Good. Use your aggressive feelings, boy. Let the hate flow through you.
I love that you produced one line of text and an emoticon, yet still had to edit it.
I also see that you are continuing your boardwide tactic of calling people “boy”. I guess you think this is either clever or frustrating. As far as I’m concerned, keep it up. While I’m quoting sources, you can keep making terribly inaccurate predictions and posting emoticons. It’s about all you have.
I can’t believe I fell into this rabbit hole.
Holy crap! I can’t believe the grief you guys are piling on. That lawyer was right about injustice and it a damn shame.
My latest WTF:
http://drewfustin.com/deflategate/
But his claims regarding the scenarios that the Wells report did or did not consider are not true. Read the appendix of the Wells report. (Or alternatively, you could just come to the conclusion that you want to.)
He also goes through an odd exercise of projecting back to the pregame inflation with a .38 correction. There’s just no way that the Patriots submitted balls that were that much above the 12.5 low end. Not with all that’s been made clear about where Brady wanted them.
But look, here’s the thing. Take these observations:
- The Patriots balls were deflated (and at a differential rate from the Colts).
- The Patriots equipment guys had many discussions over a long period about deflating balls.
- One called himself the deflator.
- They discussed Brady’s dissatisfation with the ball pressure.
- They discussed the effects of the pressure on Brady’s performance.
- They discussed a connection between their actions and Brady’s performance.
- Gifts were given to these guys.
- Assertions about balls being deflated by the Patriots were made by others prior to this game.
- A video shows the balls being taken by one of the equipment guys into a bathroom.
- The equipment guy was not authorized to have them at that time.
- Tom Brady destroyed his cell phone on the day he was to meet with the investigators.
- The Patriots fumble rate changed dramatically when new rules were introduced regarding ball preparation.
- Tom Brady was instrumental in pushing for that change.
- The Patriots refused to present the equipment guys at the appeals hearing.
I know I’m missing some, but here’s the thing. I have a single explanation that accounts for all of these observations. One.
In your alternate explanatory model, how many different mechanisms do you need to explain these observations?
That’s right - Wells based his conclusions on testimony he himself had fabricated.
Go ahead and quote him all you like, but keep that in mind while you do so.
In the scenario he’s describing, they would have been under 12.5 when measured pre-game, not above 12.5.
What does this even mean? The whole point of the article is that PSI measurement and the tools they use in football kind of suck. If you are asserting that the Patriots have better tools to precisely hit 12.5 PSI while everyone else fumbles with gauges that vary in their readings on the order of half a PSI, then you are holding the Patriots to a different standard. Even if the Patriots submitted precisely 12.5 PSI balls, the fact that the measuring tools vary (even from each other!) is the entire point. A 12.5 PSI ball could be read as 12.5 + 0.38 PSI because the equipment itself is not that accurate. Similarly a 12.5 + 0.38 PSI ball could be read as 12.5 PSI.
This is the most critical point, which you take as true while others dispute its veracity. The evidence that the balls were deflated isn’t there. The NFL says its there, but they are just as likely to cook the books as supposed Patriot-fan-boys. The evidence neither shows clear guilt nor clear innocence. The NFL is taking the stance that if they can show a set of circumstances where intentional deflation had to occur to explain the measurements, to them that is sufficient. But to reasonable people, it should not be. Plausibility is not proof. The existence of alternate explanations must be considered as well. But here’s the rub, the evidence doesn’t show Brady is innocent either. So what standard are we going to hold the NFL to? They want a very low bar. I’m not willing to believe such a low bar is appropriate.
We have here a scenario proposed by the NFL where the balls had to have been deflated. We also have a scenario where the drop in pressure is explained by temperature drop (and rise). So which is it? Why is the NFL relying on the scenario that requires them to contradict the recollection of their referee? As a scientist, I found that choice particularly appalling.
If there is no clear evidence of tampering, then the following points are moot.
And if the NFL is willing to bend the analysis to reach a particular conclusion, then I’m not going to trust them in other matters either.
When the Wells report came out, they made strong statements about the science proving their point. I took their words at face-value and was disgusted with Brady and the Patriots. But if their methodology is flawed and their assumptions are self serving, then I’m not going to feel the same way about it anymore.
