The NFL Thread

Perhaps they're making up for Spygate?

I think it's perfectly fair. The punishment for another notable form of cheating (performance enhancing drugs) is also a four game suspension, and I think it's perfectly fair to match the punishment of one method to gain an illegal advantage to another. Combine that with the fact that the team has a bit of a history of out-of-the-box cheating. As for the penalties being harsher than Spygate, that also makes sense. The Patriots decided to cheat again. Clearly they didn't learn their lesson after last time, so harsher penalties are needed. That being said, I strongly suspect the league will chicken out, and I even more strongly suspect that the Patriots coaching staff will think cheating was worth it anyway whether or not the league backs off.

I still don't think it was worth the suspension AND the fine AND not one but TWO draft picks. One of those? Of course. They got caught cheating, sure, no matter how much of a Felony Misdemeanor it is (remember, the Patriots played better with the normally-inflated balls). I just think the punishment as a whole is excessive.

I should probably shut up now.

I don't care what anyone says, I don't like Belichick, and I don't like Brady. I don't want to say that I'm glad that they got hit so hard, but...mneh.

So, I read the reports on the rookie minicamp so far, and apparently Manziel is making good progress.

You seem to be treating this like it was a thing that just happened in the Colts game. There's a good deal of evidence (admittedly circumstantial) that suggests this probably isn't the case. Perhaps I should back up and tell the full story.

In 2007, the NFL instituted a rule change allowing all teams to provide the balls that they used on offense. Prior to this point, the home team provided all game balls. The primary lobbyist in support of this rule? Tom Brady.

Prior to this point, the New England Patriots, as a team, had a fumble rate near the league average. Immediately after this rule was passed, their fumble rate dropped to the lowest in the league by a fair bit. This is despite the fact that they play home games outdoors in a cold climate, both factors that normally increase fumble rate. Their fumble rate has stayed at this seemingly improbably low level since then. While it is theoretically possible that it is just a coincidence, the probabilities involved are so small as to be negligible. This suggests that something happened in 2007 to decrease the Patriots' fumble rates.

Now, there are a lot of things other than cheating that could decrease a team's fumble rates. Perhaps Belichick simply put an emphasis on signing players that didn't fumble. Perhaps the Patriots came up with some new method of coaching ball security. The problem is that the evidence doesn't support those explanations. As for the player selection explanation, the players who played for the Patriots during that time frame had substantially higher fumble rates when playing for teams other than the Patriots than when playing for the Patriots. This goes both ways, so a player going from another team to the Patriots would see his fumble rate drop, while a player going from the Patriots to another team would see his fumble rate increase. However, what's particularly interesting is that players who went from a non-Patriots team to the Patriots, and then to another non-Patriots team tended to have higher fumble rates in their post-Patriots career than in their pre-Patriots career, meaning that anything the Patriots did to improve ball security had nothing to do with teaching their players skills that would stick with them.

In other words, it seems rather unlikely that under-inflated balls is a thing that only happened in the Colts game. The only truly concerning thing about this mess is that the league did not catch them sooner.

I'm with Kap on this one: no football in the world is going to help you win by 38

Seahawks defensive tackle Jessie Williams seems to have the worst luck of anyone in the league. He missed his first two seasons due to knee injuries, and now he has cancer. Poor guy.

Poor guy, indeed.

...hell, what do I even say here now without making it sound like some asshole changing the subject?

I guess I will.

After being convicted for domestic violence charges for the third time within two years, the Bears, in a move that surprised no one, announced the release of former San Francisco defensive lineman Ray Mc Donald.

Good for them. There needs to be a crackdown on domestic violence in football.

...heh, it seems like we talk about the drama surrounding football more than the actual sport, huh?

it's the offseason

Exactly. It's the part of the year where there's no football stuff to talk about. If we didn't talk about drama, our only options are talking about things that happened some time ago, or speculating.

or just periodic updates on how my madden team is doing

my defensive line is basically composed of JJ Watt and Justin Smith—one ridiculously athletic white dude I move to whatever position I feel like and one gigantic bullrushing cowboy—and they both have 14 sacks each by game 14.

Unfortunately I could not afford to keep Aldon Smith, so I don't have the scariest rushing attack in the history of football.

Also apparently Colin Kaepernick will be the best quarterback in the league by 2020, and in 2021 he will sign with the Seahawks and become average. Also the Rams stop being "they'll totally be scary this year" and actually become a nightmare to play against.

The Texans have been selected as the tenth team to be on HBO's Hard Knocks.

The landslide of 49er retirements continues, as Right tackle Anthony Davis announces his "temporary" (we'll see if he comes back eventually or not) retirement from the NFL.

hahahahahahaholdme

And Punter Andy Lee of the 49er's has been traded to the Cleveland Browns.

I'm seriously unsure if San Fran will even be able to field a team by the time this ends.

BREAKING: Frantic, Desperate 49ers Name Cheech Marin, Joanna Newsom Members of Defensive Line

I love Lee, but he was due to make 2.5 mil this year and 3.5 next, and we drafted a punter in the fifth. This one is one of the few that seems to have been planned out.

I've noticed that LeSean McCoy has kept awfully quiet about Evan Mathis being released.

edited 12th Jun '15 1:02:42 AM by NoChorus

Figure it's newsworthy to doublepost over.

Had a bad Fourth of July? It probably can't compare to Giants DE Jason Pierre-Paul, after ESPN obtained medical charts that show that he had his right index finger amputated today.

Or UDFA C.J Wilson, who also suffered a severe hand injury in a July 4th fireworks accident.

edited 8th Jul '15 4:17:51 PM by NoChorus

How the fuck did ESPN get access to those records? That is such a blatant HIPAA violation I can't even. Someone's about to be fired, I bet.

I don't think a random ESPN intern can waltz in and look at medical files, so whichever hospital worker helped him is completely fucked.

Welp, if you haven't heard by now, the NFL has decided to uphold Brady's 4-game suspension. They cited the fact that Brady was willing to destroy his phone as reason why.

The NFLPA has planned to appeal this "outrageous decision" on behalf of Tom Brady, which in turn resulted in the NFL asking the federal court to confirm the suspension.

Interestingly, Brady screwed himself out of getting a lighter deal. But the fact that Goodell was willing to negotiate and lessen the ban if Brady admitted to it reflects more poorly on him than Brady, because if I am the NFL commisioner, admitting to that is something that is non fucking negotiable.

TL;DR: Whether you like or not DeflateGate will be overly discussed by the media for a little while longer.

edited 28th Jul '15 2:56:16 PM by NoChorus

I can't help laughing at Robert Kraft.

NFL: The punishments for the Patriots and for Tom Brady are completely separate and the processes for one will not affect the other. We want to make this very clear.

Kraft: I thought that by not appealing our punishment, I could help get Tom off easier.

Read: I didn't think Goodell was being honest! I'm, like, his best friend! How dare he!