#DeflateGate (Court of Appeals Reinstates Suspension)

[Vermont Green]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/the-nfls-basic-due-process-is-the-real-issue-in-the-deflategate-controversy/2015/07/30/ebda3b02-3666-11e5-9d0f-7865a67390ee_story.html

About that exploding cellphone. You know, the one NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell seems to think belonged to Machine Gun Kelly and was used in the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby, as well as the Krupp diamond theft. The one that Ted Wells said he didn’t want or need to complete his investigation into DeflateGate. The one the NFL’s own investigator said wasn’t necessary to the case.

That one.

Wells never asked for Tom Brady’s cellphone and didn’t require it. “Keep the phone,” Wells told Brady and his agent. He insisted his investigation was thorough without it. “I don’t think it undermines in any way the conclusions of the report,” he said. Those were his exact words. So were these, after interrogating Brady for more than five hours: “Totally cooperative,” Wells said of Brady’s testimony.

Yet somehow Goodell found Brady guilty of lack of cooperation and willful destruction of evidence on appeal, all because he upgraded to an iPhone 6?

  They didn't ask Brady for the phone, they asked him for any texts and emails on his phone related to the inquiry. Brady didn't provide that information, and destroyed his phone so that information would be irretrievable.

I find the whole phone thing very confusing and I am definitely leaning towards the conclusion that it is an NFL smoke screen.  If these statements from Sally Jenkins are actually true and the investigator in the case actually said that I don't need his phone and he was totally cooperative, how on earth is this even still a story?

Second, I have long been of the understanding that there are at least two ends of every text (some texts have more).   So they had the phones of the employees who allegedly did the dirty work but there were no texts from Brady so what is the story?

The third considerations seems to be the idea that texts can be deleted so having the employees' phones may not have all the evidence but Brady can delete texts too.  But the employees didn't delete the crazy deflator texts but did delete the texts from Brady?  I don't know that there is anything at the end of this line of thinking.

Bottom line, if Sally Jenkins is correct in her reporting about Well's statements about the phone and the cooperation, the league has nothing.  NOTHING.  No proof that the balls were even tampered with and nothing to substantiate the Brady didn't cooperate.

All the NFL has is cryptic texts between ball attendants months ago and a guy going to the bathroom on game day.  Both could be interpreted to be incriminating or could be easily explained but in now way is either proof.  What the Pats/Brady have is a long line of false leaks by the NFL and a clear pattern of deception.

[BballTim]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/the-nfls-basic-due-process-is-the-real-issue-in-the-deflategate-controversy/2015/07/30/ebda3b02-3666-11e5-9d0f-7865a67390ee_story.html

About that exploding cellphone. You know, the one NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell seems to think belonged to Machine Gun Kelly and was used in the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby, as well as the Krupp diamond theft. The one that Ted Wells said he didn’t want or need to complete his investigation into DeflateGate. The one the NFL’s own investigator said wasn’t necessary to the case.

That one.

Wells never asked for Tom Brady’s cellphone and didn’t require it. “Keep the phone,” Wells told Brady and his agent. He insisted his investigation was thorough without it. “I don’t think it undermines in any way the conclusions of the report,” he said. Those were his exact words. So were these, after interrogating Brady for more than five hours: “Totally cooperative,” Wells said of Brady’s testimony.

Yet somehow Goodell found Brady guilty of lack of cooperation and willful destruction of evidence on appeal, all because he upgraded to an iPhone 6?

  They didn't ask Brady for the phone, they asked him for any texts and emails on his phone related to the inquiry. Brady didn't provide that information, and destroyed his phone so that information would be irretrievable.

Not true. They had the phones of all non nflpa patriots employees who would have been on the receiving end of those texts and emails.  Unfortunately for the nfl none existed

  They had some phones, which may or may not be all the phones Brady texted, and may or may not have deleted some of the texts.

  In any case, they asked Brady to provide them with some texts and emails from his phone. Not only did he not comply with the request, he destroyed his phone and the texts and emails on it.

