Posted on 01/22/2015 9:56:26 AM PST by TangledUpInBlue
Belichick addressed the controversy for the first time Thursday morning and made a number of strong and precise comments that, if he isn't telling the truth, can be fairly easily contradicted or even proven completely false. If that were to happen, his reputation would be finished.
Instead he claimed ignorance, threw the controversy onto quarterback Tom Brady – who always should have been at the center of this – and willingly and purposefully put himself in a box.
Belichick repeatedly mentioned he believes current and former players or staff members – or anyone else – will confirm what he said. He all but asked NFL investigators and the media to go ask them.
This suggests what Belichick said was honest. He's a smart man – extremely smart – and even his greatest critics will concede that. Only a fool would say what he said if his comments were so easily disproved. This strategy would run against every bit of lawyerly advice.
So he didn't come out and just say, "No explanation," for how the Patriots' footballs wound up underinflated in the first half of their rout of the Colts.
He said he never heard a word of this until Monday morning – not from officials, not from staffers, not from the media.
(Excerpt) Read more at sports.yahoo.com ...
Shocked he claims....shocked there is cheating going on.
Hey Tom, while you’re under that bus, can you check the pressure on the tires and do a quick lube and oil job.
Looking forward to Belicheat losing his 3rd consecutive Super Bowl.
He’s lucky they completely embarrassed the Colts because if that game had been close, the NFL would be under some serious pressure to either a) vacate the win and send the Colts - or b) look into the nightmare of playing the game over.
BOTH....disasters.
If you look at his face and eyes when he says it, he comes across as believable. He does not look like a Clinton not having sex with that woman, and definitely lacks the aplomb of Obama in telling lies. The length of his comments weighs in his believability as well.
Since the people with custody of the footballs are all paid by the NFL and no one is discussing the bad NFL officiating any longer, I have to wonder...
These rotten cheating screwballs should be tossed from the Bowl, plain and simple. This is twice - New England couldn’t win by playing fair.
I don’t disagree. But they didn’t gain a 35 point advantage because of a few PSI.
http://www.boston.com/sports/football/patriots/2015/01/21/how-the-patriots-could-have-cheated-without-letting-air-out-the-ball/Eocm5m29nIlh0HRBjFWsYO/story.html
Cheating or innovation? Use your confirmation bias to decide.
Once a cheater, always a cheater.
have not heard a realistic explanation of how they would actually deflate the balls. the step by step possession of the balls makes that extremely unlikely and hard to do.
have heard an explanation that the balls pressure was measured at a much higher temperature, inside, than on the filed, and that may have caused some deviation.
the likelihood that someone, while standing not the sidelines during the game, deflated all the balls to exactly the same pressure, highly unlikely if not impossible.
Well it looks like Brady is the cheater now. Of course he’s just learning from his coach. So here’s my recommended punishment for the team:
1) One year suspension from the league starting today. So no super bowl for either of them.
2) They both must legally change their last name to Cheater
3) Tom Brady must divorce his wife
4) Tom Brady’s wife must go out with me at least 10 times. After the 10th date I will decide if we get married (no prenups allowed). She pays for all dates.
5) If we get married Tom Brady must be my best man and Bill Belichick must be the maid of honor.
Now that type of punishment will be a real deterrent to cheating. Let’s see if the NFL has the “balls” to go with my suggestion.
winning
They pay the ball handler to do it. Simple. As I understand it the home team controls the balls after they are inspected. They have ball boys of sorts that do it. The Bucs QB in the superbowl paid off one of the ball boys to scuff up the balls to make them easier to handle because he heard the superbowl balls are slick since they are brand new and no one gets to touch them before the game (except the ball boys).
Seriously? The temperature? And it effected 11 out of 12 of the Patriots balls but exactly ZERO of the Colts balls. All of which were under the control of the Referee until they were given to the ball boys and hit the field. Please....
Scuffing a ball is not against the rules. Never has been.
Never said it was. My point was it’s easy to do...just pay the ball boy to do it.
The ass kicking they gave Indy had nothing to do with deflated balls.
No actually it has been. At that point in SB history they used balls from the factory that went straight to the officials and teams weren’t allowed to modify them. The fact that Johnson had to bribe somebody to do it shows it was very much against the rules, if it was allowed he’d have done it himself. Teams modifying balls is relatively recent change that Peyton Manning and other campaigned for.
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