It was perfectly legal to film the sidelines of the opposing team, but they filmed from the wrong location. The Patriots filmed from their own sideline, which was not allowed. The rules required them to film from an area with a roof overhead. People generally don’t understand what Spygate was all about.
Feel free to mock me all you like. I’m a big boy and I can take it. See, I don’t much care what you think.
But don’t lie about what I said or pretend I said something I didn’t. That’s just blatant dishonesty.
Don’t pretend that you didn’t clearly imply in your previous posts about this that ped infractions, instances of general asholery, and or any other rule infractions that you didn’t consider the top 3 according to fine size, were irrelevent as examples to show that the Patriots had plenty of company in the ‘dirty team’ column. Based off the previous posts you’ve made about this, I don’t believe anything I wrote was a lie.
You “implied” the wrong thing. All of those: ped use (See Seattle PEDefense), asholery (not enough s’s in there for you, ace) (See Pac Man Jones), and other rules infractions (See Detroit) are part of, yet not the sum total, of the determination. So I didn’t “imply” anything, you had to make shit up because you’re so fucking desperate to defend the Patriots that anyone who points out that they are one of only three teams to lose draft picks due to misconduct in the last decade, is magically irrational. You’re so far into the “everyone does it” meme you keep trotting out, that you’re “implying” yourself into complete and utter bullshit.
Come on, let’s dial back the hostility in here.
No. Anyone who points that out is just saying a fact. If they use that fact as their main criteria to determine which teams are the dirtiest, than , yes I believe they are thinking irrationally. No magic necessary.
See, I think salary cap violation is dirtier than continuing to filming the sidelines after teams we told they needed to stop. Teams never needed to be reminded not to commit salary cap violation, because it always has been against the rules, because it’s blatant cheating the system. Whether or not the nfl choses to fine teams with draft picks or not, I really don’t care.
Other things I think are dirtier than spygate: PEDs, Filming opposing teams practice, coaches tripping opposing players from sideline, coating body with vaseline, Bill Walsh’s scheme of presetting the first 20 plays, then sabotaging communication system, any system designed specifically to injure players, any devised plan to fake injuries to game an advantage. All of these are against the rules, have always been against the rules. You can rattle on all you want how Patriots fans with this opinion must be so desperate to minimize Spygate, who cares? Plenty of people with no dog in this fight would agree, so whatever.
This argument isn’t that the Patriots are better, or worse than anyone else. I’m sure there are some teams that havent done any of these things. If so that’s commendable for them. I don’t care if Bill Walsh did his crap 30 years ago, because I really don’t care that he did it. I’m on the side that shit like this happens all over the league. Most of it doesn’t get caught. Spygate is a rule violation among many, and I can’t be bothered to get selectively righteous choosing which teams are bad and which teams are good. Maybe that means “I’m so fucking desperate”. If it does to you, that’s fine
Just to be absolutely clear here: you are choosing to draw the line at what constitutes significant cheating based on the degree to which the NFL chose to punish it?
You are judging the magnitude and significance of the offense by the magnitude of the commissioner’s response to it?
And you’re doing so after this season in particular?
And yes, if the pats are guilty of deflating footballs after inspection, I’d also says that’s worse than spygate, as bad as using banned sticky substance. I’d judge them more for the their outright denial turning out to be a lie than the crime itself however.
A criteria.
See, there you go again making shit up.
It’s like you think that if someone can’t create an entire system for determining the relative dirtiness of all 32 NFL teams, they can’t condemn the Patriots. I get it, its actually cute in a desperate, cognitive dissonance way. But it’s kinda annoying when it leads you to the shit you pull in this thread.
The Patriots are one of three teams disciplined by the NFL and forced to lose draft picks for their actions. All your “everyone’s doing it” and “they’re all dirty” accusations won’t change that.
Its’ one criteria, sure. You don’t think that discipline enacted is relevant to determining the guilt of the parties?
Interesting take.
Didn’t the Broncos lose draft picks for violating the salary cap?
Yep. And the Lions a couple years back for tampering. So in the last decade or so, there have been 4 teams that have forfeited draft picks and one who had their coaches suspended.
Now we have to rate those on a scale of 1 too 100, weigh them against the advantage obtained, and compare them against every other team in the NFL, then include every case of PED use, every illegal hit fine, every player suspended, and every misconduct of the last decade. Then total them up for each team. Then, maybe then, after a complete and exhaustive recounting of every thing a team has done, ONLY then can we offer an opinion on whether or not the Patriots are dirty.
No, we don’t have to do any of that. The point isn’t if the Patriots are dirty or not. The point is, are most teams just as dirty as the Patriots? You declare no, and point to whether or not a team has been fined draft picks before.
I declare yes, and choose to examine the crimes, instead of the punishments. Some convicted rapists get 2 year sentences, some pot dealers get 10 years. If I was going to judge who was dirtier, I’d look at the crime and not the punishment. Is that “fucking desperate”?
And after looking at the crimes I see, there is so much shit going on, I’m not so naive to declare any team particularly dirty than the rest. I’m definitely not going to use spygate as any sort of measuring stick. I’d generally say getting caught something that’s against the rules, but used to be completely legal, and was still being done enought that the league needed to send out a memo to remind teams to stop, I’d say that’s not anywhere the top of any list of infractions that I’d call “dirty”. But the Patriots have had PED suspensions too. Lots of teams have. It happens- its a dirty league full of cheats, assholes, and douchebags, mixed in with plentry of people who aren’t. And it always has been.
