Tag Archives: Deflate-gate

Sports news

Brady probe needs independent judge

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Did I hear this correctly? National Football League Commissioner Roger Goodell — who administered the punishment against Tom Brady over the Deflate-gate matter — is now going to hear Brady’s appeal of the four-game suspension?

I am not going to defend the New England Patriots quarterback over this, but the NFL Players Association has a legitimate argument: Goodell should recuse himself and let an independent judge determine whether Brady’s four-game suspension stands.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nfl/with-tom-brady-appeal-ted-wells-could-be-defending-himself-again/ar-BBjMz4W

I’ve said all along the story is overblown. Perhaps the punishment is as well. The NFLPA says it is. Brady’s agent says so, too.

What’s even more interesting is that the report issued prior to the sanctions being leveled cleared the team and head coach Bill Belichick of any complicity in deflating the footballs prior to the AFC championship game — but then the league fined the Pats $1 million and took away two draft picks in year’s draft.

What’s up with that?

Brady, though, is getting hammered — hard — for hisĀ probable involvement in the football deflation.

Goodell should step aside in favor of an impartial judge who can look at this case without the bias that the commissioner has demonstrated already.

 

Sports news

Rice got two-game suspension; Brady gets four?

Let’s see if we can sort this out for just a moment.

The National Football League suspended former Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice for two games after a video showed him punching his then-fiancĆ©e — and now his wife — in the face, knocking her out cold in an Atlantic City, N.J. elevator. It then elevated the suspension to “indefinite” status, meaning he would be unable to play pro football in the NFL probably forever.

Rice then appealed his suspension and had it overturned by a federal court. The NFL sought to send a message that it wouldn’t tolerate domestic violence.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nfl/how-will-the-patriots-fare-without-tom-brady/ar-BBjFpZS

It’s the two-game initial suspension that got everyone up in arms. It wasn’t enough, they said.

Now we have New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady getting a four-game suspension. For what? An NFL report says he probably knew something about the deflating of footballs prior to last season’s AFC championship game, which the Pats won by 38 points. There’s been no proof that he did anything wrong. Just a lot of circumstantial stuff.

He’s out four games. Without pay.

The message here? I’m betting the NFL wants to say that it won’t tolerate cheating, so they’re going to make an example of an All-Universe athlete.

But have you noticed Brady’s public demeanor during all of this? He’s looked a bit smug, as if he’s not taking this very seriously.

As my late mother used to say when she scolded me, “Wipe that smirk offĀ your face or I’ll wipe it off for you!”

My hunch is that the NFL is seeking to wipe Brady’s smug look off his face.

Mission accomplished? I think so.

 

Sports news

Non-story about footballs becomes … a story

Man, oh man. I’ve been all over the pea patch on this “Deflate-gate” story.

I’m still believing the story has been overblown, overhyped and oversold as a “scandal.” Now the National Football League has suspended superstar New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady for four games next season, fined the Pats a million bucks and taken away two draft choices as punishment …

… for something that “probably” happened.

The “probably” is that Brady might have known something was going on when someone deflated those footballs prior to the AFC championship game the Patriots won by 38 points against the Indianapolis Colts. The deflated footballs were easier to throw and catch, supposedly, as if it mattered in a game that the Patriots won in such convincing fashion.

http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/12867594/punishments-handed-tom-brady-new-england-patriots-deflategate

I could see fining Brady a lot of money. He can afford to pay whatever the league would levy against him. I can see the team paying a fine. Suspension? Loss of draft picks? I don’t know.

I get that the league is trying to dissuade future cheaters from doing something improper. It’s sending a message of some sort around the NFL.

The NFL report alleging Brady’s “likely” complicity in the deflating matter is full of qualifiers that make it seem at best circumstantial. If only the league could prove what it has alleged, then I could accept the punishment as delivered.

Then again, if only Tom Brady had been more forceful in his previous denials about the matter, then I could believe fully that he did nothing wrong.

Still, I’m left wondering how this story got so huge in the first place.

 

Sports news

Reading Tom Brady's body language

My wife isn’t a football fan, per se.

She doesn’t care so much about the details of the game, or even the men who play it.

However, she’s an astute reader of body language. She’s told me this about New England all-Universe quarterback Tom Brady, who’s been accused of having general knowledge that someone deflated those footballs prior to the Patriots’ game with the Indianapolis Colts.

“He looks like someone who was spoiled by his mother and has gotten away with everything he’s ever done,” she said. Does that mean Mrs. Brady actually spoiled little Tommy, or that my wife has inside knowledge of such? No. She said only that he looks like the type. “All he has to do is smile,” she said.

