Report: NFL covered up key Deflategate evidence that favored Patriots

[SlimShady'sSpaceForce]

11 hours ago, PatsFanNH said:

 

First, they had zero rights to HIS PRIVATE phone and he was under no obligation to tern it over to them. They knew this, the only reason they got the equipment managers phones was because they were team phones.. those phones showed zero communications about This with Brady.  For a good example be like your work asking for your phone from last year and you saying “I have a new phone I don’t have the old one.” Which could be true or false.

there are 2 ways to wipe a phone w/o smashing it.  
 

paranoia 

[ToGoGo]

20 hours ago, dave mcbride said:

Dunno. It's so hard to say because so many of those interchangeable NE RBs only played there. I suppose some of the receivers moved around -- Deion Branch, Randy Moss. And Brady himself only missed that one season (when Cassel was QB).

 

Appreciate that.

 

This is a layman's summary of what I'm finding. And remember I have all this messy data, so if you want to see it I can PM you the excels so show you my work. It's not perfect, but I think I'm working with 90% or so of the data. So not perfect, but enough to get rough conclusions. 

 

• The theory is that deflated balls decrease fumbling since the ball would have slightly more "give", thus it would be more difficult to knock out of someone's hands compared to a very firm, deflated football.
• The rule change was pushed by Brady in 2006 which allows the offense to supply the balls for the game (do I have that correct?).
• Brady and his assistant were caught in 2014 deflating footballs in the bathroom before games.
• Data later came out showing that from 2007-2014 after the rule change was put in place, the Patriots had lower team-wide fumbling rates several standard deviations lower than 2nd place. 
• The idea is that after the Pats were caught, those fumbling rates should go down to normal league-wide levels.

What we found was the opposite. The Pats extremely low fumbling rates (note we're talking fumbles per touch, not just fumbles) continued until 2019. After Brady left, the Patriots fumbling rates fell back to normal league-wide rates. 

 

Prior to Brady arriving, the Bucs had below average fumbling rates. After Brady arrived, the Bucs went straight to the top of the low fumbling rate charts. 

• On the surface, this supports Dave's theory that Brady is simply the GOAT because he doesn't fumble, and QBs make up a majority of a team's fumbling rates.
• I decided to test Dave's hypothesis by focusing on Non-QB Fumbling Rates by Team. This would eliminate Brady from the equation. 
• The reason is simple, if the balls are being deflated to reduce fumbling, it would help the entire offense reduce fumbles, not just Brady.
• What I found was that the Patriots Non-QB fumble rate increased after Brady left, and the Bucs Non-QB fumble rate decreased when Brady arrived.
• In other words, where ever Brady goes, his rushers and receivers fumble less. Not just Brady.

 

Since I'm biased, I would like to propose a theory that I don't believe has ever been proposed. My idea is that Brady had never stopped deflating footballs, even after getting caught in 2014. 

 

Since the deflating footballs operation was being run by Brady, and not Belichick (according to the texts and investigation evidence), it would make sense that deflating footballs would follow Brady around wherever he went, especially a 40+ hyper-competitive athlete looking for every edge possible at the highest level while his athletic abilities were declining.

 

First step to proving me wrong: After Deflategate, did the NFL change the rule regarding the offense providing their own balls at Home and on the Road? If yes, then my theory is bunk. If not, then let's keep looking at it. 

[TheFunPolice]

Oh the Patriots were so persecuted...

 

Try this though experiment out:

 

Peyton Manning and Tony Dungy go to 9 Super Bowls together, winning 6.

 

Are the Colts "hated" the way NE was?

 

Why is that?  

 

No, NE wasn't "hated by the haterZ because they were good." They were a bunch of cheating jerks who acted like heels, took every advantage, got every call, and had ridiculous luck fall into their lap time and time again.

 

And when you thought they lost (Tuck Rule, Baltimore playoff game in NE) they went to page 361 of the rule book and found some obscure ticky tack BS wrinkle to pull out. 

Edited February 11, 2022 by TheFunPolice

[dave mcbride]

1 hour ago, ToGoGo said:

 

Appreciate that.

