MattM

Too bad that Incognito wasn't ready to go tonight. Would have been great to see the full starting line.

I watched part of the Pats* game last night and Jimmy G stunk it up most of the time against the Packer 2's with better luck against the 3's not surprisingly. Should have been picked at least one other time and doesn't seem to have that 4 second clock in his head yet.

Watched part of the Pats* game. Janeanne Carapollo blows I'm happy to report....

I find this fixation on the disciplinary process in a case where pretty much everyone but diehard Pats* fans agree that cheating went on a bit odd I must admit. Why not pick a case where there is a real miscarriage of justice, for ex.? In addition, what is your solution? Getting professional arbitrators or judges involved for every dispute? Shouldn't the League commissioner be the one with the power to discipline players? To suggest otherwise strikes me, frankly, as ridiculous.

Exactly. And if it was a common practice (or if done for ANYONE else) the Pats* would certainly have trotted them out by now as evidence this was all normal. The fact that they haven't speaks volumes.

So you basically ignore the texts, gifts to the ball boy (still waiting for the legion of other ball boys getting new sneaks and Brady game worn autographed jerseys to show up), lies ("I didn't take them into the bathroom---oh, wait, you've got me on film doing that, then I must have gone in to use the urinal--oh, wait, there's no urinal in that bathroom...."), etc., in other words, the context in which the psi measurements need to be considered. I'm also guessing that's because it comes nowhere close to supporting your narrative....

Quick fact question--has anyone seen Brady or the Pats* claim that it was normal for someone like McNally to receive so much swag from Brady? If they did, you'd think that Brady and the Pats* would be shouting that from the rooftop as part of their defense. If they aren't doing that, and there are no such other folks at McNally's level receiving things like autographed game worn jerseys and free sneakers, then that's really about all a reasonable person needs to know....

Actually, I'm not sure you're right on that--apparently Goodell told the Pats* after Spygate that Belicheat would next be suspended if anything similar occurred. That may explain both his running away from Brady in January and Brady's destruction of his phone.....

BTW, it also looks to me (based on voting and commenting on PFT) that there may be sock puppets at work here, too. Just about everyone I know other than Pats* fans think he's guilty and the Pats/* deserve punishment, yet the votes on the comments often (but not always) are heavily pro-Pats*. The "not always" part is key to that suspicion--sock puppets may miss an article entirely, meaning normal voting takes place, which would explain the odd discrepancies on votes.

I've had the same problem a few times there, under the same circumstances. I've really lost all respect for Florio over this matter. He repeatedly gets down in the weeds to argue every stupid pro-Patriots* point he can find and even his word choices belie an antagonism to the League here. My personal favorite is his pinning the whole thing on Mortensen's 2 pounds under Tweets, totally ignoring, for example, the amazingly incriminating texts between the ballboys (which, to me personally is all a rational person needs to see here) or the gifts Brady lavished on McNally. BTW, I have yet to see a story on how Brady did that for all the low level staff--I'm sure if he had we'd have heard all about that by now, so you draw your own conclusions. Goodell's report lays this all out nicely along Occam's razor-the simplest explanation is probably correct. Here, as Kelly has noted repeatedly, a whole bunch of preposterous coincidenced must all occur at once for Brady's story to hold any water.

Pats* fans will tell you the NFL ordered them fired, but the League immediately denied that.

I'm far from a QB expert, but I was at camp today and thought the QB play was, to put it politely, "dispiriting". Manuel in particular looked pretty rough today, from fumbling a shotgun snap to overthrowing or throwing behind his receivers. Taylor and Cassell were a little better (at least today). Then again, I was not paying 100% attention, as I'm in the area on a visit after having grown up in the next town over, so was chatting with friends while watching.

Great stuff, as always!

Heading over to camp today--logistical question. Are they now doing bussing from Sutherland HS as well as Mendon?

