As we prepare for the Tom Brady appeal tomorrow, I’m hoping the irony isn’t lost on people that, in trying to prove that Brady and the Patriots were cheating, Ted Wells and his team, (Exponent) cheated by presenting incomplete and misleading results from their scientific analysis.

I honestly have no idea what is going to happen at the appeal tomorrow. The way this thing has gone, would anyone be surprised if Roger Goodell increased the suspension on Brady?

“We will show in this hearing that the NFL mismanaged this incident from the very start, and then spent $5 million on a bag job report which was slanted to favor the league.”

“The suspension is now six games.”

“Further, we will show that the Commissioner of the NFL failed to uphold the integrity of the game, and instead by his incompetence allowed this matter to grow in scale to the point where it led nightly national newscasts.”

“Ten games.”

“For the record, we renew our objection to Commissioner Goodell sitting in any position of authority in this hearing and our participation should not be viewed as in any way agreeing with his presence, any rulings he may make or any decision he may issue.  We reserve all rights to all legal remedies available.  Please, Commissioner Goodell, continue”

“Entire 2015 season.”

I still cannot believe we are at this point, and that so many are willing to just accept the conclusions that have been reached by the league and Ted Wells. This includes not just fans of other teams, I can see how that would happen, but media. Media people who should be interested in finding the truth, not enjoying what they believe is comeuppance for a perceived slight against their industry by a football coach.

The science of the Wells Report has been blown out of the water. What’s left is an ambiguous text message and an unrecorded phone call. Tom Brady did not “obstruct” the investigation, no matter what sports radio or television hosts may say. Even the Wells Report states that Brady was cooperative.

The more ridiculous take is that Goodell will take some time off the suspension and that Brady should just accept that, “for the good of the team.”

How exactly is Tom Brady missing ANY time, in anyway good for the team?

“His case will be a distraction for him and the team.” The Patriots have had a number of high-profile incidents around them over the years. When precisely was that the last time any so-called distraction actually impacted the results on the field? Never.

Stupid.

So Stupid.

Speaking of, I’m reminded of Ben Volin and this bit from his column yesterday:

One source believes Brady won’t get the suspension bumped down at all, with the thought that the four-game punishment was lenient on Brady to begin with.

Right. Because of the preponderance of evidence that indicates that something happened. Oh wait. There isn’t any.

*****

I haven’t watched much golf over the last few years (I actually miss when Tiger Woods was good at golf and everyone else was chasing him.) but last night’s final round of the U.S. Open was amazing. The drama was off the charts. Having it live, in prime time was almost too good to be true.

To me, golf is the sport in which the announcers are the least important. That said, the wrong announcer can ruin a telecast. Letting the scene play out, enjoying the visuals, and the inherent drama of a tight match are what makes great golf on TV. I hardly even pay attention to the broadcasters of a match.

The views from this weekend on FOX were stunning. Joe Buck was tolerable. The golf was tremendous.

*****

As a followup to last week and the Bob Hohler expose column in the Globe which revealed that, after much investigation, Salem State University paid Tom Brady $170,000 to speak there, the Globe published shortly thereafter that Brady donated the entire sum to charity.

The event was painted as a greedy money grab in which all Brady did was deflect questions about the Wells Report.

*****

I loathe to acknowledge his existence, but can anyone tell me what Shaughnessy is trying to say here?

■ In December of 1964, Red Auerbach became the first NBA coach to start five black players: Bill Russell, Tom Sanders, Sam Jones, K.C. Jones, and Willie Naulls. On Sept. 1, 1971, the Pittsburgh Pirates became the first team in big league history to feature a starting lineup with nine players of color. The Red Sox last week featured a lineup with six players of color.

Published by Bruce Allen

Automattician.

94 thoughts on “Ted Wells Is A Cheater, And Other Monday Thoughts”

  1. I still cannot believe we are at this point, and that so many are
    willing to just accept the conclusions that have been reached by the
    league and Ted Wells

    And, only a few months removed from 95-99% of the same exact people believing nothing from the Mueller Report.

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  2. I loathe to acknowledge his existence, but can anyone tell me what Shaughnessy is trying to say here?
    To quote Lt. Worf, he talks much, but says little.

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  3. First about Fox coverage. The Prime time golf slot is the best, and NBC did an amazing job at Olympic Club some years back when Web Simpson won. Granted NBC has the best coverage by far and I am so happy they just won the rights to the Open Championship in 2017. That being said, other then the lack of commercials (which was amazing) and the drone cam, Fox was BRUTAL. They barely knew who any golfer was, were lacking 2-3 more solid voices in the towers, maybe on 15 and the Curt Menefee/Tom Weiskopf might have been the worst on camera duo I have ever witnessed in my life. Norman didn’t say anything of value except with Jason Day, Buck who is solid calling the holes, was off and awkward for anything else when he needed to fill time. Fox lucked into a great finish, which people will remember. Other then that, a completely embarrassing performance by the USGA and Fox. Although, the coverage was better then I expected.

