spygate and this (if proven) were cases of NE getting caught doing something that other teams have done.

People do illegal things all of the time and are not punished if they aren't caught. The thing is, the Patriots GOT caught.

In 2007. You're assuming they got caught doing something wrong in 2015. Which hasn't been established.

[cmm]

Anybody know if the Colts balls were tested, too?

Yes.

mike freeman @mikefreemanNFL · 7h7 hours ago

Gerry Austin, longtime referee, says halftime Pats-Colts footballs brought in, checked at half. Colts footballs still legal. Pats were not.