quote:

Originally posted by Batman:
They cheated and are scum. End of discussion. History of cheating is clear.

Agree totally and if they are guilty they should be thrown out of the Competition

Over all the NFL has been a disgrace this year on any number of levels. The league has had investigations, made decisions, taken back decisions and then had investigations on their investigations. Virtually nothing has been resolved, and that's been mostly on the player personal conduct and drug issues, not even talking very much about actions on the field. It is kind of fitting that the season should end with another potential scandal.

Now there is billions of dollars tied into the Super Bowl and there is no way the Patriots are getting disqualified. That is just reality. Also, unless they can find eyewitness proof that someone associated with the team deflated those footballs or someone confesses, they may not even impose fines or suspensions. At this point I have know reason to believe anything coming out of an NFL investigation, but God knows they will have one.

And then they will change how game footballs are controlled, which no one seems to have paid much attention to or even knew about before.

I found Belichek's press conference yesterday to be hilarious. He said he knew nothing about football air pressure and then threw Brady under the bus by saying Brady picked out his own footballs. Brady then doubled talked through his own press meeting and said he knew nothing about anything at all.

Everyone should be disqualified and the Dolphins declared the winners.

What I don't understand about this is why the refs check the balls 2 1/2 hours before the game. Can't they do it 10 minutes before? Not excusing the Patriots in any way. It looks like the NFL is going to wait until after the game to hand out a punishment. This will look awful for the league if the Patriots end up winning. Not to mention the media circus that will lead up to the game. Can't wait to see how Belichick tries to dodge the endless questions about this. Who would've thought with characters like Marshawn Lynch and Richard Sherman (though they're both outstanding players) that Seattle would become the sentimental favorite.

So no Super predictions yet. Has to be 50/50 chance.

I think Seahawks will have a good game plan and ordinarily I would pick them to win, but something is off in the NFL this year. So I will go with my gut and say this year's champs will be as tarnished as the game. Pats will take number 4 because everyone wants to see them lose.

I agree with Raven. Patriots win 31-24. But I must admit that even though I can't stand the way he acts off the field (and on it sometimes), I do love watching Marshawn Lynch run and plow over defenders. That guy truly is a beast. It would be interesting to see if the Seahawks win, and he is named MVP, will he say "I'm going to Disneyland" coming off the field or "I'm just here so I won't get fined."

I never understood that "I'm going to Disneyland" ****. It just goes to show how easy it is to still payoff millionaires.

Lynch is a terrific football player and I can even understand his attitude up to a point, I would not want to be bothered with mandatory press conferences either. Yet it comes with the contract, so if this is what you are being paid for he could at least come up with a couple of sentences. Someday his career will be over and it is surprising how badly some ex players end up.

STUNNING!!!

That's the word for it. Great game, stunning finish, a catch nobody will ever forget, a call nobody will ever get over, has to be the worst call in history, may cost a few people their jobs.

Brady had lost then somebody else makes a great interception and suddenly Brady is the MVP. What's that all about?

The sponsors REALLY wanted him to have that truck.

I liked the Walter White e-surance commercial.

quote:

Originally posted by wolfie:
That's the word for it. Great game, stunning finish, a catch nobody will ever forget, a call nobody will ever get over, has to be the worst call in history, may cost a few people their jobs.

Brady had lost then somebody else makes a great interception and suddenly Brady is the MVP. What's that all about?

I agree with Wolfie on all of the above.

And the player that needs a f-r-e-e truck the least of anyone on the field has one dropped in his lap...

Well, no more football for 7 months.... Wake me up when the calendar says September.

If it makes you feel any better, Brady has given the truck to the rookie that made the interception and saved the game. Brady doesn't need another one.

Thanks Raven! I'm glad to hear that & I do feel better

Just to provide closure for this thread, the hammer fell on the Patriots today. Or at least as much as you could expect given that everyone knows they play all the angles.

Brady is suspended for the first 4 games of the 2015 season for letting the air out. His smug act probably insulted the Commissioner and owners more than any actual proof.

The Patriots were fined a million dollars, which is a parking ticket to them, but they will lose a first round draft pick and a fourth round draft pick in the next two years. That hurts more.