    On Brady, Felger just has an agenda, like always and refuses to actually look at the facts of the case. If the balls were actually under the appropriate range and then how do the text matter? The Wells reports grasped at straws and most of the media bought it.

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  4. One of the funniest things is that Felger and YAARM think the Green Bay game text, “Deflate and give somebody that jacket” is an OBVIOUS reference to deflate footballs.

    I’ve never heard, or read in the form of written word, or a text, a sentence composed this way, with this context.

    If they were talking about deflating footballs, wouldn’t the text be the other way around?

    “Give somebody that jacket and deflate.” I mean, who talks like that (the original)?

    They’re talking about something else. Maybe it’s their lingo for ego or something else along those lines.

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  5. Just read Shank’s column…

    His target audience are the same people that fall for Nigerian email scams.

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      1. I don’t pay for the Globe and didn’t read the article by actually clicking through to Boston.com and providing them with clicks/pageviews.

        In other words, you’re an idiot.

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  6. If this thing plays out like it appears to be playing out… where it becomes undeniable that the balls were not tampered with and the texts were not regarding the deflating of footballs and thus Brady did absolutely nothing wrong… then this will have been the most unbelievable, frustrating and ridiculous thing to happen in pro sports. It’s insane that this ever became a ‘thing’, and now none of this is actually about the ‘thing’, because the ‘thing’ never actually happened. Mind numbing.

    The US Open last night was great. I thought Hardy & Flynn this morning did a great job of breaking it down… just kidding… I turned them on at 6:45 and they were discussing some fantasy draft that T&R did about station talent or something. They had that idiot Adolfo(sp?) “analyzing” it. I mean, come on… during the first hour after a unreal golf major, a day before the Brady appeal and with all the Sox news, they are talking about THAT?? Good grief. (sidebar: the notion that a station in a market this size actually cracks the mic for a moron like Adolfo to utter even one syllable, is baffling to me.)

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    1. As absurd as this whole situation has been, I still think Spygate trumps it. The Pats filming signals from the wrong position for part of 1 game in violation of a league memo which had only been issued the year before turned into the notion that they are cheaters, are the only cheaters, all their Super Bowls are tainted, including even a US Senator going after them.

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      1. Well, yeah, if only because Spygate established the “Patriots are cheaters” meme with the media. I mean, you had Kravitz, the mediot who started this whole thing back in January, basically saying that he would have buried the story had it been any other team accused of deflating footballs; but, in his eyes, the Patriots “do not deserve the benefit of the doubt.” That’s ALL because of “Spygate” and the idiotic commissioner’s insane overpunishment of a misdemeanor offense, which was amplified about 1,000 times by the shrieking banshees in the anti-BB media. This “deflation” b.s. goes nowhere if Mangini and Tannenbaum (and maybe Kensil??) hadn’t decided to take two years of Pats/Jets gamesmanship to an entirely different level that ill-fated day in the Meadowlands back in ’07.

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  7. So there’s a teaser on the CSNNE website with Felger’s mug and the headline that the science refuting the science in the Wells Report is starting to sound “unscientific.” Huh? What’s he basing that on? Did he bother to read the reports that contradict Wells? Oh, and there’s also a subhead in which he says that Brady and the Pats need to “pay up and move on.” In other words, take their punishment and drop it. OK Mike……we will all remember that sage advice of yours if you’re ever falsely accused of doing something wrong, and the subsequently framed for it by the authorities. What a complete effing TOOL. There’s having an agenda; there’s trying to troll the fans; and then there’s this guy’s b.s. He takes everything to an entirely different level.

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    1. The two big “rebuttals” can be summed up in one sentence:

      The AEI report shows that the method and manner the NFL/Wells report “certifies” the readings was performed in an unscientific matter. Or, as someone in an article I linked to on the previous post said best, “methodology that would not even be admitted to a H.S. science fair”.

      The folks who have talked about the Ideal Gas Law gives the actual scientific calculation on how air pressure and ambient temperature relate to each other. (Oh, that’s why my tires in the winter look flat?)

      If you look at the links on:

      http://wellsreportcontext.com/wells-report-critical-science-articles/

      They attack many other elements, from the variations between readings to other things that am going on. They clearly have been paying attention to the folk who care about this.

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      1. “Science? What’s science ever done for us? TV off”

        Also, didn’t Shank feel that not wanting to acknowledge science was grounds to mock Carl Everett?