 

This is a layman's summary of what I'm finding. And remember I have all this messy data, so if you want to see it I can PM you the excels so show you my work. It's not perfect, but I think I'm working with 90% or so of the data. So not perfect, but enough to get rough conclusions. 

 

• The theory is that deflated balls decrease fumbling since the ball would have slightly more "give", thus it would be more difficult to knock out of someone's hands compared to a very firm, deflated football.
• The rule change was pushed by Brady in 2006 which allows the offense to supply the balls for the game (do I have that correct?).
• Brady and his assistant were caught in 2014 deflating footballs in the bathroom before games.
• Data later came out showing that from 2007-2014 after the rule change was put in place, the Patriots had lower team-wide fumbling rates several standard deviations lower than 2nd place. 
• The idea is that after the Pats were caught, those fumbling rates should go down to normal league-wide levels.

What we found was the opposite. The Pats extremely low fumbling rates (note we're talking fumbles per touch, not just fumbles) continued until 2019. After Brady left, the Patriots fumbling rates fell back to normal league-wide rates. 

 

Prior to Brady arriving, the Bucs had below average fumbling rates. After Brady arrived, the Bucs went straight to the top of the low fumbling rate charts. 

• On the surface, this supports Dave's theory that Brady is simply the GOAT because he doesn't fumble, and QBs make up a majority of a team's fumbling rates.
• I decided to test Dave's hypothesis by focusing on Non-QB Fumbling Rates by Team. This would eliminate Brady from the equation. 
• The reason is simple, if the balls are being deflated to reduce fumbling, it would help the entire offense reduce fumbles, not just Brady.
• What I found was that the Patriots Non-QB fumble rate increased after Brady left, and the Bucs Non-QB fumble rate decreased when Brady arrived.
• In other words, where ever Brady goes, his rushers and receivers fumble less. Not just Brady.

 

Since I'm biased, I would like to propose a theory that I don't believe has ever been proposed. My idea is that Brady had never stopped deflating footballs, even after getting caught in 2014. 

 

Since the deflating footballs operation was being run by Brady, and not Belichick (according to the texts and investigation evidence), it would make sense that deflating footballs would follow Brady around wherever he went, especially a 40+ hyper-competitive athlete looking for every edge possible at the highest level while his athletic abilities were declining.

 

First step to proving me wrong: After Deflategate, did the NFL change the rule regarding the offense providing their own balls at Home and on the Road? If yes, then my theory is bunk. If not, then let's keep looking at it. 

I appreciate this, but I don't believe that Brady is still doing this at all. The risk is too great -- people are watching him -- and he's the opposite of a dumb person. My view is that Brady is the ultimate leader and players who play with him buy into his winning mentality. The tolerance for mistakes goes down wherever he goes. It was totally missing before he got to Tampa, and virtually every TB player says that he changed the mindset in a massive way. I also believe that the offenses he oversees are less "sloppy" -- more precision and fewer plays blown up. And Brady has the juice to say to a coach "get this fumbler off the field" and to not to throw to receivers who mess up. I'll never forget what happened to Michael Floyd in NE. A productive receiver in AZ, he gets cut for a DUI issue and gets picked up by NE in 2016. In his second game there, he ran an in route where he was supposed to cut sharply and cross horizontally. Instead, he lazily rounded his route, got too deep, and Brady got picked off on what should have been a completion. He never saw another pass thrown his way and was off the team pronto.   

Edited February 11, 2022 by dave mcbride

[ToGoGo]

18 minutes ago, dave mcbride said:

I appreciate this, but I don't believe that Brady is still doing this at all. The risk is too great -- people are watching him -- and he's the opposite of a dumb person. My view is that Brady is the ultimate leader and players who play with him buy into his winning mentality. The tolerance for mistakes goes down wherever he goes. It was totally missing before he got to Tampa, and virtually every TB player says that he changed the mindset in a massive way. I also believe that the offenses he oversees are less "sloppy" -- more precision and fewer plays blown up. And Brady has the juice to say to a coach "get this fumbler off the field" and to not to throw to receivers who mess up. I'll never forget what happened to Michael Floyd in NE. A productive receiver in AZ, he gets cut for a DUI issue and gets picked up by NE in 2016. In his second game there, he ran an in route where he was supposed to cut sharply and cross horizontally. Instead, he lazily rounded his route, got too deep, and Brady got picked off on what should have been a completion. He never saw another pass thrown his way and was off the team pronto.   

