[url=http://sports.yahoo.com/news/nfl-investigating-whether-patriots-used-deflated-footballs-175222939--nfl.htmlWho's the lucky guy who has to weigh Belichick's balls?]http://sports.yahoo.com/news/nfl-investigating-whether-patriots-used-deflated-footballs-175222939--nfl.html

Who's the lucky guy who has to weigh Belichick's balls?[/url]
 

Last edited by artie_fufkin (1/19/2015 6:36 pm)

And the summary report shows that the balls were almost certainly altered by Patriots employees. 

So, I'm not sure about the actual ramifications these altered balls had on the game or the result, but it's in the rules, and the Patriots are pretty clearly breaking them again. This is what I like to call habitual, a word reserved for repeat offenders. 

So the question, what's the punishment for this? I'm thinking it's double what Spy-Gate was. 1 million dollar fine, loss of two 1st rounders, coach/owner suspensions possible. 

artie_fufkin wrote:

"This is what I like to call habitual, a word reserved for repeat offenders." 

I prefer "serial."
I doubt Goodell will do anything that impacts the product the Patriots put on the field, not to his buddy Kraft. If he does, he won't get invited to anymore sleepovfers at Bob's house.
If I were the czar of the NFL, I'd ban the coach for life, suspend the qb and the owner for a year, take away their next two first round draft picks, reduce their salary cap by 10 percent, since there are prior offenses, and vacate their championship.
 

i agree with this, but I'm not sure which of us hates the Patriots more.

artie_fufkin wrote:

alz wrote:

artie_fufkin wrote:

"This is what I like to call habitual, a word reserved for repeat offenders." 

I prefer "serial."
I doubt Goodell will do anything that impacts the product the Patriots put on the field, not to his buddy Kraft. If he does, he won't get invited to anymore sleepovfers at Bob's house.
If I were the czar of the NFL, I'd ban the coach for life, suspend the qb and the owner for a year, take away their next two first round draft picks, reduce their salary cap by 10 percent, since there are prior offenses, and vacate their championship.
 

i agree with this, but I'm not sure which of us hates the Patriots more.

 
I'm beginning to not care anymore. I'm having an increasingly hard time digesting the NFL's product. I used to spend 12 hours on a Sunday watching football, and now I can't watch a single game from beginning to end.

I barely watched at all this year.  Football this something that happens while i drink and eat.  Baseball might become the same if the nl adds the dh. 
 

Artie in regards to the NFL product. I know thise sounds horrible, but I hate the NFL compared to 20 years ago.

I LOVED dynasties. The Salary Cap pisses me off. 
I LOVED rough conduct, borderline plays that were almost dirty. 
I LOVED defense. Now it's basically, "Pass Interference on the defense. The quarterback threw an incomplete Pass. 15 yards from the spot of the foul. Automatic first down!". WTF?!?!?!

I could care less how "safe" the game is. LT Breaking Theisman's leg is good for the ratings and TV. You want to make the game safer, improve the equipment, but leave the rules alone.

It's just not fun to watch anymore.

tkihshbt wrote:

I'm of two minds about the safety issue. On one hand, these are grown adults making their own choices. On the other hand, I feel uneasy watching people destroy themselves. 

Yeah, there's a libertarian side of me, and there's another side that's glad my son quit football after the 7th grade because I don't want him walking around with a head full of oatmeal when he's my age. If that makes me a hypocrite, so be it.
I'll allow part of the reason my interest in the NFL has waned is because the team I root for hasn't made the playoffs in 13 years, but the perception of the league has become more important than the reality to the people who run it. When you start fining players because their socks don't come up to the bottom of their pants, you've started to lose the essence of what you're all about.
I've had Patriots' fans scream in my face that I'm a hypocrite, because one of the Raiders' mantras back in the day was "If you aren't cheating, you're not trying," but there's a difference between lathering yourself up with Sitck Um (which was legal for awhile) and taping the other team's walk-through practice the day before the Super Bowl or taping the othjer team's defensive signals or letting the air out of a football on a rainy day.
And say what you want about Al Davis, but he never pretended to be anything but a guy who wanted to win football games. The Krafts hold themselves and their players up as role models while they're banging porn stars, impregnating their actress girlfriends then them dumping them for supermodels, assaulting cops and committing murder.
 

Last edited by artie_fufkin (5/09/2015 12:22 pm)

APIAD wrote:

tkihshbt wrote:

I'm of two minds about the safety issue. On one hand, these are grown adults making their own choices. On the other hand, I feel uneasy watching people destroy themselves. 

 

I look at it like this. There alot of jobs that cause long term health issues. Every job has risk. Some job have alot more or just as many risk as being an NFL player. The reward isnt as high tho. Im not going to feel to sorry for them.

Yeah, but there aren't a lot of jobs where the point is to run at someone full speed and knock them down for other people's entertainment.
Again, I'm not saying I disagree with the notion that the players knew what they signed up for, but a lot of these guys come from backgrounds where there aren't a lot of options. We all know the story of Michael Oher by now, and it's a pretty safe assumption he never would have made it out of the projects in Memphis and become an astronaut or a neurosurgeon.

And just so I'm clear, I think football is a fine sport for kids, it just wasn't for my kid. He didn't have the aptitude or the attitude for it, and at a certain point it was silly for him to continue. He's just not wired for sports. But I want him to have some sort of regular physical activity so he's not sitting in front of a TV screen all day, and all other things being equal, he's better off in a sport like track, which is non-contact, except for the time he took a discus off his shin.
And the ironic thing is, as much of an athlete as I thought I was in high school, if my son stays with track until he graduates, he'll end up with more letters than I did.

http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000000492080/article/patriots-agree-to-deal-with-te-fred-davis

Another rogue added to the gallery.

"If you’re going to be a part of this organization, there’s a responsibility and a sense of obligation that comes with it, because in my family’s mind, you’re carrying our last name as well,’’ Jonathan Kraft said after the Patriots signed Albert Haynesworth in 2011. “We just want [them] to understand what it means to be a Patriot and that there are certain things that are as important to us, and in some cases, more important to us, than winning.’’

Will the dealer give you a couple hundred bucks off if you clean the blood stains yourself?

alz wrote:

artie_fufkin wrote:

APIAD wrote:

 

I look at it like this. There alot of jobs that cause long term health issues. Every job has risk. Some job have alot more or just as many risk as being an NFL player. The reward isnt as high tho. Im not going to feel to sorry for them.

Yeah, but there aren't a lot of jobs where the point is to run at someone full speed and knock them down for other people's entertainment.
Again, I'm not saying I disagree with the notion that the players knew what they signed up for, but a lot of these guys come from backgrounds where there aren't a lot of options. We all know the story of Michael Oher by now, and it's a pretty safe assumption he never would have made it out of the projects in Memphis and become an astronaut or a neurosurgeon.

Artie, 

I can't feel sorry for football players man. Not when there are police officers, firemen, military service members facing a whole lot worse for a whole lot less. There are some players who are leaving the game, citing health concerns. That's on them, and their choice. Nobody's forcing anyone to play. 
 

And you can say by the same token no one is forced into public safety or, in this generation, the military. The monetary aspect to me isn't really a factor. If people don't like how much athletes are paid, then don't go to the stadium or the ballpark, don't watch on TV, and don't buy the merchandise. Sports make money for a reason. Again, I'm not saying adults aren't responsible for their own actions.
 

4 games for Brady, loss of a 1st round pick in 2016 and a 4th in 2017. $1 million fine. Good for the NFL