That was her takeaway from Brady’s appearance the other day in which he refused to answer questions about the deflated football story that has a lot of NFL fans in a tizzy these days. He looked “too smug,” she said.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/2015/05/09/reality-not-looking-good-for-tom-brady-and-patriots/IGT3myWkYdZagI4FCzkHKJ/story.html

The rumor mill is churning out stuff about the National Football League getting ready to suspend Brady for at least part of the next football season. Some reports say he might have to sit the entire season out if NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell decides to drop the hammer.

I don’t particularly care one way or the other whether Brady sits or plays. I don’t think there’s that much of a story there about what Brady knew about the balls’ air pressure and when he knew it. I mean, the Patriots clobbered the Colts that day.

However, if my wife’s intuition is correct — and she is the very definition of “woman’s intuition” — then the all-world QB is likely to receive the shock of his life when the NFL commissioner decides to punish him for breaking a simple rule.

 

 

Sports news

Thanks, Tom, for keeping 'Deflate-gate' alive

Oh, I was so hoping Tom Brady could take the air out of the Deflate-gate story today.

The New England Patriots quarterback didn’t deliver. Instead, he kept this non-story buzzing by refusing to discuss it in front a friendly crowd gathered at a long-ago-scheduled public appearance.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/other/tom-brady-declines-to-go-into-detail-on-wells-report-deflategate/ar-BBjosTF

He came into the hall packed with about 4,000 cheering fans and then declined to say anything about the NFL report that says he “probably” knew something about the footballs that were underinflated prior to the Patriots’ rout of the Indy Colts in the AFC championship football game.

There’s no proof that Brady did anything wrong. No proof that he “cheated.” Nothing that says he watched some mysterious individual deflate the balls to make them more catchable and throwable.

He didn’t deny doing anything wrong. He didn’t say anything.

The story won’t disappear, even though it should.

We can thank Tom Brady’s tight lips for keeping it alive and kicking.

 

Sports news

Deflate-gate non-story re-emerges

Count me as someone who believes the New England Patriots’ “deflate-gate” story is, well, a non-story.

You also can count me as someone who doesn’t believe all-world quarterback Tom Brady should face any serious punishment for what he might have known about the balls that were deflated prior to the Patriots’ blowout win over the Indianapolis Colts in last year’s AFC championship football game.

http://espn.go.com/boston/nfl/story/_/id/12839315/tom-brady-agent-says-wells-report-significant-terrible-disappointment

The NFL lawyer who looked into this mess has determined that head coach Bill Belichick didn’t know anything about the balls. Nor did team owner Robert Kraft.

Brady, on the other hand, “probably” knew that some hanky-panky was going on with the balls, that someone was letting some of the air out of them to make them easier to catch and handle.

Probably knew?

That’s proof of anything? Hardly.

The only way this matter becomes relevant to anything is if the Patriots had won the game on a last-second hail Mary pass that Brady would have thrown to a receiver who couldn’t have held on to a properly inflated football.

That didn’t happen. The Patriots blew the Colts away. As someone once wrote, the Patriots would have won playing with beach balls.

I won’t get into the nuts and bolts of whether Brady should be suspended or fined or both.

Whatever happened to those footballs prior to the AFC championship game had no bearing on the outcome.

There. End of story? Oh, probably not.

Sports news

It all came down to one great football game

The hype didn’t matter. The controversy was reduced to a bit player. The TV commercials were amusing, more or less.

What actually mattered to real football fans Sunday night was that two very good professional teams played their guts out and produced a game worthy of the name — Super Bowl.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nfl/new-england-patriots-at-seattle-seahawks/game-center/sp-id-10401000001421883

The New England Patriots emerged victorious over the defending National Football League champion Seattle Seahawks. The game’s outstanding player, Patriot quarterback Tom Brady, simply cemented his place — as if it needed cementing — in pro football’s Hall of Fame, whenever he becomes eligible.

The so-called “Deflate-gate” kerfuffle that erupted after the Patriots won the AFC championship still hangs out there, somewhere. The NFL is going to investigate it. Perhaps the league will determine who took the air out of those footballs to make them more catchable for Brady’s receivers and running backs. It didn’t matter for this game. The principal Patriots — starting with head coach Bill Belichick and QB Tom Brady — say they didn’t tamper with the footballs. They’ve said so categorically and unequivocally. End of story? Not quite.

The better team on Sunday won the Big Game.

It’s a good thing it wasn’t a blowout, or that it ended with a questionable officiating call on the field. A blowout would have reduced the TV announcers to blathering on and about the deflated football matter. A questionable call would have detracted from the game being played.

Instead, we got a great football game to end a wild and topsy-turvy season.

That’s how it’s supposed to go.

Sports news

Let's change the subject; enough 'Deflate-gate'

Will someone out there please put a cork on this football inflating matter?

Please, pretty please?

New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick held a press conference today. A young friend of mine here in Amarillo — a dedicated Pats fan — said he thinks the coach “put an end to it today” with his presser.