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        1. You win the board for today! The media mocked Everett as “Jurassic Carl” pretty much for the entire two years he played in Boston, and Shank was one of the ringleaders. Cue the Thomas Dolby: “Science!” Oh, and by “make them go away,” Shank is really saying….”I wish these people whose facts disrupt my agenda would just shut up. We, the media, get to decide what is true or false, what is fact or fiction, and what is and what is not a story.”

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  8. Did I hear it right, if Felger repeatedly diminishing the AEI report because it was paid for in part by the Krafts? Which is all based on a tweet from fellow Patriot troll Ben Volin, who subsequently admitted he didn’t do any research on the matter and it was instead some completely unaffiliated company from Arizona that just happens to have the name Kraft?

    Should I be all that surprised considering Felger still proclaims the John Tomase taped Rams walkthrough as the truth? Despite the fact that there is no evidence whatsoever and that the Herald both retracted and apologized for it?

    Speaking of distractions, I do think the John Tomase story had an impact on them in that Super Bowl. Maybe we still don’t win if it never happened, but for that to be released immediately before the game was, pardon the pun, very deflating.

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    1. I had Felger on for about 15 minutes today.

      This afternoon he was heard saying, “I don’t care about the science. You can find a scientist to say whatever you want.” Um, no. Not a good one, anyway. Not one with morals and one who uses a process that is valid and has results that are reliable.

      Then he was talking about the connection between Kraft and the Science News report. ” Try Googling Science News and Patriots and look at what comes up! It’s all over the first page!” When I do that search, I find nothing but articles and sites relating to the science news article. In fact, I get to page 4 of the search results and I find a link to one of Bruce’s recent posts before I find anything linking the team to the science news site.

      I honestly can’t believe people will listen to this guy as a form of entertainment unless they are fans of other teams. Nor can I believe people think he is some sort of knowledgeable host.

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  9. Sports “journalist” are not real journalist. If they were they would be reporting real news not sports. These guys are the laziest of all media..

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  10. “I loathe to acknowledge his existence, but can anyone tell me what Shaughnessy is trying to say here?”

    It’s obvious what he is trying to say. The Red Sox are racist for employing white players! I just wish Shaughnessy would show his commitment to diversity by quitting his job and giving it to a minority.

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  11. What I find telling is not that Felger doesn’t supposedly believe the science that exonerates the Patriots. It the fact that he sounds really upset that this AEI report is carrying some weight. He sounds really pissed a the potential that Brady could get out of this.

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  12. Have to wonder with the recent Pete Rose news: Is modern coverage dictated by person/subject matter

    Before Rose when public, when he could make a dollar, there was a rather large and vocal majority who defended him. Once he “admitted” it, many died down but a large number of those went to the, “but he never bet as a player”. Now, that’s dead. Yesterday, I still heard people calling in to defend him. (And, this also seems to have been out there that MLB destroyed its notes prior to Dowd’s investigation, so less proof.)

    You have this from Gregggggggggg Doyle:

    Pete Rose is a gambling addict and a liar. That’s what we knew before ESPN’s “Outside the Lines” reported Monday that he bet on baseball not just when he managed the Reds, but when he played for them. And that’s still what we know:

    Pete Rose: Gambling addict, liar.

    So did this development change anything, other than the way we spent our Monday afternoon, consuming the latest Pete Rose news?

    He’s not alone, either.

    Guy probably fixed games to pay off his debt? Well, he probably only did it once. Team hacked another team’s computers, committing a federal crime in the process? Not so big because they could not have gained much advantage. People are going nuts thinking that the Patriots added or subtracted a few PSI in balls? Nation loses their mind. We link him in with people who beat their children and assault their wives.

    I know this tends to be apparent in other forms of media but isn’t this a general trend in media?

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    1. Very astute observation,busman, as always. I could write volumes on the moral decay of America but the fact is there have always been two ways people approach life…1) With honor 2) Do whatever you can to succeed regardless of consequences or effect on others. Homer in 3000 BC told of Achilles honor on the battlefield versus Paris cowardice for “stealing” Helen. In the 12th century Chrétien de Troyes wrote about Arthur and the honor of the knights of the round table. In modern times Babe Ruth was the Sultan of Swat, the honorable guy who rescued the game from those rascals like Shoeless Joe Jackson and the Black Sox. The narrative is alive and well in every generation.

      I have never understood any defense of Pete Rose. I get that he has more hits than anyone else. I get that he won several World Series Rings (the 1975 Series still being one of the most exciting on record). I get that deep down he loved playing baseball. But he never loved the sport. He never appreciated it. He never was humbled by it. It was instead a means to an end. He loved the thrill of gambling. He loved the thrill of being Pete Rose, icon, special rules, larger than the sport. He never understood what Hank Aaron or Willie Mays or Ted Williams understood… that baseball was there long before them and that it would be there long after…that they were along just for the ride.

