# To select SDMB Cheatriots' Defenders **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [May 6, 2015, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-select-sdmb-cheatriots-defenders/719426 "2015-05-06T21:50:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2015, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-select-sdmb-cheatriots-defenders/719426/21 "2015-05-07T00:38:08Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > 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. Uh, the fans are the ones who MAKE it a billion dollar enterprise. Why else do you think the league is wetting itself over the prospect of suburban moms not letting their sons play Pop Warner? As for your point in the following paragraph, I’m puzzled why you think human nature should change depending on the seriousness of the topic. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2015, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-select-sdmb-cheatriots-defenders/719426/22 "2015-05-07T00:39:35Z")
There’s something more than footballs being deflated here… ---
**Author:** ![kidchameleon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/898d66/32.png) [@kidchameleon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kidchameleon)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2015, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-select-sdmb-cheatriots-defenders/719426/23 "2015-05-07T00:44:21Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > 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. Heck, if it were the Browns and you had that reaction, he’d call you a hater. ---
**Author:** ![Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e36b37/32.png) [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airman_Doors_USAF)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2015, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-select-sdmb-cheatriots-defenders/719426/24 "2015-05-07T00:48:01Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > 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. > > Or, you know, forget all that. Haters gonna hate. > [@](#): > > 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” I shouldn’t do this, but I can’t help it… [all of this from a guy who carried a tremendous amount of water for Josh Gordon](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=727724)? ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2015, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-select-sdmb-cheatriots-defenders/719426/25 "2015-05-07T00:53:24Z")
What hypocrisy do you think you see? Where is my contradictory thought that’s motivated entirely by tribalism? It’s stupid that the NFL tests people for pot. It’s even stupider that they use a strict testing standard that’s far stricter than what airline pilots are tested for. Such a stringent standard that the false positive rate is pretty high. They even contradict themselves when they claim that they aren’t going to punish secondhand smoke, but then design their tests so that it could be triggered by a secondhand smoke. There are stupid aspects of their testing procedure. Would I care as much if it were some random receiver from some team I didn’t care about that got busted for it? No. I’d still think it was stupid, but it wouldn’t affect me very much so it would interest me less. Spell this one out for me, because I didn’t do what you seem to lazily assume I did. If some other guy in the NFL got suspended for pot, and I said “damn right, the NFL was right to suspend that guy for smoking pot!” I’d be a hypocrite. But I didn’t do anything like that. I just detailed why the NFL’s testing policy and specifically their treatment of Josh Gordon was stupid. ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2015, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-select-sdmb-cheatriots-defenders/719426/26 "2015-05-07T00:58:15Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > 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? Likewise, am I allowed to look down suspiciously on the foaming at the mouth witch hunt mentality that had regularly issued forth from other quarters (when hard evidence was in very short supply) without being thought of as being a Pats fan or apologist? I loathe them, for record. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2015, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-select-sdmb-cheatriots-defenders/719426/27 "2015-05-07T01:34:29Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > 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). It’s not cheating if you suspect everyone does it? I didn’t think I could respect you less, but I do. You actively make the world a worse place. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2015, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-select-sdmb-cheatriots-defenders/719426/28 "2015-05-07T02:14:37Z")
> [@bup](#): > > It’s not cheating if you suspect everyone does it? I didn’t think I could respect you less, but I do. You actively make the world a worse place. Elvis is the epitome of partisanship. IOIEIAF. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2015, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-select-sdmb-cheatriots-defenders/719426/29 "2015-05-07T02:31:44Z")
Heh, I don’t know shit about NFL or this debate but reading this thread gives me flashbacks. I follow cycling not NFL. The dance goes like this: Sceptics: “Mr Sportsguy does X and he’s a cheat” Fanboy: “Mr Sportsguy _does not_ do X. Nope. No way. You’re all assholes and haters for even suggesting it. Mr Sportsguy is the cleanest and the greatest! Not like all his competitors who are all cheaters and losers.” Sportsguy: “I cheated” Sceptics: “Toldya so” Fanboy: “Uh, yeah, well, ummm, look, doing X isn’t _really_ ‘cheating’ as such. And anyway everybody else did it too. Or if they didn’t they are just losers who should have been winners like Mr Sportsguy! Yay Mr Sportsguy!”. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2015, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-select-sdmb-cheatriots-defenders/719426/30 "2015-05-07T02:49:28Z")
At least NFL sportsguy didn’t sue anyone for having the temerity to suggest that he cheated. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2015, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-select-sdmb-cheatriots-defenders/719426/31 "2015-05-07T02:54:21Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > At least NFL sportsguy didn’t sue anyone for having the temerity to suggest that he cheated. Yet, that is. OTOH, Bob Kraft did demand an apology. ---
