In the wake of the report on the investigation of Deflategate, which demonstrates that the balls were deflated and provides texts from Patriots staff describing their efforts to deflate the balls to Tom Brady’s liking, for which they received perks, I have the following thoughts:
Ha! to you, Ellis Dee you dumb fuck.
I guess I don’t got literally NOTHING, you desperate excuse-clutching moron.
ElvisL1ves, nobody was a bigger smarmy cunt during that episode than you. Go eat the report and fuck yourself, you piece of shit.
Sports is an interesting demonstration of the human tendency towards tribalism and partisanship. Ultimately sports are silly. We’re watching a bunch of men throw balls around and take our attention and money. I mean, they’re fine for entertainment, I love me some NFL myself, but in the grand scheme of things, they’re not something that matters.
And yet people become completely entrenched in them. They become apologists, hypocrites, rigidly partisan. I recognize why it’s hard for people to recognize their own biases on issues that matter. Some sort of biased belief is critical to their world view, and to question it would call their entire psyche and model for the world into question.
But sports are silly. They don’t really matter. So it’s weird to me that, given that sports bias doesn’t prop up their entire world view as other biases might, they’re still unable to see just how silly they’re being.
Since I didn’t pay much attention to the original thread, I thought you might be overreacting a bit. But I just went back and skimmed it, and yeah, you get a lot of “told you so” credits.
Oh, related. I can’t remember the exact details, but I made some sort of comment on some Bill Bellichick controversy. It was actually a fairly neutral comment that was just an impression based on the available evidence. But Ellis Dee decided that, given that I was at all critical of Bellichick, that I must be a Patriot hater. So he tried to figure out why - why would I decide to be in that tribe? Aha, because I’m a Browns fan, and Bellichick was the Browns coach 20 years ago, and … I must be bitter about that because he wasn’t well liked, or something. And now I hold that grudge 20 years later. And that’s the only possible reason I could have for offering some sort of critical comment.
It was so weird because he couldn’t just think that I’m some guy who evaluated the facts and made some sort of judgement. And it wasn’t even a harsh judgment - it wasn’t “hater” behavior - it was actually fairly neutral and reserved*. The funny thing is that I don’t actually hate Bellichick at all - I think he’s one of the best NFL coaches of all time, and I’m one of his leading defenders on this board when it comes to aggressive playcalling decisions (one of my primary opponents on that matter, ironically, is usually Ellis Dee himself). I was 12-14 when Bellichick was coach of the Browns and I didn’t have any interest in football then. I have no personal stake in this, except, if anything, I’m respectful of the man’s skills.
But he had to seek out the tribalistic reason in my behavior that wasn’t even there, because I guess that’s the only way he could understand any sort of relationship to anything to do with sports.
I think the actual opinion was about the illegal filming of the signals from years ago. People kept saying “there’s no advantage to filming from that location, you could easily film that information from legal places, so the Patriots derived no advantage” to which my reply was “Since he’d been warned about this and continued the behavior, either he felt that it gave him some sort of advantage to engage in this illegal behavior or he was just thumbing his nose at the NFL and defying the rules just out of spite, and either way that’s going to be punished”
What I remember about the taping thing is that one of his targets was the Detroit Lions. Cheating against the Detroit Lions is just plain sad and pathetic. :smack:
Hentor, you were really hoping to finally get Belichick for something, weren’t you? I understand your frustration, really I do. But it ain’t happenin’.
That isn’t quite what’s happening here, is it? This is about haters looking for a reason to justify their hatred.
Show that one team is doing something the others don’t, and that it makes a positive difference for them (compare the first and second half scores of the game in question, please) and you can call it cheating.
As with everyone else, I don’t care about the Jacksonville Jaguars. But if I found out that they were pumping some sort of aerosol spray into the visitor locker room to make the other team weak and drowsy, I’d think they were a scummy organization and they deserved to be punished.
Would it then mean that I’ve hated the Jacksonville Jaguars all along, and this just gives me an excuse to hate them? Or, could, you know, people who are otherwise not biased or motivated by partianship actually find cheating distasteful?
Cheating is a violation of the rules in an attempt to gain an advantage. You don’t get to make up your own definition of cheating. But even by your own definition, it’s kind of funny that only the Patriots keep getting caught for these things that “all NFL teams do” - it must be that huge anti-Boston bias that the sports journalism industry has, right?
I know you’re a pretty dim bulb, but can you really not see that people can be disapproving towards cheating, and not just use it as a premise to justify some pre-existing hatred?
You do realize that these kinds of responses, especially in light of your previous defenses and insults, make you appear even more of the disingenuous, cowardly fuck you are, don’t you? I might actually gain one iota of respect for you if you had recognized that, now that the investigation is complete and we have actual evidence, that your prejudice blinded you. But, to be honest, I’m not surprised you remain the ignorant fuck you always have been.
A lot of people get butthurt in here when they make a strong refutation and get proven completely wrong. They simply double-down, unable to deign an apology.
Well, this particular case involves the integrity (and a major face) of a literal billion dollar business enterprise. I’d say that gives it a little more significance than if it happened to, say, my nephew’s Little League team.
Again, that isn’t what’s happening here, is it? Check the Game Room thread and look at all the foam from the Belichick haters, even after he was cleared. Too bad there aren’t more words for it, but that’s what you’re seeing.
In NFL terms, the competitiveness is endemic and the jealous and the hate are even stronger - and that led to the Colts whining about something pretty much everybody does (you’ll recall some of the contemporaneous reporting, if you’re being honest).
A film guy eight years ago and a couple of equipment guys now, and in neither case was any advantage obtained, was it now? Yes, they do “keep getting caught”, don’t they?
But fans aren’t employees or stakeholders in these billion dollar enterprises. They just prefer the guys in the red jersies to ones in the blue jersies. I’m not saying sport isn’t an enjoyable entertainment, just that we can all recognize that it doesn’t really matter.
Contrast this, to, say, acceptance of global warming. People are deeply motivated to blind themselves and deceive themselves on this issue because coming to terms with it means they either have to change their lifestyle or accept that they’re part of a problem that will eventually cause significant damage to human civilization. You can see where the strong motivations exist to be extremely biased and not see it. In comparison, giving the same sort of mental contortions over sports fandom is very silly.
You say “everyone does it” and yet for some reason we keep getting solid evidence that the Patriots do it, and only handwaving to explain that everyone else does it too.
Could you provide some evidence that every other team in the NFL modifies the inflation levels of their footballs to give themselves what they perceive to be an advantage?
You’re like Baghdad Bob saying the Americans haven’t even crossed the border as you see American tanks rolling in the background. You look ridiculous.
I understand your frustration, really I do. But it ain’t happenin’.