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      1. I think the exception for him is people grew up fans or loved how he played the game? I’m not sure. Couldn’t you say the same about Brady and/or the Patriots under BB?

        I wondered the same about how “super” athletes are covered and the “ESPN” effect. Look at LeBron. Unless you’re a LeBron fan, Cavs fan post 2014, Heat fan 2010-2014, the majority don’t like the guy, right? Many might respect the talent but outside of “The Decision”, what’s he done? Compare that to Brady and unless you hold the Moynahan stuff against him (can’t imagine it’s a large #), what’s he done wrong?

        I asked more on the media coverage side because of the shift toward a PR/hype/eyeball is eyeball. Media “credibility” used to depend on how many papers you can shift but those consequences, with corporate ownership, are gone. I’m not sure where accountability is anymore.

        I followed the Duke LAX thing ages ago and can only recall that Nifong losing his license and job, did anything happen to the people who got that case wrong? I think of some of the worst offenders here and many are still employed by the same outfit and still have national platforms.

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        1. I definitely think players are more aware of their “brand” today than ever before and that in turn effects how their handlers try and play the media game. In some cases it does not matter…no matter what LeBron does he will never over come losing 4 championship titles in 6 tries, nor will he overcome the selfishness of the “decision”. By all accounts LeBron is a good guy, good teammate, articulate, generous and drama free. The problem he has is that he does not have Jordan or Kobe’s charisma. He lacks a foil ala Bird and Magic, Chamberlain and Russell, Brady and Manning. His team tries to manufacture these things for him but nothing sticks. LeBron is the nondescript generic superstar. Insert him here. He plays great. He looks great. He talks well. He wins some. But in the end…he isn’t Jordan, Kobe, Magic, Bird, Dr. J, Walt, Clyde, Chamberlain, Russell, Cooz or Oscar Robertson. Unfortunately for LeBron he did not come first.

          As for accountability…like on the field if these corporate titans can get away with it off the field…they do. So what if Brady is slandered now…by the time the league admits he did nothing wrong Mike Kensil will still have a job and Roger Goodell will be setting up trusts so his great grandchildren will never have to work a day in their lives.

          The only one who looses are us fans…we make the mistake of financially and emotionally investing in these teams because we enjoy the Bread and Circuslike atmosphere we then get to partake. Fool us once…shame on us…fool us again…no really shame on us.

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      2. I’d never let Rose back into the game, nor would I ever let him into the HOF. With the steroid guys, there is only “hard” proof of wrongdoing on some of them, like A-Rod, Bonds, Clemens and maybe a few others; with guys like Bagwell, who has been shown conspicuously little respect by the HOF voters, it’s all just speculation (“well, he played during that era and his power numbers were huge, so he MUST have done something”). With Rose, there’s rock solid evidence that he bet on baseball, as a player and a manager, and that he lied about it for years; it’s not a huge stretch to think that he may have let his betting influence how he played or how he managed, even if he “never bet against the Reds.” Shoeless Joe’s case is more complicated, but I do believe the romanticized versions of what he did, as shown in movies such as “Field of Dreams” and “Eight Men Out,” very much downplay the nature and severity of his actions (basically, the take in the movies is that he either didn’t do anything wrong, as in the former film, or that he really didn’t know what he was doing, as in the latter; I think the truth is more complicated than those portrayals). I’m ambivalent about his HOF candidacy, but I think keeping him out is the right thing to do at this point, since he DID, in fact, take money from known, violent criminals in exchange for throwing ball games — at least that was the deal he agreed to. Whether or not he welshed on the deal is another matter. Those guys were not just “gamblers.” Arnold Rothstein was a full-fledged organized crime guy who met his fate on the wrong end of a pistol. Not the kind of person a ballplayer should allow to be around him. (Aside: Rothstein’s associations are another reason why any media attempts to compare the Patriots faux-scandals with the 1919 Black Sox is utterly moronic, but at least a few mediots have tried to make that comparison, the latest being Indy’s finest, Gregggggg Doyel, following in the footsteps of the original Spygate Truther, Greggggggg Easterbrook, who made the same comparison back in 2008).

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        1. Well Said Tony. Rose can’t disappear from the baseball spotlight fast enough for me. His selling memorabilia across the street from Cooperstown was one in a long line of arrogant and egregious things he has done to prove how unprofessional he really is/was. At least an argument can be made that Joe Jackson might have been duped. I agree with you it is more complicated than that…but the guy did hit .450 in the 1919 WS. Further Rothstein was a dangerous guy…who knew what he was willing to do. It turns out he had 7 other guys in his pocket. You are right…the truth in that one is more murky than what Hollywood portrays.

