Good old New England Patriots.
The Pittsburgh Steelers struggled with communication problems in the first half of their 28-21 loss at New England Thursday night, with their coach-to-coach headset system echoing the Patriots’ radio broadcast for most of the first half. Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin told reporters of the headset issues after the game “that’s always the case [here].”
[…] As Tomlin implied, this is far from the first time opponents facing the Patriots have raised questions about headset issues.* 2006: Patriots security staff audio interferes with the Jaguars’ coach-to-QB communication system at “crucial moments” during a playoff game. The Lions and the Bengals also reported their coaches’ headsets stopped working during games at New England.
* 2007: The Patriots are investigated for using unapproved communication frequencies to interfere with the New York Jets’ headset system.
* 2008: Karlos Dansby accuses the Patriots of tampering with the Cardinals’ headset system.
* 2011: Jack Del Rio has his Jaguars team practice without headset communications, as “that tends to happen in New England.”
Somewhere an antigovernment patriot with tea bags hanging from her tricorner hat and a Gadsden flag on the hoveround is embarrassed by association with these jackasses.
Also and as always, fuck Michael Vick.
JPL
I’m glad to know the Steelers would have won had they not had interference on their headset. I think Goodell needs to weigh in and the latest gate. What is the latest gate called? Lack of communication gate? We meant to cover Gronk gate?
Ryan
More bitching and whining from a group of losers.
“I thought that there was a rule against that,” Roethlisberger told reporters. “Maybe there’s not. Maybe it’s just an unwritten rule. … We saw it on film, that the Patriots do that. They shift and slide and do stuff on the goal line, knowing that it’s an itchy trigger finger-type down there.”
Morzer
On this one, I have to say that the Patriots are not the only team to have trouble with headsets. Sun Life stadium has also had recurrent issues over the years (probably due to its age, although the recent round of major upgrades have hopefully solved the problem). Still, it’s hard to feel much sympathy for a franchise that has brought suspicion on itself so consistently over the years by questionable behavior.
JPL
I blame Gronk!
walden
and the usual cheating. Like the crucial offsides call brought on by Patriots defense mimicking steeler QB snap count at goal line. Who else does this stuff?
Morzer
@JPL:
You’d think that teams didn’t really need headsets to get the general idea that covering Gronk would be the smart play, even the obvious play.
Arm The Homeless
Simply another reason to dislike the Patriots. Maybe Brady can call in the Oaf Keepers to protect him from the NFL’s front office. I’m sure they work cheaper than $500 an hour Kraft lawyers
geg6
The Pats, quite simply, cheat. They cheat all the time. If you see the Patriots anywhere, assume they are cheating. If someone from the organization is buying coffee from you, assume they’ll short change you. If you are a subcontractor to the team, assume they will find a way to break the contract. If you are married to one, you should be checking the Ashley Madison dump.
And for all the whiners who are going to come in and moan about how the Steelers wouldn’t have won the game anyway, neither Tomlin nor Tim nor I am saying they would have. Of course, we’ll never really know, though, will we?
Morzer
@Arm The Homeless:
I suspect the Kraft lawyers are all busy explaining to the world why cheese slices according to Kraft shouldn’t be required to have much that resembles cheese in them.
Betty Cracker
As you said, fuck Vick. Every time he takes a snap at Gillette, the Cheatriots should pipe a recording of dogs howling at 150 decibels right into his helmet.
JPL
@Ryan: It’s the itchy trigger finger-type gate.
I wish that Cole would comment. I love whine in the morning.
geg6
@Betty Cracker:
Why would he be taking a snap at Gillette? And as for the Massholes and their favorite cheaters, they really have nothing to talk about when it comes to either Vick or Roethlisberger. Seems to me they had a murderer on their team for several seasons.
Full metal Wingnut
@walden: The filming shit is legit cheating. What you’re describing is just pushing the envelope a bit. It’s strategy.
Full metal Wingnut
@Morzer: I don’t think he’s related to that Kraft family but I could be wrong.
benw
I can understand the “crucial moments” during a playoff game, but isn’t this the preseason? Are they practicing their cheating? Can we check Brady’s texts about this?
JPL
And the story continues. According to nbcsports,
After the Steelers beat the Jets in the AFC Championship Game in January of 2011, the Jets said they were having problems communicating at Heinz Field. Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez said the problems were something he hadn’t previously encountered.
JPL
@Full metal Wingnut: Kraft made his money in paper and container business.
Morzer
@Full metal Wingnut:
Actually, I think you are right. Still, Robert Kraft has skated on so many other things, it seems only fair that he should be blamed for the crappy fake cheese of this world.
Morzer
@JPL:
Finding a problem that Mark Sanchez had not previously encountered in his career is quite an achievement.
debbie
Cheating cheaters gotta cheat. Is there any way they can suspend and fine Belichick?