[BudweiserCeltic]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/the-nfls-basic-due-process-is-the-real-issue-in-the-deflategate-controversy/2015/07/30/ebda3b02-3666-11e5-9d0f-7865a67390ee_story.html

About that exploding cellphone. You know, the one NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell seems to think belonged to Machine Gun Kelly and was used in the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby, as well as the Krupp diamond theft. The one that Ted Wells said he didn’t want or need to complete his investigation into DeflateGate. The one the NFL’s own investigator said wasn’t necessary to the case.

That one.

Wells never asked for Tom Brady’s cellphone and didn’t require it. “Keep the phone,” Wells told Brady and his agent. He insisted his investigation was thorough without it. “I don’t think it undermines in any way the conclusions of the report,” he said. Those were his exact words. So were these, after interrogating Brady for more than five hours: “Totally cooperative,” Wells said of Brady’s testimony.

Yet somehow Goodell found Brady guilty of lack of cooperation and willful destruction of evidence on appeal, all because he upgraded to an iPhone 6?

  They didn't ask Brady for the phone, they asked him for any texts and emails on his phone related to the inquiry. Brady didn't provide that information, and destroyed his phone so that information would be irretrievable.

Not true. They had the phones of all non nflpa patriots employees who would have been on the receiving end of those texts and emails.  Unfortunately for the nfl none existed

  They had some phones, which may or may not be all the phones Brady texted, and may or may not have deleted some of the texts.

  In any case, they asked Brady to provide them with some texts and emails from his phone. Not only did he not comply with the request, he destroyed his phone and the texts and emails on it.

And? Even IF all that's true... AND?

I don't know in what world you guys think it's OK for the NFL to have access to any private information a player has on their cell-phone/emails.

It's really ridiculous, and if for you that's sign of guilt so be it... but you've been taken by the NFL Irrelevant Propaganda and it's sad to see.

And to clarify something I read previously in this thread about social media passwords... it's illegal for employers to request that from their employee, just a little tangent on that (last I recalled).

If Brady didn't want to give up his cell-phone (which the investigator said wasn't needed), his texts (which we don't know what was provided or not), his emails, all the while found by the investigator to be cooperative... whether guilty or not of an event that hasn't been proved to have occurred in the first place, I don't know what the big deal is... other than optics.

[Rondo2287]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/the-nfls-basic-due-process-is-the-real-issue-in-the-deflategate-controversy/2015/07/30/ebda3b02-3666-11e5-9d0f-7865a67390ee_story.html

About that exploding cellphone. You know, the one NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell seems to think belonged to Machine Gun Kelly and was used in the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby, as well as the Krupp diamond theft. The one that Ted Wells said he didn’t want or need to complete his investigation into DeflateGate. The one the NFL’s own investigator said wasn’t necessary to the case.

That one.

Wells never asked for Tom Brady’s cellphone and didn’t require it. “Keep the phone,” Wells told Brady and his agent. He insisted his investigation was thorough without it. “I don’t think it undermines in any way the conclusions of the report,” he said. Those were his exact words. So were these, after interrogating Brady for more than five hours: “Totally cooperative,” Wells said of Brady’s testimony.

Yet somehow Goodell found Brady guilty of lack of cooperation and willful destruction of evidence on appeal, all because he upgraded to an iPhone 6?

  They didn't ask Brady for the phone, they asked him for any texts and emails on his phone related to the inquiry. Brady didn't provide that information, and destroyed his phone so that information would be irretrievable.

Not true. They had the phones of all non nflpa patriots employees who would have been on the receiving end of those texts and emails.  Unfortunately for the nfl none existed

  They had some phones, which may or may not be all the phones Brady texted, and may or may not have deleted some of the texts.

  In any case, they asked Brady to provide them with some texts and emails from his phone. Not only did he not comply with the request, he destroyed his phone and the texts and emails on it.

According to Brady's lawyers they provided the phone records which prove that all outgoing communications to non NFLPA employees of the patriots had already been provided.   

[hpantazo]

Months and months into this thing, I believe it is clear that the NFL has accomplished their main goal. No one is talking about NFL players that beat women or have long term brain damage from concussions anymore.