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    2. I think it has more to do with the popularity of the sport. If this were the 80’s or 90’s then no doubt the MLB scandals would be bigger. But MLB is not the sport for casual fans to follow. That belongs to the NFL now. It why scandals in other leagues aren’t as magnified because the fans that are left in those leagues are mostly the hard cores who understand their game. Most of the fans who watch the NFL are just there because they’re in an office pool and or fantasy league and they don’t really follow it as close. They watch the Redzone and don’t see the “true” game for what it is. and throw in a good dose of social media that can just pile on and spread bullshit info at a rapid pace with no checks and balances and you have the recipe for the soap opera bullshit that dominates the current day NFL.

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  14. Bruce I share your frustration with the NFL. Rationality, proportionality, and reason all went out the window a long time ago. I joked in another post that the had the Cards let 1PSI of air out of a baseball (yes I know that can’t be done it was a metaphor, Drax) then they would be in serious trouble.

    I have to think that Roger Goodell knows that his arbitrating deflate gate is potentially a land mind. All he has to do is look out the window and see the line of trucks. As I see it he has three options.

    1) He leaves the suspension as is. He refuses to see the science Wells used was faulty and in doing so gives the NFLPA their next victory in court as Brady sues. Normally I would say I cannot see this happening because no sane person could not see how this will not work out for the NFL. However I never thought we would get to this point and for the life me I do not understand how no adult has stood up and said enough. That includes Goodell, a group of influential owners (where are the Maras. Rooney, and Jones on this) or maybe Judge Dody privately calling Goodell and saying you really do not want to pursue this.

    2) in an attempt to be Solomon he reduces the suspension to 2 games. His reasoning being something happened therefore someone has to be punished (taking two draft picks and a $million from the Patriots should be enough to placate the someone has to be punished crowd but no one seems to be seeing that). Brady and the NFLPA go to court because Brady did absolutely nothing wrong and the NFL looks foolish again. This ridiculous farce plays out for another year and in the end Goodell looks more foolish than he already does.

    3) The way out. Goodell throws the suspension out. He releases a statement that says in light of the AEI report its clear that the NFL’s investigation (the Wells report) was not as thorough as it should have been. That is on me. There is no evidence Tom Brady did anything. I am leaving the draft picks and fine of the Patriots in place because McNally took the footballs into the bathroom. This never should have become the issue that it did and for that the league apologizes to Tom Brady.

    The last option is wishful thinking because it demands Goodell have a certain level of introspection and humility he has not shown. But in the end it is the best way out of this mess. He might think the rest of the league wants a pound of flesh but the AEI report pretty much discredited everything Ted Wells “uncovered” and any sane fan realizes the Pats did nothing. We are now talking about actions that frame Goodell’s legacy and credibility. He put himself into the position of arbitrator…lets see how badly he messes up.

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    1. If he’s smart (which we know he isn’t), then Option 3, as distasteful as it is for Pats fans to lose draft picks over a fat guy’s pre-game urination, is the only sane course for Goodell to pursue. Let’s face it, the media and the other NFL fan bases don’t really want Brady punished (maybe some do); they want the PATRIOTS punished. If Goodell “free’s” Brady but still hammers the Pats with that ridiculous penalty, most (not all) non-New Englanders will be satisfied.

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  15. Quickly on the Golf…I love golf…whether playing (been as good as an 8 currently about an 18…which happens when you have kids and never play) or on TV. The US Open is my favorite Tournament because it is so unforgiving. So having said that…watching Dustin Johnson implode was great TV although you have to feel horrible for him…he has become a young Phil Michelson…I hope like Phil he can break through soon before his confidence is completely drained. Having said that…I have not enjoyed watching someone like Jordan Speith since I used to watch Tom Watson as a kid. I love his swing, I love his fearlessness and I love his innocence…he has no idea that he should not be doing what he is doing. If I never see Tiger again it is too soon. Bring on Spieth, he is exactly what gold need right now…21 years old, an American answer to Rory Mcllroy and one hell of a great player.

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    1. Somehow I felt it was appropriate to have Greg Norman in the broadcast booth, watching over it all as Johnson gagged on the 18th in a major. Norman was the Peyton Manning of late-20th century golfers. Two British Open wins are nice, but the guy probably should have won about 10 majors, easy. Well, Johnson gets to go home to Paulina Gretzky, and how cool would it be to have The Great One as your father-in-law? He’s doing OK in life!

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      1. The funniest part of the whole thing is Janet Jones ripping up her bet slip on Johnson after he missed the putt. I think she was heard uttering…”honey you are too good for him…now that Jordan fellow”.