Immanentize
I really recommend the radiolab pod cast if you want the history of pop warner, cheating and winning. In other words, football.
http://www.radiolab.org/story/football/
Morzer
@debbie:
For failure to perform electrical maintenance duties at Foxborough? I’d pay money to see Goodell explaining that one to a judge.
Betty Cracker
@geg6: He played there last night as a member of the visiting Pittsburgh Steelers, didn’t he? Or was at least riding the bench? I didn’t watch, so I don’t know whether he took a snap or not. As for the Patriots, a recent ESPN report removed all doubt about how they operate, for me, at least.
Rommie
As much as I hate the
Four HorsemenPatriots, I approve of them Trolling the NFL until one or the other goes too far yet again. It’s as entertaining as the games at this point.PaulW
here’s the thing: if the headsets are a legitimate problem in that stadium for the Patriots, WHY HAVEN’T THEY EVER FIXED IT? This is a problem going back years, and with enough complaints about it by other teams in the league that the NFL should have stepped in and enforced upgrades or repairs by now. These are billion-dollar sports teams unable to spend a lousy 10 million on better wiring?
The only thing I’m seeing is a team that profits from the faulty gear as a means of cheating. Given everything else surrounding the Patriots’ on-field and off-field rules-skirting, that is the ONLY thing that makes any goddamn sense anymore.
Gin & Tonic
Shit, I’m old enough to remember when you didn’t need a radio to play football.
RobertB
The Pats cheated? Say it isn’t so.
Morzer
@PaulW:
It might just be a matter of an oldish stadium and bad wiring. I am pretty sure that’s why Sun Life stadium has had similar problems over the years. I have no doubt that the Patriots haven’t rushed to fix the issue, especially if it was going to require a major upgrade to an otherwise functional stadium, but that’s about all I can see here.
PaulW
@debbie:
What is happening here is organizational rot: the owner has to be in on this regarding the headset crap because the maintenance and upgrade on that equipment is a front office administrative thing, an expense that the owner has to sign off for. It can’t just be the coach, it’s everybody associated with that team.
PaulW
@Morzer:
Gillette Stadium was built in 2002!!! It’s not old.
Morzer
@Gin & Tonic:
I miss the good old days of bloggers communicating by parchment, quill and pigeons, although comment sections did get a bit messy.
marduk
Did you notice that it rained more heavily whenever the Steelers had the ball? I demand an investigation.
But seriously, the league maintains the communications gear. The league immediately took responsibility for the equipment failure. The pats were dealing with the same problem. It’s really sad, honestly, that Tomlin’s first reaction is to go crying to the media. At least Seattle took their superbowl loss with class.
Morzer
@PaulW:
It’s getting up there in terms of technology. It may not be about to collapse structurally, but 13 years is an eternity in our brave new wifi world.
PaulW
@Gin & Tonic:
thing is, nowadays we do, so if it’s set for one team and one stadium it’s gotta be that way for everybody else.
My next question: how many other stadiums have this problem with headsets?
JPL
@Betty Cracker: ESPN who said eleven out of twelve footballs were deflated and none of the Colts were? That ESPN/Goodell network? I did not read the latest report but I read a snippet where they already modified it.
They could have cheated and they definitely, stretch the rules but ESPN is not a source that I’d trust. I read NBC sports.
A Ghost To Most
Why assume that it is a maintenance problem? I don’t recall hearing that the Cheatriots had headset problems.
Morzer
@PaulW:
SunLife stadium does (or hopefully did.)
http://www.geekwire.com/2015/steelers-coaches-upset-after-headset-malfunction-during-game-against-patriots-in-new-england/
The official word on the matter blames it on a “stadium power infrastructure failure”.
I assume this means faulty wiring.
beltane
All of this is making it very, very easy to hate football.
raven
What a bullshit thread. Fuck all of you.
Gin & Tonic
@PaulW: Despite living some 30-40 miles from Gillette Stadium, I couldn’t give two shits about the Pats, or football at all, so I have no idea what the answer to that is, and should probably let you junkies battle it out here.
JoeShabadoo
If it gets windy when the other team has to kick a field goal they are going to blame it on the Patriot’s for secretly sacrificing a goat to Baalshamin before the game.
In the NFL’s statement they say that they supplied the headsets and then point out the problem they solved. If its a legit problem that ruins communication NFL is supposed to take away headsets from the other team as well anyway.
debbie
@PaulW:
I wonder if Kraft would straighten up if Putin gave him his ring back.
A Ghost To Most
@raven:
Generic shit stirring, or is there a reason you are upset?
