Re: No Faith in the Moral Standards of the Players as a Group
 

Prosecutors can't use prior convictions for the same type of conduct where you live?

I'm a little overwhelmed by all the research you all are doing into this, and not going to dive into the weeds with you. I like the Patriots. But they've been caught cheating twice in recent years -- that's not a presumption, that's finding (so, really, my rhetorical question could well have been "Judges don't consider the conviction at sentencing where you live?" But that would have been opaque.)

TM is very, very animated about this -- as he is (and many others are) about many things on this board, including seemingly all sports-related things (including sports he doesn't particularly like -- I miss the "I don't like soccer but let's debate the offsides rule" days, personally). Doesn't mean he's not actually right.

Re: No Faith in the Moral Standards of the Players as a Group
 

I'll grant you that both of these are possible.

Do you believe they are equally possible?

I'm honestly curious. I don't plan to read the entire whatshisname report, but I believe it reached the conclusion that the former is more likely than the latter, and I don't see a good reason to reject that conclusion.

Re: No Faith in the Moral Standards of the Players as a Group
 

Look, just because you are fighting with these guys does not mean you shouldn't be posting near-naked women today. We all have roles to fill, my good man.

Just Wondering
 

If I said that Belicheck, by cheating -- or, if you like, by getting to the very edge of the rules and maybe occasionally going past them, but only in an itty-bitty way -- and not really getting punished, had created an atmosphere where his players seem to think they can get away with murder, would that be in poor taste?

Re: No Faith in the Moral Standards of the Players as a Group
 

Filming and deflating balls are the same conduct? And Belichick and Brady are the same defendant?

And if you want to talk about sentencing/punishment, fine. But that was neither Ty's nor my point.

Re: No Faith in the Moral Standards of the Players as a Group
 

Not hard at all. According to the report, they were tested by two officials at the same time at halftime. One official found that all of the Patriots' balls, except one, were under 12 psi and 7 of them were almost a full psi below regulation. The other official found every single ball under 12 psi, 5 of which were more than 1.5 psi below regulation, and the rest at or around a full psi below regulation.

You also left out the part that says "...the reduction in pressure of the Patriots game balls cannot be explained completely by basic scientific principles..." And the part that says the difference in pressure drop for Patriots balls exceed the average pressure drop of the Colts balls by ~.5 to 1 psi, which the scientific experts deemed statistically significant. I won't even go into the list of factors their experts ruled out as a cause of the differences.

Pesky facts getting in the way.

TM

Re: No Faith in the Moral Standards of the Players as a Group
 

No, but they are the same type of conduct. Which is why I said "the same type of conduct" in my post. Sorry if that was confusing.


No, but since your post said "The Patriots were long ago established as cheaters...." I thought we were talking about the team collectively, not any individual. Sorry if I was confused.

Re: No Faith in the Moral Standards of the Players as a Group
 

You mean like assault and bank theft are both crimes, and thus also the same type of conduct?

Re: Crimson and Clover
 

Look, the Pats are the home team, and rah rah and all that, but, ah, did you notice today that Jeb finally admitted his brother made a wee mistake in Iraq? There are times you throw in the towel. Sometimes, you just take the hit. Let the fat lady sing. It's over.

Re: No Faith in the Moral Standards of the Players as a Group
 

And this, as well as the report, conveniently ignores the fact that Walt Anderson recalls he used a pressure gauge that provides higher readings than the one used to get the lower set of measurements. And that if one uses only the higher set of measurements from halftime (i.e., those using the same gauge that Anderson recalls using to test the balls pregame) then the pressures measured all fall within the range that would be expected based on the ideal gas law.

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com...e-of-evidence/

Pesky facts indeed.

Re: No Faith in the Moral Standards of the Players as a Group
 

Way more into soccer. Watch with my daughter, who is a goalie, all the time. I like it much more, but I still can't fucking stand the flopping. If you catch me on facebook, I'm the exact same way about basketball and that's a sport I know and love. Used to love Griffin and Paul, but now I can't stand them because of the flopping. And don't get me started on Harden.

But I don't understand why one can't discuss a rule that I don't understand. As far as I can tell, the only responses I got were of the "it prevents players from camping out on one end of the field," variety. When I asked why that's a concern since the other team could either take an advantage of one fewer player against them on defense or leave a player back to guard against cherry-picking, all I heard was silence. I've since researched it a bit and spoken to people who actually understand the game and apparently, the rule is supposed to protect the beauty of the perfectly-timed pass. Makes sense, I guess. I still think if you removed the rule, there would be more (or maybe different, to be fair) strategy. If it turned into one team dumping the ball into the other team's end--similar to hockey--that would ruin it.

TM

Top 20
 

Take it easy.

http://www.lawtalkers.com/forums/sho...postcount=3326

http://www.lawtalkers.com/forums/sho...postcount=3327

http://www.lawtalkers.com/forums/sho...postcount=3328

http://www.lawtalkers.com/forums/sho...postcount=3329

TM

Re: No Faith in the Moral Standards of the Players as a Group
 

I didn't say we can't discuss that rule. I honestly enjoyed that discussion.

But, I think I realized the true answer sometime after the discussion ended.

The offsides rule does not apply on a corner kick. On a corner kick, the players all jam up in front of the goal, and everyone jumps around hoping to get a lucky tip into the goal. Sometimes you see beautiful scoring plays off a corner kick, but more often it's a lot of junky hits on the ball, and the goalie really can't do anything but try to punch the ball -- no playing angles, no coordinating the defense, nothing.

Imagine every offensive play allowing for that -- players running just to get into the box, or hanging back on offense so that they can run back, and the offense reduced to "just kick the ball really hard towards to goal and hope someone manages to pop it in". I think you'd get a higher-scoring game, but one that was essentially a series of "corner" kicks -- with the corner being whatever midfield point where a player thought "I have enough teammates in the box to take a shot and hope for the best."

You would lose all of the passing and technique that is designed to open up the defense (but that, I acknowledge, in the hands of some teams becomes boring as paste, e.g. Greece).

Re: No Faith in the Moral Standards of the Players as a Group
 

Dissent. It's a basic tenent of patent law that one can be one's own lexicographer. If I go to that trouble I expect to own the new word.

Re: No Faith in the Moral Standards of the Players as a Group
 

I think you're reaching for fucking straws. Brady likes a deflated ball and apparently demands them and even lobbied the league to allow for them. The Colts suspected the Patriots of deflating balls. The actual measurements of the balls shows they were unnaturally deflated (unless you want to rely on someone's recollection about which gauge he may or may not have used). The Patriots attendant took the balls into the bathroom and then lied about it. The text messages between Patriots staffers refer to the guy who has been accused of deflating footballs illegally as "the deflator." Those same text messages talk about the reward he'll get for deflating footballs.

If you want to think the whole thing turns on this article's findings and everything else amounts to a caaaarazy coincidence, then knock yourself out.

TM