2015 NFL thread

[Tiberius]

Unfounded? Hearsay? Because van Natter didn't reveal his sources by name? Former Patriots coaches and staff don't count as credible sources and are rumors?

Unfounded because yes, you can't just write something down and call it founded. Hearsay because yes, you can't point to a single investigation that actually uncovered any of the things he writes about. Mentioning sources by name would be helpful, but since these sources are people, and people are unreliable, they don't count for much. Anyone, be it a former head coach, staff member, or player, can on any day decide to say the Patriots cheated in some particular way, but them saying it doesn't make it true. So no, they don't count as credible sources; they are former staff, we don't know who they are, and under what circumstances they were made former staff. Maybe they have a grudge, maybe they want 15 minutes of fame and they were playing to the popular opinion that the Patriots cheat. Who knows? Nobody will unless there was an actual investigation. That's why we have investigations, because if we made judgements based solely on what people say, the world (not just football) would be one big mess.

So any exposé where the writer protects his sources counts as hearsay? I disagree. This was a report sourced by over 90 NFL team executives, staff, and coaches---some of those directly related to the Patriots. The idea that it was a known thing by multiple NFL teams is significant.

To call it meaningless is just ridiculous when the people who did it or ordered it done admitted to it.

Protecting sources is one thing, but the NFL not doing any investigation based on these sources is quite another. I will state it again. The exposé is utterly meaningless unless it actually leads to an investigation, or was based off a proper investigation. Neither of which are true. Anyone could write a similar exposé about any other team, interview people who had grudges against that team, or for some other reason are prepared to bend the truth, or just make sources up. It doesn't add any credibility to the exposé. What adds credibility is actual evidence of wrongdoing, which the report lacks.

You are missing the point. Filming in this way gives an advantage because you don't have to sacrifice Tom Brady's cameras for real time defense and shell diagnosis during the game. You see QB's and defenses on the little blue tablets during the game? That comes from several angles that are stitched together for a 3D view in real time. In order to film from the press box, you would have to sacrifice some of those cameras for signal capture. That's why teams don't do it. Because real time diagnosis of actual plays is way more productive and effective than signal capture.

That is a big deal. When you play a good team the first part of the season, you are likely going to see them again in the playoffs. If you have recorded their defensive signals, then you can garner a significant advantage if the other team plays by the rules.

OK, but I don't see how that negates my point. It seems that you could just position the cameras in the legal places and film defensive signals from there. It seems you are suggesting there is a limit to the number of cameras a team is allowed to use? I'm not aware of any limit; could you point out the specific rule that mentions it? Happy to be proven wrong on this point; I'm just not aware of any specific rule.

On your second point, what happens when someone in the stands films the defensive signals, uploads the film to YouTube, and someone from any NFL team happens to watch it. I'm having a hard time understanding how someone can "steal" something which can be seen in plain sight. Is there a rule about hiring a guy with really good vision to spend the entire game staring at the opposing coaches and writing down / memorizing signals?

You'll never catch me defending Goodell's grudge here. I believe that Tom knew that the balls were being tampered with, and I believe his cell phone shenanigans were an attempt to subvert the investigation. For that, I will call his integrity into question but I will admit my bias, and not try to convince anyone else.

What exactly do you base that belief on, if you don't mind me asking? In my opinion, based on reading a load of data from the case, the "ball tampering" didn't even occur in the first place. None of the text messages mention trying to deflate footballs to below 12.5 PSI (the legal minimum) and in fact mentioned that the NFL officials inflated them to 16 PSI in one game. On top of that, the readings taken from the game were all over the place, due to the measuring devices being inaccurate. When considering Brady's preference for footballs at 12.5 PSI, and the weather and temperature of the game, the cause of deflation is explained by the ideal gas law, especially lacking any kind of smoking gun.

Brady's cell phone "shenanigans" are also easily explained by the fact that he wasn't required to hand over his cell phone, and was also worried about leaks. His worries were well founded as the NFL later managed to leak a load of the emails from his lawsuit. Not the kind of organization you want to trust with your cell phone. He did turn over the data that the NFL were after though, in terms of text messages / phone call logs. Destroying a broken cell phone is also common behaviour, hardly a shenanigan.

Goodell overplayed his hand, and was beholden to the other 31 owners who are sick of Kraft/Belichick and their continuous flouting of the rules.

You ought to look up the meaning of the word "continuous", because one instance where they definitively cheated, and one instance with a very botched investigation that didn't even relate to Kraft / Belichick isn't "continuous".

I have been watching the NFL my whole life. I was a Belichick fan because of his ties to my alma mater. He is a great coach. Tom Brady is a great quarterback. They don't have to cheat. Yet they do. That is an integrity issue to me, and that will make me despise them not in a small part because it affected my team directly.

They don't have to cheat, you are correct, and in both instances, I still fail to see how the cheating even related to the outcome of a game or gave them an advantage. Again, stealing signals which are given in plain sight on the field is not stealing. A botched investigation which is debunked by applying a simple physics equation, and / or doing the experiment yourself is not the same as intentionally deflating footballs.