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  17. So Ian Rappaport — de-facto NFL employee — is reporting that Goodel expects Brady to be more “forthcoming” in this hearing than he was with Wells. Nice…and the guy is supposed to expect a fair hearing today? The astonishingly arrogant league office is already leaking this shot across TB 12’s bow to its house-organ media lackeys (and I like Ian, I really do…he’s more trustworthy than most of the “NFL insiders” out there). What a joke. TAKE. THEM. TO. COURT. PLEASE!!!!! It’s the only way those asshats on Park Avenue have ever been brought to heel, if only temporarily.

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      1. Yup. That about sums it up. He has to take them to court. I really don’t see any other way if the NFL is still trying to influence this case through their media leaks.

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      2. I think Bob Ley had her transferred to the ESPN landscaping crew where she’s now busy using scissors to maintain the lawns around campus

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  19. The Kevin Mannix consumer fraud quote cracks me up everytime, what a squid, I am glad I was too young to know idiots like that existed when he wrote it.

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    1. Don’t really know what Mannix had against Belichick, but man, he really had a bug up his rear-end about him. Thank goodness he retired just a few years into the BB era. Things are bad enough in the local media with regard to Patriots coverage without that old crank hanging around.

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      2. Maybe he wasn’t invited to a breakfast with Belichick. Goddamn sports reporters can be such vindictive yentas.

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  22. Am I the only person who says the following? – “I miss Andy Gresh.”I hear more and more of Felger’s influence on Bertrand every day. He seems to be trying to play the roles of both Felger AND Mazz. He changes his opinion from day to day on the same subject. There seems to be no chemistry at all between him and Zo. Zolak comes across as almost nuetered in a sense. Which maybe some people prefer. I don’t.

    As much as I hate Tim Benz it’s almost forcing me to listen to them. At least Lou and Fauria are a 1-2 punch vs Benz.

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    1. OK…big, fat nope on MFB. Tim Benz makes my skin crawl. I guess I won’t listen to anything in Boston from 10-2.

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      1. I heard that caller who tried to explain it to him, and was trying to be polite and reasonable. He doesn’t understand the DNA of the market (why Patriots fans get “defensive”). You will forever hate it unless you adopt that, which comes with being a fan. If you hate it, you’re as far away from understanding it as possible. That’s their right but it doesn’t help you much in terms of garnering respect if your job is to give opinions.

        I thought Salk would be the last experiment trying to import talkers to the region, but I guess not.

        Chad Finn put it best:

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    2. So first comment is yes you are the only one who misses Gresh. All you have to do is drive through CT and listen to his new show and you realize we are lucky to be free of him.

      Having said that…yes Beatle has struggled in his new role. Its not so much that he has Felger influences it is that partnering with Zolak means he has to carry the show on all non football topics and I don’t think he is capable. So when he talks baseball, basketball or hockey he does not sound like an expert, he sounds like a fan. There is a time and place for that…Pete Sheppard made a pretty decent career out of that role. For it to work though…he has to be in support not the lead.

      As for Tim Benz…today he tried to defend his Patriots positions by saying Pats fan’s defensiveness annoys him. Really. Pats fans’ defensiveness is a direct result of media members like Benz insistence that something happened at the AFC title game when all evidence, when calmly examined shows that nothing happened. We get defensive when those same media members INSIST that the Pats ALWAYS do things to skirt the rules. Those same media member do not ever look at the Patriots without a jaundiced eye. It is frustrating because what fans want is clear Patriots conversation not biased. Benz defense was…he has his opinions and he is paid to state them. My counter is there is a difference between a feeling and a reasoned argument. If he can’t logically make an argument and has to rely on feelings and innuendo then he is useless and deserves all of the scorn we place on him.

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      1. I can’t add much to this. You said it all. Pats fans are VERY defensive because the pathetic, agenda-driven, relentlessly negative media coverage of the team in this town causes us to be defensive. I welcome reasoned, logical, fact-based and warranted criticism of ALL of the teams that I follow. We don’t get that in this town (except from Reiss, Curran and maybe 1 or 2 others). We get constant bashing and negative storylines fed to us daily.

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        1. I guess I should add that all of this relentlessly negative coverage is about a team and organization that has established an astonishing, probably never-to-be-duplicated-in-the-salary-cap-era level of success over the past 15 years. We’re not talking about the Jaguars here. We’re talking about one of the great runs in NFL history, on a par with the Landry Cowboys, who only won two Super Bowls while going to five and making the playoffs in 18 of 20 seasons from 1966-85; the Noll Steelers (maybe even better since they stopped winning, pretty much, after winning SB #4 in the 1979-80 season); and the Walsh/Seifert 49ers. And this team, right here in New England, did it all in an era where maintaining that level of sustained success was deemed nearly impossible by the media just a few years into that era. The local media’s coverage of the team — opinion or not — is unbelievably negative and often devoid of facts. I have had friends from other states visit me in the past, and they’ve been absolutely shocked at what they have read and heard being said about BB and the Pats. Most are fans of other NFL teams, and the consensus view when they hear the stuff being said about BB and the Pats is, “I wish MY team was run by such an incompetent guy.” Of course, those guys are rational. Other fans of other teams would just take the “BB is a cheater and nothing the Pats have accomplished is legit” tack, and would agree with everything the Felger’s and Borges’s of the world say.

