NFL 2015-2016

Status
Not open for further replies.
Anderson's Cat said:
I would. Once Brady is gone and his career is in the history books it'll still say 4 time Superbowl champion and he'll still be regarded as one of the best.
Click to expand...

So like Lance Armstrong minus the stripping of the titles part then?

He's still my favourite QB ever though.......for now.
 
dxadel said:
So like Lance Armstrong minus the stripping of the titles part then?

He's still my favourite QB ever though.......for now.
Click to expand...
Its hardly the same as what Armstrong did, in fairness. In 10 years time I'll sit back and watch the Championship DVD and re-live that Malcolm Butler interception with a big smile on my face, and deflategate will be but a distant memory. Of course, I'd rather it never happened!
 
Anderson's Cat said:
If Jimmy G goes 4-0 (yes, I know he wont!) does Brady get his starting job back?
Click to expand...

Yes, Jimmy G can still learn a feck load from Brady even if he got us to 4-0 at the start of the season. I would only bench Brady for Jimmy G if Bradys play goes to shit.
 
I'm sticking to my prediction from earlier in the thread: Jimmy G to tear it up over the first 4 games and Brady to be traded at the end of the year to either SF or some LA team if there is one.
 
Yeah, but they haven't got a QB. Well, they do, but it's either Ryan Fitzpatrick or Geno Smith.

Plus, it's the Jets and they'll eff things up anyway.
 
They could be different this year. They picked up Brandon Marshall and have a decent rushing attack, I think they could be the dark horse this year.
 
Small group of Patriots fans (looks like around 4 or 5) have handcuffed themselves together in the lobby of the NFL HQ. Sigh...that's pretty fecking pathetic...
 
Eboue said:
Patriots fans are trying to raise the million dollar fine on gofundme. It's over $5000 now. Robert Kraft's net worth is over $4 billion. With a b.


Patriots fans are literally hitler.
Click to expand...

Literally? :lol:
 
Knowing what a money-hungry bastard Goodell is he'll probably charge local Jets fans €10 a pop to beat the sh*t out of those handcuffed idiots.
 
Fantastic that they actually punished them (expect it'll be reduced).

Hilarious seeing some of the Pats fans going crazy about this. The best is "they're punishing us because we're so good" :lol:
 
iSparky said:
Small group of Patriots fans (looks like around 4 or 5) have handcuffed themselves together in the lobby of the NFL HQ. Sigh...that's pretty fecking pathetic...
Click to expand...

Eboue said:
Patriots fans are trying to raise the million dollar fine on gofundme. It's over $5000 now. Robert Kraft's net worth is over $4 billion. With a b.


Patriots fans are literally hitler.
Click to expand...

JP77 said:
Fantastic that they actually punished them (expect it'll be reduced).

Hilarious seeing some of the Pats fans going crazy about this. The best is "they're punishing us because we're so good" :lol:
Click to expand...

:lol::lol:
 
Eboue said:
Patriots fans are trying to raise the million dollar fine on gofundme. It's over $5000 now. Robert Kraft's net worth is over $4 billion. With a b.


Patriots fans are literally hitler.
Click to expand...

Yeah I saw this, its also pathetic. While $1million is a big fine it is small change to an NFL franchise, especially a franchise such as the Pats.

On a different note, is there a limit to the amount they can give out in terms of a fine? I thought I saw some time ago that the maximum fine the NFL could hand out was $500,000? Now I could be wrong on that, but are they allowed just pluck whatever figure they feel is appropriate or can they only go so high?

EDIT: Having a look around the usual NFL Twitter sources this morning and there is some interesting bits of info to be found floating about.





Of course read into that stuff what you will, being that its Twitter I take it with a heavy pinch of salt at the moment however interesting none the less. Kessler is the lawyer who represented Bill Belichick back in 2000, when Belichick sued the NFL and the New York Jets in federal court to free himself from his contract with the Jets, he is a thorn in the NFL's side, he was outside counsel to the NFLPA on the Ray Rice case last year as well.
 