So, to get back to the actual topic and to add some science to a site dedicated to fighting ignorance, let me share with you an experiment someone on another site I post on ran. Now, I know: 1 guy, Pats fan, single data point, not the same conditions . . . fine. I am not using this data to prove or disprove what the Patriots did, or did not do, to the game balls, just as a point of interest to this discussion.
First off, I assume we all agree that a change in temperature changes the PSI in a football. If not, stop reading here. How much of a change is still open to debate - however, what this test shows is just how fast the recovery time is when the ball is returned to the original temperature - something I haven’t seen anyone else look at.
"So, to repeat, starting pressure at 13.0 in about 71 degree conditions. I deflated the football and filled it with a hand pump to 13.0, and tested it after 10 minutes and after 20 minutes in the same room to make sure it was holding steady at 13.0 and it was. Straight into 39 degrees for 35 minutes. Time zero was when I brought it back to 71 degrees.
Time zero: 11.0 p.s.i
- 1 minute: 11.3 psi
- 2 minutes: 11.6 psi
- 4 minutes: 11.95-12.0 psi
- 7 minutes 12.4 psi
- 9 minutes 12.6 psi
- 12 minutes: 12.75 psi
- 15 minutes 12.95 psi"
This test shows that after only 15 minutes of being back in room temperature, the football had returned to within .05 PSI of its original level. Therefore, to those of you who ask “how come there wasn’t any change in the Colts’ footballs?” I ask, when did the refs test them? Did they do the Patriots’ balls first, and the Colts’ balls second? Was there any delay in-between the tests?
Also, Florio was on the radio today and confirmed once again that the NFL has not yet released the pre-game PSI of any team’s balls, nor the half-time PSI of the Colts’ balls. So until those numbers are released - if they exist - knowing that the Colts’ balls tested at 13.5 PSI after the game tells us nothing about the condition of those balls during the game - especially since this test shows that the return to the original PSI is so swift.
If the NFL is going to make this PSI thing a big deal, I think they are going to have to use more balls and do testing and refilling during all cold weather games. After all of this discussion it is pretty obvious that the PSI does drop in cold weather. Whether or not it effects play can still be debated, but science shows it does happen. Perhaps that is why Rodgers likes it above 13.5 to start with, because I imagine that by the second quarter in Green Bay in December his balls have shriveled up quite a bit.
**WreckingCrew **, you seem to be suggesting that the demonstration you described would argue in the Pats favor, somehow.
A rapid recovery in psi would argue against them. Unless the balls were tested right on the field (which seems highly unlikely), they would have spent several minutes in transit to wherever they were tested.
Within 2 minutes, they would have already recovered .6 psi. Within 4 minutes they would have recovered nearly 1 full psi.
So this whole “temperature change caused the deflation” thing is dramatically undone by that demonstration. It almost certainly would have taken the refs more than 4 minutes to walk the balls to test them, get set up and get to testing.
Speaking of demonstrations, here’s a guy deflating 12 balls in a bag in a bathroom in 40 seconds:
The real difference is you want to rely on speculation and guesswork, while I look at actual disciplined offenses and I use the level of punishment to help determine the level of dirt.
You seem to agree with me, that the Patriots are dirty. But you, for whatever reason, need to assert that every team is dirty, and then define dirty as “ever doing something wrong”. I suppose that works for you, but I find it entirely unconvincing. When we look at the offenses that were serious enough to amount to severe discipline, like draft picks or coaching suspensions, there are only 4 or 5 teams that rate.
This is now boring me. Feel free to repeat the “everyone is doing it” over and over and maybe it will become true. I doubt you’ll have something new to say to entice me. Unless you deliberately misrepresent my position yet again.
Now we just need hockey to have a stick scandal and the humor is complete.
My point of the test info I provided is to show how the Colts’ balls hit 13.5 PSI in the post game test. It isn’t that their balls were not changed by the cold, just that they had returned to the original state by the time the test was done. And upon further review, it also explains why the Pats balls were also fine in the post game test, showing the same PSI they started the half with.
The half-time test, which also includes pumping them back up to spec, all had to be done within the 12 minute half-time, so I would imagine the refs moved faster.
I also have made no claim as to what the PSI of the balls the refs approved before the game was, because we don’t know. Therefore, any halftime measurement shows nothing but the balls were under inflated when measured - not what any change to the PSI during the first half was.
Also interesting, WreckingCrew, is that the demonstration you reported on used a bottom end temperature of 39 degrees. Why was this?
According to the Weather Underground, the temperature never fell below 50 degrees during the first half of the game.
Based on the rate of change in the demonstration, this would have put the on-the-field deflation at 1.31, meaning that by 4 minutes return to baseline temp, the pre- post deflation would have been 0.31.
Yeah, you keep saying that. I get that the issued penalty is what you use to determine the severity of the crime, and for me, examining the details of the crime is what should be used to determine its severity. I assume this is probably true for most people.
Spygate for me is a less serious violation than a great deal of the league’s infractions over that last decade, for the reasons I’ve already stated. That’s obviously subjective, I’m not saying it’s an absolute truth, but it’s certainly a reasonable opinion, also held by enough impartial non-Pats fans to suggest it’s not some desperate Pats fan pipe dream.
For anyone who views Spygate as less serious than a great deal of other infractions, there is no reason to believe the Patriots are any more dirty than any of the other teams who have committed those more or equally serious infractions.
Great- since that’s like, the obvious, and only argument against an claim that a team is one of the only ones doing something. Feel free to keep repeating the idea that argument has no merit, and maybe it will become true. Or if you’re bored, don’t.