The Patriots will probably appeal and I wouldn't be surprised if something gets reduced, but that's the verdict for now.

The thing I don't understand is they say that by deflating the balls slightly it gave Brady more grip in the wet but surely it would have given the Colts quarterback more grip aswell.

quote:

Originally posted by wolfie:
The thing I don't understand is they say that by deflating the balls slightly it gave Brady more grip in the wet but surely it would have given the Colts quarterback more grip aswell.

Each team uses their own set of (12) balls on offense. 11 of the 12 balls the Patriots used were found to be underinflated. The Colts played fair and used balls that were up to specifications.

Oh right, well that explains that then.

Here the wise words of wolfie... new rule from now on then, there is only one set of balls which are looked after by the referees and both sides use those.

There is some fairly compelling data indicating the Patriots have been doing this to their footballs since 2007 (the amount of times the team as a whole fumbled dropped dramatically that year and has stayed very low these past 7 years). Also, 2007 was the year Tom Brady lobbied the league to let the quarterback (his position) be responsible for preparing the game balls. It should also be noted that with the balls underinflated, the Pats crushed the colts, but with their scheme revealed by the time of the Super Bowl two weeks later, were saved from losing their third straight Super Bowl appearance only by a mind-blowingly stupid decision by Seattle quarterback Russell Wilson in the game's final seconds.

For my part, however, as a Rams fan, my distaste for the New England method goes back to the year 2000 or so, when, just prior to the Rams and Patriots meeting in what was Tom Brady's first Super Bowl, the Patriots clandestinely video recorded the Rams final practice which included a dry run of the plays they'd use to start the game. At one point, Rams quarterback Kurt Warner was heard to say something like, "Man, it's as if they know what we're going to do". And it was because they did. In that game, a Rams teams that averaged about 35 points a game all season was held to 17 as the Patriots won on a last second field goal.

It should also be remembered that New England only got into the championship game that year as a result of one of the worst calls in the history of the league as Brady clearly was sacked with the football recovered by the Oakland Raiders who should've won the game on that play. Instead, the ball was given back to New England who then kicked another last second game winning football. The call was so awful, it necessitated an immediate rules change which went into effect the following season. While New England cannot be blamed for that horrific officiating, it did set the stage for things to come.

Having learned their lesson that cheating works and that a slap on the wrist and meaningless fines if caught are worth the risk, the Patriots then proceeded to film the New York Jets sideline for purposes of divining their coaching signals. This was in 2007 and the affair is known as "Spygate". It was a comedy of errors as their control freak coach then claimed to know nothing about it, and basically to not even know the person who was doing the very filming that he'd instructed him to do.

It is now fascinating to watch the "winning isn't everything, it's the only thing" crowd (usually Patriots fans) coming out of the woodwork to defend these guys, usually going to the old "you're just mad your team isn't as successful as ours" argument as if repeatedly cheating is just another part of the game and could ever result in true and earned success. One of their biggest cheerleaders is one of their former players, Tedy Bruschi, a guy so steroid-ed out in his playing days, that he had a stroke on the field. He got the 'roids out of his system (or more likely, got on a different kind) and was back playing for them the following season. Now, he's a disgusting apologist for his fellow cheaters who've been caught red-handed, yet again.

And all of this is just the stuff they've been caught doing. Who knows what they've gotten away with? I just wonder what they'll do for an encore.

Ok, so you've got a hundred million dollars and supermodel wife, but was it really worth it, Tom? It was? OK, I can kind of see that now.

Well this may be the final word on the 2014 NFL season and it really shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone.

BRADY WINS, NO SUSPENSION!

The Commissioner's Office is expected to appeal, but that will take months and they might as well not bother. Regardless of what everyone knows to be the truth, there has to be proof, and apparently the investigators failed to actually find anything. Roger Goodell has botched every case they had this past year and the Player's Association will keep challenging now, so his days as Commissioner should be numbered.

Anyway the real 2015 games are almost here and the foolishness will continue. I don't even know who I like this year. To tell the truth, I kind of dislike everybody.