Last edited:
Eboue said:
Patriots fans are trying to raise the million dollar fine on gofundme. It's over $5000 now. Robert Kraft's net worth is over $4 billion. With a b.


Patriots fans are literally hitler.
Click to expand...

Funny thing is, Patriots are actually making $800000 from this. 1 million fine, but by Brady being suspended for 4 games, they save 1.8 million
 
gormless said:
Funny thing is, Patriots are actually making $800000 from this. 1 million fine, but by Brady being suspended for 4 games, they save 1.8 million
Click to expand...
:lol: someone needs to point this out to the fans who are trying to raise money for the poor guys
 
gormless said:
Funny thing is, Patriots are actually making $800000 from this. 1 million fine, but by Brady being suspended for 4 games, they save 1.8 million
Click to expand...

Rado_N said:
:lol: someone needs to point this out to the fans who are trying to raise money for the poor guys
Click to expand...

I thought I read somewhere that his wages while suspended are instead paid to some charity?
 
Is this appeal about proving his innocence or saving face by overturning the ban whilst remaining guilty?
 
The NFL may have created the circus however the rate at which the story is now evolving is fascinating. Another story rising to the surface now was actually reported at the Combine but only coming to light on a larger scale now concerns Dean Blandino, NFL's officiating VP who apparently lied about his deflategate knowledge. An email sent by Colts GM Ryan Grigson and Colts equipment manager Sean Sullivan in the week prior to the AFC game landed on Blandino's desk regarding concerns over footballs.

Blandino raises the issue with Walt Anderson, who had been assigned as the referee for the game. On Saturday, the day before the AFC Championship Game, “Blandino reminded Anderson to ensure that proper protocols concerning the footballs were followed.” So Dean Blandino knew in the days leading up to the AFC Championship Game that the Colts had suspicions about the Patriots’ footballs but the interesting bit turns out to be an interview he gave at a pre-Super Bowl presser where he tried to say that nobody from the league was aware of any issues with the footballs prior to the game.

“Then there was an issue that was brought up during the first half,” Blandino said on Jan. 29 in Phoenix. “A football came into question and then the decisions was made to test them at halftime and now.” When hit with a follow-up question from the New York Post about allegations that the NFL conducted a “sting operation” in order to catch the Patriots red-handed, Blandino again flatly denied any prior knowledge to anything about football inflation levels which we know to be a lie as he received an email from the Colts a week beforehand. “I don’t know where [the idea of a sting] came from,” Blandino told the Post. “This was a problem that came up in the first half.”

Here is the article in full from CBS Boston

http://boston.cbslocal.com/2015/05/...iciating-vp-lied-about-deflategate-knowledge/

BOSTON (CBS) — With no hard evidence in hand, the NFL’s only course of action to suspend Tom Brady was to conclude that when the quarterback was interviewed by Ted Wells’ investigative team, he was lying.

And the NFL did exactly that.

“Finally,” Troy Vincent wrote in his explanation of the four-game suspension to Brady, “it is significant that key witnesses – Mr. Brady, Mr. Jastremski, and Mr. McNally – were not fully candid during the investigation.”

Well, if that same standard can be applied to NFL employees, then it might be time for VP of officiating Dean Blandino to prepare for a four-week vacation next fall.

At this point, I understand that folks’ eyeballs might immediately gloss over with boredom upon seeing yet another excerpt from the Wells report. But this is important, as it relates to the email sent by Colts GM Ryan Grigson and Colts equipment manager Sean Sullivan. This message was sent to NFL senior VP of football operations David Gardi and director of football operations Mike Kensil.

Kensil forwarded Grigson’s email without comment to James Daniel, Director of Game Operations at he NFL, who in turn forwarded it to other Game Operations personnel who would be at the game as an ‘FYI.’ Kensil also forwarded Grigson’s email to Dean Blandino and Alberto Riveron, both senior members of the NFL Officiating Department, with the message ‘see below.’ Both Riveron and Blandino decided that they would raise the issue with Walt Anderson, who had been assigned as the referee for the game.