Man, I hope so.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nfl/bill-belichick-is-angry-he-spent-a-week-studying-balls/ar-AA8xVva

Belichick says the Patriots followed “every rule” with regard to the footballs, which have become the subject of ongoing controversy and commentary — yes, including here. Someone ratted out the Patriots after they smashed the Indy Colts in the AFC championship game, saying the balls were under-inflated, which reportedly made them easier to catch in the cold, rainy weather in Foxboro, Mass.

Whatever.

The story is growing more legs than a centipede. I’m waiting now for the conspiracy theories to start hatching. Bet on it, once they do and they start getting lives of their own, this story will never die. Ever.

My solution is a simple one. The National Football League should take responsibility for inflating the balls. Inflate them identically. Pay no attention whatever the quarterback wants. Tell eachĀ QB, “Here’s the ball, buster. Take it or leave it.” Give each team their allotment of footballs as they are taking the field for their pre-game drills. And do not let anyone other than the players — and officials, of course — touch ’em before, during or after the game.

Now, let’s get ready to play the Super Bowl.

 

Sports news

Media love "Deflate-gate"

Howard Kurtz, savvy media critique that he is, has posited the theory that the media are hyping up the “scandal” involving deflated footballs and whether the New England Patriots cheated their way into the Super Bowl because, well, it’s good for ratings.

Writing on FoxNews.com, Kurtz wonders precisely why the media have become fixated with this story. The Patriots, after all, clobbered the Indianapolis Colts in the AFC championship game this past weekend. The notion that they purposely deflated footballs to make them more catchable had zero bearing on the outcome of the game, according to Kurtz.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/01/23/deflate-gate-why-media-are-overinflating-football-flap/?cmpid=cmty_twitter_fn

The media might start concocting conspiracy theories any moment now and might start ascribing all kinds of evil intent on the Patriots.

Kurtz has one idea on what might be driving this media interest. He writes: “Much of the sports media canā€™t stand Bill Belichick, the Patriots coach. He openly treats reporters with disdain. Heā€™s become a symbol, fairly or unfairly, of sports arrogance and immorality.”

What’s more, as Kurtz says: “At his presser yesterday, Belichick looked nervous, defensive, ticked off to be there, as if he were undergoing a root canal. When he got done with a halting monologue denying any knowledge of ball tampering, he gave one-sentence answers to a few questions and cut it off.

“Every good scandal story needs a villain, and Belichick is it — especially because he was fined $500,000 in the 2007 Spygate incident, where the Pats secretly videotaped the Jetsā€™ defensive coachesā€™ signals.”

In the grand scheme of serious public policy issues, this one ranks — oh, I don’t know — perhaps nowhere.

But it does involve entertainment celebrities, aka known as highly compensated professional football players.

It’s all too bad. My fear now is that with the Super Bowl now barely more than a week away and with all the pregame hyped planned prior to the game, the media are going to overlook what could be an exciting sporting event between two talented football teams.

Instead, they’ll seek to solve the mystery of, “Who in the hell deflated those footballs?”

 

Sports news

'Deflate-gate' turns into media monster

How is it that some stories that seem relatively inconsequential at the beginning turn into major headline events and the top subject of every cable news-talk show in America?

Welcome to the era of “Deflate-gate.” Good bleeping grief!

http://espn.go.com/boston/nfl/story/_/id/12212777/tom-brady-new-england-patriots-says-alter-footballs

New England Patriots head football coach Bill Belichik has issued a oh-so-precise denial of any wrongdoing. He says he did not know of the dozen footballs assigned for his team’s use being tampered with, or know who might have deflated the balls to make them more catchable.

OK. What about the quarterback, Tom Brady? What did he know and when did he know it? Brady says he knows nothing about any funny business prior to — or during — the Patriots’ 45-7 rout of the Indianapolis Colts to win the AFC championship and a trip to the Super Bowl to play the NFC champion Seattle Seahawks. It’s been kind of fun listening to the sports talking heads come up with different analogies to describe how badly the Patriots beat the Colts. “They could have beaten them throwing … ” oh, beach balls, water balloons, Frisbees, whatever.

All these denials, buck-passing and admissions of ignorance are simply fueling speculation that someone — the coach, the QB, the equipment manager, the center, the officiating crew — knows something that they aren’t revealing.

Brady said something Thursday about how much air pressure he prefers to have in the football he throws. No word, yet, aboutĀ the PSI preferences of Russell Wilson, the Seattle quarterback.

Here’ a thought. Why not simplyĀ require the National Football League to inflate every football to precisely the same air pressure, give each team their allotted number of game balls — just before they take the field for their pre-game drills — and tell the players, “All right fellas, here are the balls. Go out there,Ā play your guts out and may be theĀ better team win”?

Do not leave this matterĀ in the hands of the principals who will play the game.

I’m beginning to sense a conspiracy theory in the making, one that willĀ become a monster thatĀ will neverĀ die. Not ever.