**Author:** ![Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slow_moving_vehicle/32/291_2.png) [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2015, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-select-sdmb-cheatriots-defenders/719426/32 "2015-05-07T02:59:35Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > Good. Use your aggressive feelings, boy. Let the hate flow through you. Shame you couldn’t have posted this two days ago, eh? ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2015, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-select-sdmb-cheatriots-defenders/719426/33 "2015-05-07T03:13:19Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > There’s something more than footballs being deflated here… An inappropriate release of air, more probably than not. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2015, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-select-sdmb-cheatriots-defenders/719426/34 "2015-05-07T03:16:51Z")
> [@Stringbean](#): > > 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. The irony being that you’re giving an example, while you think you are giving a different one. People showed you that word was wrong, but you doubled down on it and even started demanding apologies. You had a single definition from a single dictionary which you misunderstood, a chain definition going from the original word to a synonym, not realizing that not all definitions of a synonym necessarily apply to the original word. Granted, I could have apologized for not having figured out where you went wrong, but (1) saying I thought you were thinking of a different word wasn’t an insult, so an apology was optional, and (2) I don’t give in to demands when people are a jerk to me. I will give you this: you have gotten much closer to being right this time. You could “deign an apology” if you give it condescendingly. assuming you are from the eighteenth century. It is now universally marked as archaic–i.e. not used anymore. Before you forgot the “condescending” part. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2015, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-select-sdmb-cheatriots-defenders/719426/35 "2015-05-07T03:47:44Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > The irony being that you’re giving an example, while you think you are giving a different one. People showed you that word was wrong, but you doubled down on it and even started demanding apologies. You had a single definition from a single dictionary which you misunderstood, a chain definition going from the original word to a synonym, not realizing that not all definitions of a synonym necessarily apply to the original word. > > Granted, I could have apologized for not having figured out where you went wrong, but (1) saying I thought you were thinking of a different word wasn’t an insult, so an apology was optional, and (2) I don’t give in to demands when people are a jerk to me. > > I will give you this: you have gotten much closer to being right this time. You could “deign an apology” if you give it condescendingly. assuming you are from the eighteenth century. It is now universally marked as archaic–i.e. not used anymore. Before you forgot the “condescending” part. My head hurts. ETA: seriously, why the fuck you gotta bring up all that shit from the 18th century? Let that shit rest, man. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2015, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-select-sdmb-cheatriots-defenders/719426/36 "2015-05-07T03:51:52Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > My head hurts. > > ETA: seriously, why the fuck you gotta bring up all that shit from the 18th century? Let that shit rest, man. You should deign some Excedrin, sirrah. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2015, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-select-sdmb-cheatriots-defenders/719426/37 "2015-05-07T03:54:37Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > You should deign some Excedrin, sirrah. _curtsies_ ---
**Author:** ![fachverwirrt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/94ad74/32.png) [@fachverwirrt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fachverwirrt)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2015, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-select-sdmb-cheatriots-defenders/719426/38 "2015-05-07T04:00:53Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > 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’m not sure “keep getting caught” is an entirely accurate depiction. As far as I know, this is the second time they’ve been caught at something, and unlike the last time, this one appears to involve about three guys, and no one on the coaching staff, ownership, or management. Also, in the general theme of “tampering with balls” they’re not the only ones to be caught. The Vikings and Panthers were chastised for illegally warming balls last year. > [@Leaper](#): > > 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. This is not an excuse for cheating, but frankly the idea of integrity in professional sports is laughable. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2015, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-select-sdmb-cheatriots-defenders/719426/39 "2015-05-07T04:08:13Z")
> [@](#): > > …“I gloat,” I said. “I gloat. I was right, you were wrong. If we’d landed on your forsaken planet, we’d have gone up in pure light. At this time it gives me great pleasure to say, I Told You So.” > > He smiled weakly. “You told me so.” > > "Oh, I did, I did. Time after time I said, Don’t Go Near That Haunted Planet! It’s Worth Yore Life And Yore Soul, I said. There Have Been Signs In The Heavens, I said, To Warn Us From This Place – " > > “All right, don’t overdo it, you bastard. You were dead right all the way. Let’s leave it at that.” > > “Okay. But there’s one thing I want you to remember.” > > “If you don’t understand it, it’s dangerous.” > > “That’s the one thing I want you to remember besides I Told You So.”… from Larry Niven’s short story _Flatlander_ ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2015, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-select-sdmb-cheatriots-defenders/719426/40 "2015-05-07T04:40:47Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > IOIEIAF. Come again? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-select-sdmb-cheatriots-defenders/719426.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-select-sdmb-cheatriots-defenders/719426.md?page=3)