          Like

        2. Like the old saying goes… ‘just because I’m paranoid, doesn’t mean they’re not out to get me’

          Like

      2. Same as Tony C. His response is the proper one but it’s also missing a facet of the job. You’re paid to give opinions so people listen. If you sound like a national person but someone is tuning into get away from the negative coverage, that’s the last thing you want to hear.

        Like I said below, we tried the “import an outsider” (or, one who doesn’t adopt the way of life) and it never seems to work.

        Like

    4. I liked Gresh and that show had top notch football talk, including college and the other 31 teams. Bertrand is a dump. Benz is a squid who has benefitted from nepotism to get where he is. I strongly believe if it were any other team and QB going through this ridiculous saga we would all still feel that it’s horsesh*t. Or at least anyone with a brain would.

      Like

  24. Like

  25. New information out there Brady was responsible for Spygate?

    (And, Tim Benz wonders why we hate the national coverage on the Patriots.)

    Like

    1. Clearly, Freeman is yet another mediot who simply doesn’t understand “Spygate”; and doesn’t understand that it was much ado about nothing. PIck up the phone and call Jimmy Johnson, Mr. Freeman. He’ll set you straight.

      Like

  27. Adam Schefter on WEEI on the NFL perspective for this ridiculous non-story: “There is a lot of pride at stake here.” He doesn’t think the NFL will backdown, negotiate, nor do what Reiss suggests, put it aside until they have a full season of studying the pressure of footballs and how it changes.

    Went on, “they are not backing down” on their support of the Wells report.

    Like

    1. Interview was good.

      Thinks its going to court, which its first stop is obviously in MA. Wonder if that will be the first time in their lives Borges, Shaughnessy or Tomasse beg for jury duty?

      Like

    2. Because the pride of Fearless Leader Goodell and his minions is more important than the truth and the reputation of the NFL’s greatest player.

      Like

  28. Looks like local media is picking up on new ways to add listeners, bag on F&M

    Like

  29. So it dawned on me why guys like Felger and Mazzorotti are having such a difficult time understanding why fans are so upset over the NFL’s treatment of Brady…although they say things like “If Brady is innocent then he should press this until he is vindicated” followed by…”I think he did something”. That is the crux of the whole issue. These guys, not matter how the science is presented to them believe that the Patriots did “something” and that Brady was “involved. A lot of fans however are working from the other perspective…that is the Patriots did not do anything. The fluctuation in air pressure is easily explained by science. As such there was no doctoring of the football. If you believe the second set of events…the facts line up pretty clearly and the only people who acted out were NFL officials. The problem is guys like Benz, Felger, Mazz and others either refuse to see the evidence or are so insistent that something had to have “happened” that they have lost all vestiges of objectivity. Its frustrating because that perspective drives ratings. Even Mike Holley has jumped on that train.

    As a consumer of the talk product I admit it is getting harder and harder to listen because I don’t hear anyone saying…”Its clear Brady did not do anything illegal, so the next step for the NFL is to find an honorable way out”. Instead I hear…they must have done something…they are guilty of something…or my favorite from today’s F&M show “Based on mildly unsubstantiated rumor and innuendo that we have heard but can’t discuss, Ted Wells has more evidence on Brady and the Pats than has been released”.

    Like

    1. Was that really stated today? Yeah, because if he had more on TB12 and the Pats, he has every reason to be sitting on it right now. Toolbags.

      Like

        1. Well, they’d better have something, then, because if they’re just throwing this crap out there to drive ratings, THAT meets the NYT vs. Sullivan definition of “malice of forethought” for a defamation suit IMO. Of course, I’m calling b.s. Felger hasn’t covered the NFL in years and Mazz was a baseball guy before he hitched his wagon to the Cheesehead Big Mouth. What possible “sources” could they have on this that other, full-time NFL reporters don’t have?

          Like

          1. It’s a microcosm of the whole thing… the Patriots and Brady are put in a position of trying to prove a negative.

            The notion that the NFL has “more” on them is such a red herring. You think Wells… the guy who gave the most defensive conf. call in history… sounds like a guy who would hold back anything? Especially after his report has more holes than swiss cheese right now? Ummm… no.