[PhoSita]

Months and months into this thing, I believe it is clear that the NFL has accomplished their main goal. No one is talking about NFL players that beat women or have long term brain damage from concussions anymore.

Yep.  Goodell was smart to make a big deal about going after the most polarizing team in the league.  Even when he inevitably acts like a buffoon, contradicts himself, abuses his position, makes the NFL look like a joke, and so on, there are still tons of fans willing to overlook all that because they hate the Patriots and are just so excited to see them branded as cheaters and get punished severely.

[D.o.s.]

I mentioned it a few pages back -- Brady and Greg Hardy are serving the same suspension, which is exactly how the NFL likes it.

[rocknrollforyoursoul]

Months and months into this thing, I believe it is clear that the NFL has accomplished their main goal. No one is talking about NFL players that beat women or have long term brain damage from concussions anymore.

Yep.  Goodell was smart to make a big deal about going after the most polarizing team in the league.  Even when he inevitably acts like a buffoon, contradicts himself, abuses his position, makes the NFL look like a joke, and so on, there are still tons of fans willing to overlook all that because they hate the Patriots and are just so excited to see them branded as cheaters and get punished severely.

That's why it's gonna be extra awesome when the Pats win the Super Bowl again this season.

[BballTim]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/the-nfls-basic-due-process-is-the-real-issue-in-the-deflategate-controversy/2015/07/30/ebda3b02-3666-11e5-9d0f-7865a67390ee_story.html

About that exploding cellphone. You know, the one NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell seems to think belonged to Machine Gun Kelly and was used in the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby, as well as the Krupp diamond theft. The one that Ted Wells said he didn’t want or need to complete his investigation into DeflateGate. The one the NFL’s own investigator said wasn’t necessary to the case.

That one.

Wells never asked for Tom Brady’s cellphone and didn’t require it. “Keep the phone,” Wells told Brady and his agent. He insisted his investigation was thorough without it. “I don’t think it undermines in any way the conclusions of the report,” he said. Those were his exact words. So were these, after interrogating Brady for more than five hours: “Totally cooperative,” Wells said of Brady’s testimony.

Yet somehow Goodell found Brady guilty of lack of cooperation and willful destruction of evidence on appeal, all because he upgraded to an iPhone 6?

  They didn't ask Brady for the phone, they asked him for any texts and emails on his phone related to the inquiry. Brady didn't provide that information, and destroyed his phone so that information would be irretrievable.

Not true. They had the phones of all non nflpa patriots employees who would have been on the receiving end of those texts and emails.  Unfortunately for the nfl none existed

  They had some phones, which may or may not be all the phones Brady texted, and may or may not have deleted some of the texts.

  In any case, they asked Brady to provide them with some texts and emails from his phone. Not only did he not comply with the request, he destroyed his phone and the texts and emails on it.

And? Even IF all that's true... AND?

I don't know in what world you guys think it's OK for the NFL to have access to any private information a player has on their cell-phone/emails.

It's really ridiculous, and if for you that's sign of guilt so be it... but you've been taken by the NFL Irrelevant Propaganda and it's sad to see.

And to clarify something I read previously in this thread about social media passwords... it's illegal for employers to request that from their employee, just a little tangent on that (last I recalled).

If Brady didn't want to give up his cell-phone (which the investigator said wasn't needed), his texts (which we don't know what was provided or not), his emails, all the while found by the investigator to be cooperative... whether guilty or not of an event that hasn't been proved to have occurred in the first place, I don't know what the big deal is... other than optics.

  I don't know enough about the nfl's cba to know whether or not the league has any right to ask players for information or to punish them if they fail to comply with investigations. Apparently the league feels that it had those rights. We'll soon find out if the courts agree.

  I also don't think that it's universally true that it's illegal for employers to ask employees for social media passwords, more likely illegal in some states.

[tarheelsxxiii]

Months and months into this thing, I believe it is clear that the NFL has accomplished their main goal. No one is talking about NFL players that beat women or have long term brain damage from concussions anymore.

Great point. Sad, but true.

