You can't have it both ways. I think it would be fine to apply the whole "court system" model and the idea of innocent until proven guilty. Because, then Tom Brady and the other Patriots would have had to actually cooperate fully and Brady's cell phone records could've been reviewed by subpoena or warrant or whatever.
While getting ready for work this morning, the local news ran a story that several of the casinos here in Vegas will not accept bets on the Pats. Rats leaving a sinking ship? Interesting.
Not really. I think it's actually a pretty interesting testament to how ludicrous and unpredictable Goodell's punishment process is. They suspended betting because there's no telling whether the Pats are going to get a $15k fine and a stern letter, or whether Brady will get suspended for the season. It's absolutely insane that it's completely impossible to correlate an offense to a possible punishment. Smoke pot? Suspended for a season. Beat your wife? Suspended for 3 games. Video tape of that beating? Suspended for a season. Get on the exempt list? No formal process for getting off it. Coach basically trips a football player to save a touchdown? Just a fine (no football punishment). Pump in fake crowd noise? Football punishment - draft pick gone.
I thought I was being ridiculously Patriotic with my last post. Then I saw Teddy Bruschi on the office kitchen TV, with the other two anchors just lobbing troll bombs at him, he vehemently swatted away like a fully angry Godzilla. He had the look of a man who was being questioned about the core of his being. He almost killed Jay Crawford when he asked him "If you could ask Tom Brady question right now, what would it be?" Bruschi figureatively projectile vomited his anger and disgust at the question. "I don't NEED to ask Tom ANYTHING. I'd like to ask quite a few questions to the officials!" I will never love anything as much as he loves the Patriots. I will never believe in anything as much as that man believes in the Patriots.
The pats got hit way harder than I thought they would, but I think they still don't care all that much having just won the super bowl. Losing the draft pick will be the only part that really stings. They'll likely still make the playoffs and a million dollars is chump change for a franchise that rich. I find the legacy tarnished stuff kind of funny. The only people who wish they could put an asterisk next to the pats' super bowl trophies over this are the same people who already wanted to put one there. Goodell is way better than sports fans who are bitter about everything that isn't exactly what they would do give him credit for, but god damn are his penalties inconsistent. I realize a lot of this is case by case stuff, but it seems at times to be more about what irrationally outraged fans want at the moment rather than what makes sense.
I am in shock. I don't know what I thought would happen but this isn't it. The NE Golden Boy suspended. Wow.
Oh no zyron, I'm in full spin mode right now. Watch this. Ahem... Not even getting into how stupid this is based off lack of actual information of evidence, just a lot of circumstantial noise. This is bullshit and probably will be appealed and reduced to two games. Which I actually think would be a bad idea. I'm not mad at the idea of Brady getting in during training camp, pre-season, getting warmed up, learning the new wrinkles to the playbook. Then taking some more time off. He's an older man, needs to rest. Coming in later with fresher legs and arms it'll be better. On the plus side we get to see what Jimmy G looks like in real games. Also, it's May, giving Belichick and team this much time to plan for it is perfect. The Patriots are going to make it out of the AFC East with no problem in addition to the cake schedule. Games when Brady is out: Steelers, Buffalo, Jaguars and Dallas. I'm going to say they're 3-1 coming out of that, possibly Dallas. Then Brady comes back and he's going to be pissed. This shit is going to be Spygate 2.0. 12-0 to close out the season? It's possible. The only three challenging games are Broncos (and maybe not given Peyton's health), Colts (we saw what happened to the Colts) and Eagles. Eagles are wildcards. No one else has a QB we have to remotely worry about. Also, hate to be hard on my guy, but Bill isn't the best with first round picks. There might be a few trade downs they won't be able to do, but I'm sure they'll fleece someone for picks or players sometime during the season.
At this point the pats are in arguably the worst division in the league. I really doubt 4 games is going to matter. 8-8 would likely be sufficient to win the AFC east next year.
The fact that two people can say with a straight face that the AFCE is going to be a cakewalk next year is more mind boggling than the absurd and arbitrary punishment that was just handed out.
You know what surprises me? The biggest fucking crime the Patriots have pulled off is their CONSISTENT year to year cake walk schedule. Like it's insane. I can't remember the last time we had a schedule, let a lone a 4 game stretch where I was like "Oh fuck, this is the gauntlet."
The punishment is silly. The entire scenario is silly. But God damn if it isn't absolutely amazing comedy watching Pats fans lose their collective shit over this. It's honestly more entertaining than many actual football games from last season (see: any game involving a team from Florida).
Well why wouldn't it be? In the past five years NE has gone 4-2, 4-2, 6-0, 5-1, and 5-1 against the AFCE. In the same timeframe the other AFCE teams have gone 98-112 against all other teams besides NE. Furthermore, do you really think any of the other three teams have improved enough to seriously threaten NE? It's the time of year where everyone projects that mediocre or bad teams are going to improve by leaps and bounds, but do you really think with the quarterbacking situations in New York an Buffalo that the rest of each team is good enough to threaten NE? And has Miami done enough stand on equal footing with them? Obviously NE's going to fall back to the pack eventually, but I'm not ready to write them off just yet, and I don't think the other teams have improved enough.
The silver lining of the whole thing is that ESPN stopped blowing Lebron James long enough to talk about something else.
Bwahahahhaahhaha. No wait, wait... BWAHAHAHAHAHA. Delusional homers crack me up. Do you really want to tell me that the bills, dolphins, and jets are all great teams? And just to preempt this I'm not even going to waste my time arguing about something that is painfully obvious to anyone not a fan of those teams.
You know what cracks me up? People who make sweeping statements and then fall back on "LOL it's so obvious I'm not even going to talk about it," but don't think it makes them look like a child. The AFCS & NFCS won 8 and 11 fewer games than the AFCE. The Bills had the #1 passing defense, #1 defensive line by a mile, tied for 4th in interceptions, and this "homer" watched a painfully, obviously bad team hold Rogers & Co to 13 points and 185 passing yards. The entire division except the Pats got substantially better talent-wise this offseason, and I suspect the Jets are going to look decent this year. The Jets line is likely second best in the league now, especially after stealing Leonard Williams in the draft, and that secondary is nasty. The Dolphins added Suh to a defensive line that was already good. But on the other hand, this is all from someone who actually watches football year to year instead of assuming teams don't change. With a 4 game suspension, I'm no longer certain, but going into the season I would still have projected NE to win the division - I'm not deluded as to the quality of that organization. All I'm pointing out is that the AFCE was certainly not "arguably the worst division" and given the amount of talent added to already excellent defenses, anyone who writes those games off as foregone conclusions going into the season is foolish.
I don't like the Patriots at all. But, it will be fun to watch them go into "F You" mode especially after Brady gets back.