            Which brings me to the spygate tape meme that’s always out there. Like, what do people who cry about the Commissioner ‘destroying the tapes’ think was on them? Like try to guess what else could be on them other than def. coach signals, panning up to the down & distance on the scoreboard, then down to a cheerleader’s ass and then back to the coordinator. What else is there to film?? Gee, I guess “we’ll never know!!”. Uggh.

            One last note… if Jastremski was ordered by Brady to tell McNally to deflate balls after inspection… why wouldn’t he sue the Pats for his suspension? After all, he would have been suspended for just ‘doing what he was ordered to do’. The truth is he’s not because he wasn’t ordered by Brady nor did it at all… he was suspended for stealing equipment behind his boss’ back (VERY clear in the text messages in Wells Report).

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      2. Now that I have a minute…Not only did they make that pronouncement but they said they had a tip that they have not divulged. They said that was the reason they have been making such a big deal of Brady’s phone. They think there is some smoking gun on it…they again implied that this can be linked back to BB. It was pretty annoying because you can’t call them on it because they revert to…we do not have enough info to discuss it…but they are willing to toss it out there in innuendo and unsubstantiated rumor.

        Like

    2. Look to the Green Bay game. Greg Bedard wrote something about it in MMQB (I think when he filled in for PK). However, to make it seem like some super secret sinister plot took place is ridiculous because air out of a football isn’t an advantage. It’s preference. And the refs don’t care enough to write it down or check during a game. Even if they were up to something, do you think they would in their right minds go forward if they knew it would result in this shitstorm? That we’re here now is nothing short of mind boggling.

      Like

    3. Your last sentence applies to spygate as well. Because the penalties were so over the top, there are folks that believe the Patriots did something far worse and the NFL is covering it up. And a lot of idiots still state that they were filming practices.

      Like

  30. Florio is an interesting case of someone who jumped right on the bandwagon with the initial wave of Deflategate. Over time, we started to see him look deeper into everything and switched sides.

    He did a podcast with TheBigLead yesterday:

    http://thebiglead.com/2015/06/24/mike-florio-goodell-underlings-were-out-to-get-the-patriots/

    “As for the science, I think that has been sufficiently debunked by
    people like the American Enterprise Institute,”

    […]

    It happens all the time, and it’s easy to get jaded about when you’re a
    lawyer, but it just shows that there’s companies out there that will
    give you whatever opinion you’re paying for. These companies will give
    you something scientific that proves whatever it is you want, and plenty
    of people, including me, believe that’s what happened here.”

    […]

    We compared the flaws of other major investigations that took place
    under Roger Goodell — Bountygate, Ray Rice, and Richie Incognito — and
    Florio said that a common thread in all of them was that “the NFL
    reaches a decision early on about what it wants to do, and they start
    from the ending point, and they work backwards to justify that knee-jerk
    gut-level reaction that someone at the league office gets.”

    […]

    “I think that they deliberately delayed the process of getting the real numbers out because having the false numbers out there kept the Patriots feeling like they were on the ropes when the reality was that they were on ropes that weren’t even there,” Florio said. “We didn’t get the truth until May. That is the one fact that bothers me more than anything in this entire ordeal, and that’s the one fact that causes me to believe that someone was out to get the Patriots. The false information was put out there, or deliberately not corrected.”

    They post the good quotes (and there are MANY more) but I think it is a must listen.

    Like

    1. It is a must listen.. and at the end when he describes being on the phone with the league to get the real numbers and settle the score between the Mortensen and Rappaport reports, you have to think he’s speaking to Kensil right? Didn’t Kensil’s kid intern for PFT/the internet TV show? I’m not a reporter, never taken journalism class, and I realize he has more than one source; interested to hear what other’s think. Too bad that weird guy interviewing didn’t think to ask him that.

      Like

      1. Yeah. He tried to remove/delete the references after someone discovered it on Twitter and RT’d enough bigger talkers to get it going viral. Kensil’s son was a NBC/PFT intern from around 2011-2012, and I’d assume that was his connection (as others) on the leaks.

        (As a sidebar: it is scary how many of these league people seem to be unabated Jets fans. If you had to pick one fan base that’d love to destroy the Patriots, its them.)

        Someone brought up on how he was hot for all the latest news being clickbait, but then he switches a month-or-so later.

        After this is all over, I’d love to know what made him switch.

        Same on Schefter. I still find him solid but when I’ve heard him in the past on this, and the D+H interview yesterday, his tone just comes across as skeptical of everything going on. I think Schefter’s skepticism comes from just being an introspective person who understands the PR-game of his job but realizes how the “sources” thing works.

        Florio’s, I always wonder if there’s an ulterior motive, but have to wonder if he’s using his brain. He’s a smart guy but money trumps intelligence (we’re all guilty of).

        Like

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