[colincb]

See item 3 below and the underlined sentence in particular. Peter King says NFL execs are not as united on this as their public utterings make it seem. No surprise really, but the primary media outlet for sports cannot ask simple questions like King did to come up with a more nuanced picture.

I am sick of the way that ESPN has been the mouthpiece for the NFL on this. ESPN knew the initial piece was BS when the Wells Report itself discredited it. They did not have to wait for permission to retract the story. There’s been too much overlooking of the obvious here and too much of having clowns like Bill Polian, Mark Brunell et al, and too much one-sided reporting. They have their noses so far up the NFL’s behind in the hopes of getting more games, that any pretense of journalistic integrity has been exposed.

http://mmqb.si.com/mmqb/2015/08/02/nfl-training-camp-bruce-dehaven-cancer-carolina-panthers

Brady vs. Goodell, still.

The affirmation of Tom Brady’s four-game suspension by the NFL leaves these issues in the wake:

1. Both sides want a resolution by opening day. With the presiding judge in the case, U.S. District Judge Richard Berman, ordering that Brady and commissioner Roger Goodell be available to appear at pre-trial conferences in New York on Aug. 12 and 19, it’s clear that he, and both sides, will push to resolve this by the Sept. 10 league opener. Berman asked the attorneys to push for a resolution before Aug. 12, but both Goodell and attorneys for Brady feel their cases are solid, so don’t look for any concessions in the next nine days.

2. Good for the Patriots, publishing some emails to the league last winter, asking the league to clamp down on the leaks to ESPN (at least one patently false) and getting nothing in return. I find it alarming that the league has never acknowledged that the letter informing the Patriots of the official investigation the day after the AFC title game had a major fact error that was never corrected. The letter from NFL vice president David Gardi said that one of the Patriots’ footballs examined by the league at halftime of the game “was inflated to 10.1 psi, far below the requirement of 12-1/2 to 13-1?2 psi. In contrast, each of the Colts’ game balls that was inspected met the requirements set forth above.” Huge errors. The Ted Wells Report confirmed that no football measured as low as 10.1 of the Patriots’ balls. Gardi said the Colts’ balls measured within the range required. The Wells Reports said three of them were under the minimum of 12.5 psi. Never corrected. Why? Similarly, when ESPN reported that 10 New England balls were at least two pounds under the limit measured at halftime, the league never corrected that error. What is most damaging about this is that these impressions were left as facts, particularly the ESPN claim, for a long period, allowing the public to be convinced the Patriots were guilty. Maybe that will turn out to be true, but this evidence wasn’t factual.

3. I can tell you that smart and influential executives are fed up with this story—fed up that it has bled into the 2015 season, and fed up that the league bungled some of the very basic elements, such as the Gardi letter. I’ve asked a few high-ranking team people in the past few days an open-ended question, with the proviso I wouldn’t use names. The clear sentiment: Teams think league officials are running scared after the Ray Rice verdict backfired on the NFL. Two thought it was ridiculous how long the Wells report took to finish, one saying if the league is going to hire an outside firm to investigate a case, there has to be a deadline. “Why are we fighting this fight now?” one top team executive said. “We should be getting ready for a new season, but we’ve got our biggest star firing bombs at the league and the league firing back, a month before the season starts. It’s ridiculous. The headlines aren’t football. They’re about a scandal that’s eight months old.” (Not quite eight, but you get the picture.)

4. It would behoove the NFL, as much as Brady, to get this matter over now. There is a nuclear-winter scenario. I’ve mentioned it before. But follow me here. The NFL has laid out a plan to spot-check footballs during the course of the season. What happens if, say, the footballs in a northern city on a day when it’s 40 degrees outside lose 1.0 to 1.5 psi between the pre-game measurement and the halftime measurement? (Which, apparently, science would support.) That’s nearly what happened to the Patriots’ football that January day in Foxboro. If the NFL’s examination of footballs in 2015 shows that kind of deflation, naturally, the whole case should be thrown out. But by then, Brady might have already served his four games. This would be the ultimate nightmare for the league, and for Goodell. Of course, if the balls don’t deflate much at all, the league will be able to say it had it right.

