To anchorman. 

 

1.) They didn't tactically admit to cheating.  They decided not to appeal.  Weather that is part of some deal with Roger Goodell I don't know time will tell.  I will tell you that when It was announced that Goodell personally would be handling the Appeal of Tom Brady that this was a fundamental declaration of war by this administration.  I'll have more on that in a second. 

 

2.) and most importantly, The actions taken by the patriots in this particular instance do not, in ANY WAY change my fundamental assertion that given full context I do not believe that the Wells Report meets the legal standard of preponderance of the evidence, and incidentally would be laughed out of court in a criminal court of law. 

 

To use your example, If odin Loyd were still alive, then I would have serious doubt that Aaron Hernandez was guilty of Murder. 

 

In this case they haven't proven that the balls were deflated.  Can you prove what gauge was used to measure the balls before the game?  no.  Is there any documented evidence of Referees preparing balls for play outside the regulations of the league?  Yes.  The documented PSI after the game shows that the referees over inflated some of the patriots balls outside the limits set forth in RULE 2.  The Text messages demonstrate this was the case in the extreme with the game against the Jets.  Is there a logical physical explanation for a football dropping a pound of PSI in the conditions set forth during the AFC championship game?  yes.  Did the league admit that?  Yes.  Is there any reasonable expectation that the gauges used to measure PSI are set toi a uniform calibration?  no.  The gauges used to measure the balls at halftime varied to a degree similar to that which the pats are accused of manipulating.  Did the measurements at halftime of the Colts football qualify as a legitimate control group?  No; why, because you measured twelve pats balls and you only measured 4 colts footballs.  When you have a sample size 30% smaller then is easier to have less deviation in results.  Do all footballs react the same way to external conditions?  no, as evidence by the raw data set forth in the wells report.  If they were all set within .2 psi and then you have random data at halftime its blatantly evident that all footballs react differently.  Did the wells report directly contradict or disprove anything contained in Bill Belicheck's presentation?  NO!!!  They admit that the preparation/rubbing of a football employed by the pats can raise PSI by a about a pound before it reaches equilibrium. 

 

I could go on.  In my opinion, they never proved that the crime actually occurred. 

 

More importantly, did the league deviate from best practices and uniform implementation of Rule 2?  YES!  The Minnesota Vikings are on Video warming footballs during a game which is a clear and expressed violation.  They were WARNED.  The Colts were caught with needles on hidden in the possession of their personnel.  They were WARNED.  They were then caught metering a football during the AFC championship game, a repeat offense of the same rule that the pats broke. 

 

People get so caught up in text messages and compliance with a Multi million dollar legal investigation, but fail to realize that the fundamental premise that you call in a multi million dollar law firm to go conspiracy hunting behind football PSI, which is inherently dynamic to begin with, is itself divorced from common sense and any semblance of universal fair implementation of due process.  It went so far as the Commissioner positioning the initial implementation of discipline in the hands of a close associate in Troy Vincent so that he himself could preside over the appeal.  Think about that.  In the deflate gate case, it was found that they over reached and national pundits had to apology to jonathan Vilma when Paul Tagliabu overturned parts of the Bounty Gate decision.  This is the fundamental consolidation of Power in the hands of Goodell.

 

One point you did make was that a key part of this battle was won during media coverage and on message boards shaping public opinion.  not everyone actually read the Wells report as I did.  Not everyone read the report in context website as I did.  Most people's eyes glaze over when you start talking about the IDEAL GAS LAW etc.  The media effectively made the rebuttal into a punch line when they talked about the "Deflator" nickname in relation to weight loss.  It got a lot of laughs and made the Pats look like jokes on the national stage.  never mind the  fact that in reality McNally and Jastremski used the term Deflate or inflate in the context of weight loss in their other text streams not mentioned in the wells report or parroted by the media. 