That's an interesting point, but I think it was a different, smaller leak they were referring to in those emails. I also think Patriot* mouthpiece Florio and others are putting way too much emphasis on the Mort report (which I also believe the Pats* did rebut at the time via their own leaks). Instead, to me the smoking gun was and always has been the texts between the two ball boys, which no one has to this point sufficiently explained away for obvious reasons.

You beat me to it. I've thought so ever since his QB moves blew up and he couldn't get Mariota like he obviously planned and is now stuck with Bradford, who doesn't strike me at all as a QB to run his fast paced system (or, actually, whoever's behind Sam when he eventually goes out for the season again). I never got the love that Peter King (he literally has a Chip Kelly item of the week in his column) and others shower in him.

Oh, please--the judge is not stupid. He knows who's on whose side here and I suspect after his "tone it down"/scorched earth admonition he won't be pleased at all with the Pats* releasing those e-mails.

One of my favorite '70's Bills. Got to meet him once when he and one of the DBs (Mario Clark maybe?) visited my school. He seemed to be having a great time as a pro football player--very much a shame how that ended up hurting him in the longer run. RIP Mr. Brown

I noticed that, too, in reading the decision. It's really quite a tight defense of his ruling, which is why the attack has now turned to the process and not the substance so much. What happened to the days when people owned up to their mistakes?

Do yourself a favor and Google "Sally Jenkins" and "Lance Armstrong". Sally was one of Lance's staunchest defenders until the bitter end. Here's one of many, many articles castigating her for her defense of that cheater. Do you see a pattern here (in addition to the pattern of Patriot* cheating, spinning, lying, covering up)? http://dcist.com/2012/12/sally_jenkins_finally_writes_about.php

I remain stunned that there are so many Pats* defenders on this board--a team that's been caught cheating repeatedly and accused of much, much more--in the face of mounting evidence of their cheating. I mean, the guy destroyed his phone in order to avoid giving over evidence. Three days ago, when that came up as a Steven A. Smith-hinted possibility these same folks were saying that the messenger was so often wrong that such a supposition was ludicrous, but seemed to admit that if it was true it would be a big deal. Now that we know that's true, some of those same folks have found new ways to gloss over that same major development. Amazing willful blindness in defense of....?...a well-known and documented cheating opponent? Really? (On Yee's and Brady's explanations of why that specific phone was destroyed, they are laughable at best--first it was that Brady cycles his phones regularly and destroys all of the old ones (oops, except the last couple before the phone in question), then it was that Brady wanted the "new" Iphone 6 (oops, that phone came out 6 months earlier--in fact, well before he'd even bought the second to last phone he used), then it was well, we cooperated and gave you the names of about 30 folks who might have relevant testimony--go sue all of them for the messages. Sorry, you don't get to smash the evidence into a gazillion pieces and then bring all the pieces and say "Here, it's all there, you fix it." Our discovery system doesn't work that way.) If I didn't know better I'd be wondering if we've been invaded by sockpuppets! Amazing.....

I recall seeing something stating that the system initially involved a backup QB relaying the D signals in and that this started when Bledsoe was QB. If true (I have a vague recollection that it may have been the HBO special on Matt Walsh or the Spygate book), then it would have either been Tommy Boy or Rohan Davy perhaps, but my memory is hazy on this. Anyone else recall this?

The "no notice" argument here is just asinine. To take it to its logical conclusion, if the Pats* come up with some new way to cheat, they'll always be able to claim they were not aware of what the specific discipline would be for their new shenanigans, so therefore can't be punished for them. Do you understand how ridiculous that sounds?

Funny, then, that Goodell wanted to meet them both at the appeal, but it was Brady who said no (you really need to read the decision), but maintained they were his friends who would back him up if they were there. You really can't make this stuff up..,,,

For all those wondering how we'd react in similar circumstances I offer one, Orenthal James Simpson. At the risk of showing my age here, he was a god in my house growing up, but neither I nor anyone else on this board have any illusions about what he did. It's just a special kind of stupid in Boston.....