5. I don’t know who will prevail in this case, but the NFL has some major, major holes here. Any judge looking at the evidence is going to be suspicious of the circumstantial evidence around Brady. But there’s a good chance he’d be as suspicious of the things the NFL took as fact here. This is important: Officials used two gauges at halftime of the AFC Championship Game to measure air pressure in 11 New England footballs and four Indianapolis footballs. On page 113 of the Wells report, Wells says that the Patriots footballs would have been justified to have measured between 11.32 psi and 11.52 psi at halftime. The average of one gauge for the 11 balls was 11.49 psi, on the upper range of what the balls should have measured. The average of the other gauge was 11.11 psi, clearly lower than what the balls should have measured. Average all 22 readings, and you get 11.30 … two-one-hundredths lower than what the Ideal Gas Law would have allowed for balls that started the day at 12.5 psi. It is crazy to me, and just wrong, that the NFL issued a historic sanction when the inflation level of the football is so close to what science says it should be.

[D.o.s.]

I am sick of the way that ESPN has been the mouthpiece for the NFL on this. ESPN knew the initial piece was BS when the Wells Report itself discredited it. They did not have to wait for permission to retract the story. There’s been too much overlooking of the obvious here and too much of having clowns like Bill Polian, Mark Brunell et al, and too much one-sided reporting. They have their noses so far up the NFL’s behind in the hopes of getting more games, that any pretense of journalistic integrity has been exposed.

That you say this and then cite a Peter King article is golden. There is literally no bigger NFL brown noser in the industry than Peter King.

[BudweiserCeltic]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/the-nfls-basic-due-process-is-the-real-issue-in-the-deflategate-controversy/2015/07/30/ebda3b02-3666-11e5-9d0f-7865a67390ee_story.html

About that exploding cellphone. You know, the one NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell seems to think belonged to Machine Gun Kelly and was used in the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby, as well as the Krupp diamond theft. The one that Ted Wells said he didn’t want or need to complete his investigation into DeflateGate. The one the NFL’s own investigator said wasn’t necessary to the case.

That one.

Wells never asked for Tom Brady’s cellphone and didn’t require it. “Keep the phone,” Wells told Brady and his agent. He insisted his investigation was thorough without it. “I don’t think it undermines in any way the conclusions of the report,” he said. Those were his exact words. So were these, after interrogating Brady for more than five hours: “Totally cooperative,” Wells said of Brady’s testimony.

Yet somehow Goodell found Brady guilty of lack of cooperation and willful destruction of evidence on appeal, all because he upgraded to an iPhone 6?

  They didn't ask Brady for the phone, they asked him for any texts and emails on his phone related to the inquiry. Brady didn't provide that information, and destroyed his phone so that information would be irretrievable.

Not true. They had the phones of all non nflpa patriots employees who would have been on the receiving end of those texts and emails.  Unfortunately for the nfl none existed

  They had some phones, which may or may not be all the phones Brady texted, and may or may not have deleted some of the texts.

  In any case, they asked Brady to provide them with some texts and emails from his phone. Not only did he not comply with the request, he destroyed his phone and the texts and emails on it.

And? Even IF all that's true... AND?

I don't know in what world you guys think it's OK for the NFL to have access to any private information a player has on their cell-phone/emails.

It's really ridiculous, and if for you that's sign of guilt so be it... but you've been taken by the NFL Irrelevant Propaganda and it's sad to see.

And to clarify something I read previously in this thread about social media passwords... it's illegal for employers to request that from their employee, just a little tangent on that (last I recalled).

If Brady didn't want to give up his cell-phone (which the investigator said wasn't needed), his texts (which we don't know what was provided or not), his emails, all the while found by the investigator to be cooperative... whether guilty or not of an event that hasn't been proved to have occurred in the first place, I don't know what the big deal is... other than optics.

  I don't know enough about the nfl's cba to know whether or not the league has any right to ask players for information or to punish them if they fail to comply with investigations. Apparently the league feels that it had those rights. We'll soon find out if the courts agree.