 

Then the question becomes, why did Brady go out of his way to deflate balls? What was the gain? If he is that smart, why would he do something so stupid, if there was no benefit?

[dave mcbride]

48 minutes ago, ToGoGo said:

 

Then the question becomes, why did Brady go out of his way to deflate balls? What was the gain? If he is that smart, why would he do something so stupid, if there was no benefit?

I don't know if he did. The NFL says he did and there is some circumstantial but hardly dispositive evidence. What I always found laughable was the idea that Brady destroying his phone was a problem. Hell, if I was a player and the NFL demanded my phone from me, I'd say "screw you" to them too. The last thing I'd do is trust the league to handle my phone properly. Destroying it solves that problem in a permanent way. One last point: Brady played better in the second half of that Indy playoff game than in the first half ...

Edited February 11, 2022 by dave mcbride

[ToGoGo]

37 minutes ago, dave mcbride said:

I don't know if he did. The NFL says he did and there is some circumstantial but hardly dispositive evidence. What I always found laughable was the idea that Brady destroying his phone was a problem. Hell, if I was a player and the NFL demanded my phone from me, I'd say "screw you" to them too. The last thing I'd do is trust the league to handle my phone properly. Destroying it solves that problem in a permanent way. One last point: Brady played better in the second half of that Indy playoff game than in the first half ...

 

See, to me, I can't just dismiss it. NFL teams don't make public accusations like that against the NFL's media darling unless they're sure. Look how much cheating was kept private over the years in regards to the Patriots. Remember McDermott escorting Belichick's son off the field?

 

As for Brady playing better in the second half, again I believe deflating is about reducing fumbles, so I always saw that argument as a red herring.

 

We'll have to agree to disagree. One thing I'll say though, that after looking fairly deeply at the data, in my opinion it is very naive to say that the deflating footballs to reduce fumbles argument is "stupid". It is very conceivable, and the timing from 2006 onwards is suspicious. And the data backs it up. 

[RyanC883]

On 2/9/2022 at 3:14 PM, dave mcbride said:

The lead fumbler on pretty much every team every year is the QB. Brady takes very few sacks and has always protected the ball. That's the key thing to know about their consistently low fumble rate. It's also extremely rare for him to take on of those ugly sacks where he gets blindsided and demolished. He's always known when to go down and to start turtling if necessary. He is the unquestioned GOAT, after all.

 or his OL gets away with holding

[P Riv]

If a 10% less inflated ball equals 20% less turn overs for your team in a copy cat league, everyone would have done it.  The whole thing was just plain silly and it still is... If it was important to the game, they would be testing the game balls at every game during halftime to this day.  

In Brady's case, we all know that he simply doesn't hold the ball long and gets rid of it as faster than just about anyone in the league.  He replaced Bledsoe, who we all saw here.  That guy ALWAYS held the ball too long like a statue back there and fumbled twice as much as Brady, which is probably why Hoodie let him go.  Hoodie also puts any player who fumbles in the dog house.  I remember when they had good players who sat the bench for a fumble weeks prior.  Then there was their Oline coach that was there forever.  That guy took late round projects and made them ProBowl players (sometimes).  So, take Hoodie's emphasis on taking care of the ball, the game plan and Brady's quick release, and then their O line play and you get way below the league average in fumbles.  That shows in the stats, not vice versa because of 10% less air in the ball.  Seriously...  

How or why exactly did the NFL even decide decades ago that 12.5 lbs of air was the standard?  As if they went into some real deep modern analytics?  lol

 

Edited February 17, 2022 by P Riv

[Bleeding Bills Blue]

Oh well... They covered up spygate to protect Kraft and Belichick.  Call it even.