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the 2014/2015 nfl thread v. R U RDY 4 SUM FOOTBAW?

"After a thorough investigation the league has determined that the correct PSI for a football is 10.5 PSI, not 12.5 PSI. The league will be retroactively fining every team but the Patriots for using over-inflated balls."
 
And what about fumbles? Surely a huge game-changing event in any game. A deflated ball is much easier for a runner or WR to grip onto and not be stripped of. How have the Patriots' fumble stats stacked up over the past few years compared to the rest of the league?

2014: 2nd least fumbles lost
2013: t5th least fumbles lost
2012: t4th least fumbles lost
2011: t1st least fumbles lost
2010: 1st least fumbles lost
2009: t4th least fumbles lost

what does their fumbles lost look like at home and away? How does their opponents fumbles lost during the games they were playing them?
 
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^ nobody in the pats organization is going to get a fair hearing (from gm) whether they were actually involved or not. he's already decided everybody is guilty so there's no point trying to discuss this objectively...
...yet lose every single road playoff game they've played over the past 7 years
you mean the single road playoff game they played in the last 7 years: 2013 afc game in denver.

i know you're loving this but you don't have to spin it, gm...

alasdair
 
I don't see why the Superbowls wouldn't count if we're asserting that it'd be easier to cheat in their own stadium. For postseason, they're 0-3 in games not played in Foxoboro since 2007 and 1-5 since 2005. They're 8-3 at home in the postseason. Of course that doesn't prove anything, but it's still an interesting stat for a team that has less trouble winning away games than any team in the league.

ESPN was speculating today that one explanation for them being basically unbeatable all 2007 only to lose in the Superbowl could be due to the fact that the Superbowl is the only game where the league provides all of the balls for each team. Not saying I believe that, just that I'm loving every minute of it. =D

What do you think about that plays per fumble graph Ali? Think it points to anything or just a coincidence?
 
And just to be clear for everyone else, in no way am I using their possible cheating as an excuse for the Bills' lack of success over the past 15 years, because the Bills themselves are mostly to blame for that. GOOD teams can overcome cheaters.

I just want people to look at the Patriots' success in the league overall and realize that some of it may very well be due to various forms of cheating and bending the rules. The Bills of 2000-2013 will go down in history as a sucky team, because they WERE. I just don't want the Patriots of that same time period to go down as "the greatest ever" without the notation that they were caught cheating several times.
 
nothing i say is going to change your mind, gm, because you'll draw the conclusions that are consistent with your hatred of the pats. you've made up your mind and i've nothing to add to what i've said.

have your fun. i know this makes up for your team sucking for so long.

alasdair
 
You misunderstand. Yes I'm going to hate on the Pats and consider them guilty.

But I wasn't asking for your opinion to rub it in your face. I asked because I'm genuinely interested in your take on everything that's going on. On the stats of cold weather passing, of
fumble numbers, of everything.

Yours is literally the most interesting perspective I could ever hope to get on this situation. I've known you for so long I:

-Know you're the kind of person that doesn't bullshit.

-Respect your opinion

-Know you wouldn't say something you really don't believe just because you're loyal to a particular team

-Know a lot about football

-Don't identify yourself in life as a Patriots fan above anything else(at least not on BL)

I can't say any of the above about anyone else I can talk to about this. Where could I? The Bills' message boards? The Patriots' message boards? Facebook filled with all my WNY friends?

No. I want to hear as much as I can on this topic from you, because it's too easy for me to get carried away when nobody is representing the other side. This shit is so polarized on social media and biased in WNY that if I don't get a rational counter argument soon I'm going to be convinced Bellichick shot Kennedy.
 
Truth be told I think the Patriots are getting jobbed. I think this whole issue is so minor that teams just consider it part of the game. I know that Pats/Sea Superbowl is an unpopular one and SB ticket sales were tracking at 12% below average before this and now they're tracking at over 10% above.

While I do think the Patriots skirt the rules all the time, this all strikes me as something the league knew about, something that was never considered a big deal, and something the league decided to blow out of proportion out of nowhere to increase drama and viewership for the bowl.

Kudos to them, it worked. This is probably the largest media coverage of football during the 2 off weeks before the bowl in NFL history.
 
"After a thorough investigation the league has determined that the correct PSI for a football is 10.5 PSI, not 12.5 PSI. The league will be retroactively fining every team but the Patriots for using over-inflated balls."

lol'd

but wouldn't surprise me a whole lot if this really happened
 
Every qb in the league worth a shit doctors the football to his specifications. There was an entire espn article preseason about Eli manning and his equipment manager getting balls ready for the season. Non issue.
 
Anyone interested in gambling on who wins? I usually bet a bill+ but I'll put 40 on it, paypal. No welching, if you're interested, PM me.
 
ESPN pole today:

xhhtvpzeijlibqmrvc73.png
 
i'm so over it right now, gm. i don't really want to discuss...

bottom line: they broke a rule and they should be punished.

what i don't understand is, why they would risk their legacy like this? it's maddening and frustrating and disappointing.

i know you want to get into the numbers, gm but there's no point because the patriots have fucked it up. those fumble numbers? there's another conclusion - the patriots are just awesome at protecting the ball. but that's not even a possibility in the discussion anymore because the patriots cheated so anything they're good at now has an asterisk next to it.

what a fucking waste of talent.

alasdair
 
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Understandable. Regardless of what happens I'd bet we'll hear from the league this weekend or early next week. If I had to guess I'd say the league will either state they don't have enough evidence and will do nothing, or they'll slap the Pats with something like a $500k fine and take away a draft pick or two. Or something in between. There's no way they come down on them harder than that.
 
i read something today that i didn't know. i thought the balls had been used for the whole game but i have learned that the under-inflated balls were only used in the first half. at half time, a new batch of correctly inflated balls were introduced.

score in the first half: 7-17
score in the second half: 0-28

turns out the pats play better with correctly inflated balls :)

if it wasn't for spy-gate, we wouldn't even be talking about this. the pats only have themselves to blame.

alasdair
 
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