FWIW, the AEI study performed the same analysis and reached the same conclusion for the same reasons. Wells’ choice of Exponent to do this study made it noncredible right from the get-go anyway, based on their own record of producing whatever result the client pays for.
I do understand Wells’ predicament, in a way - he was commissioned to get the goods on the Pats, but the goods weren’t there to be gotten. Reporting that would have made him look like he was half-assing or whitewashing the job (Kenneth Starr could tell him about that, too). If he instead reported to the NFL that the basic problem was the NFL’s own almost-total failure to control its basic game equipment, well, he’d never get another NFL contract, would he?
He’d also have trouble getting other work from other clients who would know he was willing to blame them instead of their targets. So, he did what he thought he had to do to keep his own income stream alive, and hoped to keep it all covered under the same solemn bluster we continue to be subjected to.
No. That is just dumb. Evidence of people conspiring to engage in illegal (here within the context of NFL rules) behavior, evidence of payments to those people, evidence of someone setting up the opportunity to engage in the behavior, destruction of the evidence… none of those things are made moot. It’s just that direct evidence that the thing occurred (which stands despite desperate handwaving of deflation deniers) makes the overall case much more compelling.
Yes, you’re going to believe what you want to believe, as already stipulated.
Even if it means holding up a proven fabricator, Wells, as your sole source of solemn bluster. Even if it means you essentially want someone arrested simply for resisting arrest, regardless of the evidence.
But … but … Cheatriots! :rolleyes: 
Here is a lifelong Pats fan and biostatistician from UVM showing that the AEI analysis was flawed - they fudged their analysis. This guy replicsted Exponent’s results, not AEI.
Also, remember that AEI is a Robert Kraft enterprise.
You can do that, if you insist the referee was lying. Already been shown.
Really now? 
Oh, okay, just to keep the laughs coming, where the hell did you get *that *from?
BTW, you really ought to read your cites first:
I did read it. It says exactly what I said. You just chose not to quote the relevant part. I wonder why?
I had heard that the Kraft Foundation was a funder of the AEI (Right Wing Watch’s dosssier on AEI says this is true), but I never heard the corrective follow up that Kraft is not affiliated with thst foundation. I apologize for spreading that error.
Here’s the thing. The deflation of the balls was never a very big thing. I don’t think it influenced the outcome of the game, and the testing procedures weren’t amazingly stringent as some Patriots’ fans would have liked (not that it would have any influence whatsoever on their view of the evidence even if it had been). It was just another example of how the Patriots are willing to take advantage of any opportunity to break the rules if they think it will help them win and not get caught. Had Brady and the Pats said “yep, we’re not sure, but they could have been deflated, and we accept that the equipment manager fucked up”, it likely would have been over in a week with a fine and maybe a low round draft pick lost.
But they didn’t. The Patriots and Tom Brady, decided to fight it tooth and nail, to hide evidence, to come up with implausible explanations that only the most rabid of idiot fans would accept (deflator meant weight loss? Really?), and to drag it on and on with hearings, casting aspersions on anyone who disagrees with their fantastical allegations, and now lawsuits. What was a molehill became a mountain, not because the NFL is out to ruin one of their flagship franchises and current champion, but because the Patriots are a bunch of pricks who think they should be allowed to game the system, and if they’re caught, it’s the system’s fault for making it possible to cheat in the first place.
Anyone who posits that that a 4 game suspension and loss of a draft pick is “an injustice” needs a serious redefinition of that word.
Apropos of nothing in particular, Chris Mortensen refuses to show up for an interview related to his initial tweet that 11 of 12 Patriot balls were deflated by 2 lbs based on NFL Sources:
Nothing to see here. Nothing at all.
Already explained. An analysis of cherry-picked, filtered data will produce the same desired result every time, when processed the same way. GIGO.
You know what *is *relevant? The part I quoted, and bolded above to help your comprehension.
Anything else you’re willing to admit being wrong about yet? Or you wanna wait a bit first?
You’re a real class act, ElvisL1ves.
I will note that even if the league acted rashly, recklessly, and/or capriciously, that doesn’t automatically mean Brady is innocent. I think he did SOMETHING at least shady, rules wise. Whether that’s worthy of the punishment, or how poorly the league acted in trying to ferret it out, has nothing to do with that portion of my opinion.