On Saturday, the day before the AFC Championship Game, “Blandino reminded Anderson to ensure that proper protocols concerning the footballs were followed.”

So there’s that: Dean Blandino knew in the days leading up to the AFC Championship Game that the Colts had suspicions about the Patriots’ footballs.

But then … there’s this.

At a pre-Super Bowl press conference, Blandino tried to say that nobody from the league was aware of any issues with the footballs prior to the game.

“Then there was an issue that was brought up during the first half,” Blandino said on Jan. 29 in Phoenix. “A football came into question and then the decisions was made to test them at halftime and now.”

When hit with a follow-up question from the New York Post about allegations that the NFL conducted a “sting operation” in order to catch the Patriots red-handed, Blandino again flatly denied any prior knowledge to anything about football inflation levels.

“I don’t know where [the idea of a sting] came from,” Blandino told the Post. “This was a problem that came up in the first half.”

(Quick reminder: This is the same Dean Blandino who was caught partying on a bus with Cowboys exec Stephen Jones and was not penalized at all.)

What you have here is, quite clearly, a case of the VP of officiating telling lies.

Now, there’s also the chance that the commissioner himself lied publicly.

Roger Goodell told Sports Illustrated’s Peter King in late March that he also had no prior knowledge of suspicions regarding the Patriots’ footballs.

King: Can you say that the first time that you heard about this was after the game?

Goodell: Yes.

King: You know that there’s a storyline out there that you knew about the deflating and wanted to catch them in the act.

Goodell: Let’s just short circuit this a little bit. I’m not going to get into what we knew and when we knew it because that’s part of what he’s investigating. … I can tell you that I was not personally aware of it until after the game.

So here, Goodell either blatantly lied in a public statement, or he was not kept in the loop about a pressing matter that was essential to the integrity of the game and the shield.

I’m not sure which one is worse.

But while we don’t know about Goodell, we do know about Blandino. So let’s address that.

The NFL, if pressed, would be stuck between a rock and a hard place here. They could either come out and admit that Dean Blandino, an important figure in the league, knowingly made false public statements. The VP of officiating telling lies doesn’t do much for the “integrity of the game,” now does it? And based on Troy Vincent’s and Roger Goodell’s refusal to accept lies, then the league would have no choice but to suspend the man in charge of officiating — or perhaps even fire him. Remember, the game needs integrity.

The NFL’s other option would be to say that Ted Wells’ report was inaccurate and that Blandino actually had no knowledge of the Patriots’ alleged deflation practices prior to the AFC Championship Game. If they go that route, then they are eliminating whatever credibility the Wells report might have in the first place.

What the NFL decides to do is hard to say. But this much is not up for debate: Dean Blandino lied. Oh, the humanity.

But there is a third option for the NFL, and it’s the only they’re most likely to take: Say nothing, ignore the hypocrisy, and hope nobody notices.
Click to expand...

The NY Post in fact also ran an article on this when the Colts spoke about deflategate at the combine in February and they revealed that they had warned the NFL about footballs prior to the AFC Championship game. So Blandino is clearly getting himself caught up in a lie, whether or not Goodell was aware about it or was kept out of the loop who knows but either way it doesn't reflect good on him. Here was the NY Post story from the Combine.

http://nypost.com/2015/02/20/colts-gm-we-warned-nfl-about-deflated-balls-before-title-game/

The NFL could almost look at making a soap out of this at the rate things are going, they could compete with Corrie for the half seven slot...
 
Ah. I thought it was something new come to light. I still have to read the report in full yet...just read excerpts so far.
 
I'm starting to struggle keeping track of what stories are breaking news and what might be common knowledge by now.

How long would an appeal for this take anyway? Couple of weeks? Couple of months? Unknown?
 
Hmmm, the Wells Report took months, could be the same for an appeal but I don't know either.

Regarding Goodell it can only be one of two things. He was either kept outside the loop regarding the emails which tipped off the NFL or he lied based on the interview he gave Sports Illustrated anyway. Both scenarios not good for the Commissioner. But we all know he is a feckwit anyway so what more do we expect by now I guess.
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.