 

One of the reasons that I hate this whole process so much is that we still haven't stepped back to fully digest what we are seeing here.  I don't think it comes as a coincidence that this announcement came the same day that we learn that the next initiative championed by the commissioner will now be plaguing extra points.  I was listening to Tom Coughlin talk about the rule change on extra points and im still amazed at how many times he kept repeating "The commissioner wants it."  Roger Goodell has essentially cemented himself as the final Judge and Juror with no restrictions to implement his policies no matter how asinine, irrelevant, or draconian when it comes to player discipline, and to me that's bad for the Game. 

 

And to everyone that thinks this just afflicts the Patriots, let's just go through a quick history lesson.  (This isn't just about Goodell, its about general league inequity). 

 

This WAS one of the top ten winningest franchises in the history of the league for a very long time and the most initially successful expansion franchise in the history of the league.  We had to dismantle a perennial super bowl contending team based on a system that was supposedly designed to help teams like us compete.  Fast forward about 8 years.  Daniel Snyder spent so wrecklessly he flipped the middle finger at the salary cap.  He came to the table with so much dead bonus money that if he cut EVERY PLAYER on his team they would still be over the cap.  By basic rules, they shouldn't have been able to field a team.  "But their the redskins..."  Just raise the Cap.  The Denver Broncos Deffered payments to key players during their superbowl runs for increased payments later on, in direct violation of the salary cap.  This is one of the justifications for the sanctions against the saints during bounty gate, and bringing online a new stadium spikes local revenue and increases an organizations ability to sign players with real money (in competition with a team like Jacksonville that would have economic uncertainty spending to the limits of the new salary CAP)  One of the players involved was a guy named John Elway...  They let him run a team.  Where is the outrage about him not being allowed in the hall of fame.  The Atlanta Falcons were just sanctioned for pipping in Crowd Noise.  I'm sure somewhere Vic Ketchman's head exploded that the league never read his comments about what the colts were doing.  In the early 2000's it became CLEAR that the Colts wide recievers couldn't survive against the physical play in the playoffs specifically against the New England Patriots.  "But IT's Peyton..."  Let's fundamentally and irrevocably change the game so that Peyton Can get a ring.  We gave the colts the first pick in the draft to take Andrew Luck  because we want to protect the INTEGRITY OF THE GAME right?  Tampa Bay pulled its starters up by thirteen in the second half to secure Jaemis Winston.  Where's the inquiry?  Integrity of the game right?  Where's Lovie's Cell Phone?  who has a recording of the in game feed? 

 

Roger Goodell interjected himself directly into the signing of Michael Sam to a practice squad.  He's not supposed to favor one player for league PR.  Has he done this before.  Is it a pattern?  Call the wells people Right? 

 

I think that it is fundamentally unhealthy to have a universally powerful central entity that answers to no one and doesn't have to play by its own rules.  The idea that the refs from the jets game wouldn't be sanctioned is silly.  The idea that they don't record Pre game PSI is juvenile, the idea that they don't actively monitor it fundamentally undermines the seriousness of the rule or the ability to truly enforce it, and the idea that it could be used to so devastate a franchise is Ludacris.  It's almost as Ludacris as ending a players career because you think with all the resources available to the NFL we should be testing a player for substances that are legal in parts of this country 10 times a month (Justin Blackmon) meanwhile you claim you don't have the money to have cameras put in to capture all the replay angles and you have the owner of the Colts driving around with hundreds of thousands of dollars and enough drugs to make Gregory House feel uncomfortable and he gets six games.... EXCUSE ME?

 

Most Egregious, and Ill stop typing I promise, is that the lynch pin of this investigation hangs on two key points. 

 

1.) that the Golden Standard for discipline in the NFL is preponderance of the evidence. 

 

2.) that full honest disclosure is paramount, any attempt at deception is met with a steep almost unmitigated penalty. 

 

There is a taped phone conversation in which league officials confirm that they received the Ray Rice video before it was released on TMZ and before they made their initial ruling.  Where was the appointment of a special investigator to address the more probable than not "misstatements" of the commissioner being paid more than any player EVER to put on pads and cleats?  have a good night.

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