  I also don't think that it's universally true that it's illegal for employers to ask employees for social media passwords, more likely illegal in some states.

Unless there's something hidden I haven't seen, all I've read around is that at most lack of cooperation/equipment tampering (at least for a 1st time offender) it's punishable by a fine.

That's why the NFL used some general catch-all "All of this indisputably constitutes conduct detrimental to the integrity of, and public confidence in, the game of professional football" because apparently Tom Brady "willfully OBSTRUCTED" the investigation because, you know, he valued his privacy.

And I point out, as I've read, Wells claims that Brady was cooperative... so there's that.

[colincb]

I am sick of the way that ESPN has been the mouthpiece for the NFL on this. ESPN knew the initial piece was BS when the Wells Report itself discredited it. They did not have to wait for permission to retract the story. There’s been too much overlooking of the obvious here and too much of having clowns like Bill Polian, Mark Brunell et al, and too much one-sided reporting. They have their noses so far up the NFL’s behind in the hopes of getting more games, that any pretense of journalistic integrity has been exposed.

That you say this and then cite a Peter King article is golden. There is literally no bigger NFL brown noser in the industry than Peter King.

The article speaks for itself. Is it fawning?

[D.o.s.]

I am sick of the way that ESPN has been the mouthpiece for the NFL on this. ESPN knew the initial piece was BS when the Wells Report itself discredited it. They did not have to wait for permission to retract the story. There’s been too much overlooking of the obvious here and too much of having clowns like Bill Polian, Mark Brunell et al, and too much one-sided reporting. They have their noses so far up the NFL’s behind in the hopes of getting more games, that any pretense of journalistic integrity has been exposed.

That you say this and then cite a Peter King article is golden. There is literally no bigger NFL brown noser in the industry than Peter King.

The article speaks for itself. Is it fawning?

No, and in this case I think the article is marginally valuable -- insofar as any peter King article has value, it's in the fact that you can always find out what the NFL thinks of the NFL by reading his column on Monday -- but the idea of King being painted in opposition to ESPN is hilarious to me, that's all.

I thought Tim Marchman did a really good job of explaining it here:
http://deadspin.com/peter-king-is-a-****n-embarrassment-1665259136

This didn't actually happen, though! In her own account of things, in an ESPN as-told-to over which she retained editorial control, Janay Rice is clear on exactly what did:

    I really didn't think they would ask me any questions, but I was asked one. I was surprised I was asked anything at all. One of the NFL executives asked me how I felt about everything. And I broke down in tears. I could hardly get a word out. I just told him that I was ready for this to be over.

There is no way to reconcile this with what King's source described over the summer. And as with a previous King correction involving an element of the Rice case, the journalistic error he's admitting to here is so basic as to be literally unbelievable.

The most generous version of what happened here would involve King getting caught up in a game of telephone, with some lower-level NFL minion's distorted version of what happened in the meeting between the Rices and league and team brass ending up in King's column. This would show King as being willing to run a key detail related by some random flunky without checking it in any way with the principals, who aren't exactly strangers to King. It would paint him as a complete incompetent, and a moron.

It's much more likely, of course, that someone who was in the room—one of the three NFL officials or two Baltimore Ravens officials King places there—lied to him. What he published, after all, wasn't an incorrect version of what actually happened, but something that never happened at all. And it had a very clear beneficiary, allowing Roger Goodell to be seen not as issuing a punishment that showed the NFL doesn't care about domestic violence, but as showing deference to the wishes of a victim.

King, in this version of events, was used as the instrument of a smear campaign, almost certainly by either the league's commissioner, its general counsel, or its senior vice president in charge of labor policy. That's a big story! A serious reporter, you'd think, would want to expose the powerful people who used his column against Janay Rice. Even allowing a more generous interpretation, you'd think anyone with any curiosity at all would want to know how exactly Janay Rice telling NFL higher-ups she just wanted it all to be over morphed into her pleading for mercy on her husband's behalf.

Ah language in the URL. Point being, this is funny to me because of who Peter King is and what his relationship to the NFL is.