Morzer
@raven:
Man, who dipped your beak in the hot sauce?
cmorenc
@Morzer:
The game would frankly be vastly better if headsets and electronic communications with players or among the coaching staffs were prohibited, and any confidential communication of the next “play” had to be done via sending in a substitute player. Somehow, the other, vastly more popular throughout the world version of “football” (aka soccer) does just fine without all that coaching control-freak rigamarole, with the responsibility for dynamic decision-making deferred vastly more (of necessity) to the players on the field.
Yatsuno
@JPL: I want to hate the Pats, but Gronk is just too damn adorable.
Betty Cracker
@JPL: The ESPN report linked above is as much an indictment of Goodell, the owners and the whole rotten system as it is of the Patriots.
Morzer
@cmorenc:
Semaphore flags are the way to go. Make Belichick wag his own flags.
raven
@A Ghost To Most: I’d rather watch the minute-by-minute 9-11 replay than have the same stupid conversation that went on last night.
marduk
@Betty Cracker: The ESPN report that recycled a bunch of disproven allegations and random paranoid fantasies? The one that repeated accusations from proven liar Matt Walsh as fact? The one that described perfectly legal behavior as cheating? That ESPN report?
Hysterical how easy it is to lead people around by the nose when you’re presenting something that they want to believe. It’s no wonder global warming denial and vaccine trutherism has such a strong foothold in the public mind. Sad that people are so willing to abandon critical thinking when they’re presented information that supports their biases.
JoeShabadoo
@cmorenc: I agree that headsets seem to make the coach too much a part of the actual play.
Morzer
@marduk:
Yeah, some of those rubes actually bought into the Free Tom Brady masshole-hysteria. It’s a sad reflection on our society.
JPL
@raven: There’s a new post just for you.
RobertB
Since football == Warfare Light anyway, they should just defer this to the teams. You want to talk to the coaches in the booth, the QB, or the third-string special teams linebacker? It’s your problem, not the league or the stadium.
JPL
@marduk: Hillary knows how that works.
marduk
@Morzer: Like judge Berman?
Oops, guess the massholes were right.
AxelFoley
Fuck Mike Vick, but Big Ben’s ok, tho, right?
FOH
A Ghost To Most
@raven:
Yea, complaining about the Pats IS pretty much pissing in the wind. Nothing changes.
Morzer
@marduk:
You see, you’ve bought the idea that the judge declared Brady and the Patriots innocent, because that’s what the Patriot media machine wants you to believe. Classic case of the vulnerability of the willfully gullible to propaganda. Of course, neutral observers know that the judge told Goodell nothing more than that the NFL had messed up the process of suspending Brady.
JoeShabadoo
I get the feeling we are going to hear stuff like this after every Pats game. Every hiccup, technical issue, and bad call will be a new windmill to tilt at. NonPats fans want blood.
BillinGlendaleCA
@raven: Hasn’t that been on the last 13 years?
the Conster
I love that the Pats are in everyone’s heads. After all those years of being a laughingstock, I’ve come to rather enjoy being a fan of the spawn of Satan. This season is going to be over the top hilarious.
marduk
@Morzer: Actually, while Berman’s ruling as a matter of law is that the process Goodell used to punish Brady was illegitimate (because, again as a matter of law, that’s the only question he was able to address), he’s quite clear that the league had zero evidence that any cheating occurred and zero evidence that, had there hypothetically been cheating, Brady had anything to do with it. He specifically quotes the admission in Wells report in his ruling that there was no reliable evidence that the balls were deflated. He elicited an admission from the league attorney that they had no evidence WHATSOEVER that Brady desired the balls to be inflated less than the legal minimum.
But you heard “Patriots Cheated” back in January and that was enough for you.
Jack
Clearly cheating cheaters (who cheat!) should be shunned by all proper football fans.
http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/eye-on-football/24298003/did-mike-tomlin-try-to-trip-jacoby-jones-sure-looks-like-it
Punchy
What haps if/when an Appeals court overturns Judge PatsFan’s ruling a week ago? Do they suspend Brady for games, say, 3-6? Or is the suspension moot at that pont? If so, why did they appeal at all?
Loviatar
I have a question for the fans of the 31 other NFL teams.
Lets stipulate that all of the Spygate, Deflategate, Headsetgate stuff is crap, NE has done nothing wrong in the past 15 years (since Bill Belichick (BB) was named coach).
Why aren’t you demanding your owners implement the same “culture of winning” that BB has instituted in NE? The rewards are certainly worth the risk; 4 Super Bowls won, 6 Super Bowls attended, 12 years in the playoffs, 14 years with a winning records. And as we’ve found, if your “culture of winning” becomes problematical, it won’t be an issue, your fans will forgive you and the NFL will either turn a blind eye or fumble away the punishment. Why not demand the same “culture of winning” from your own owners.
Look how well it works on Wall Street.
Betty Cracker
@marduk: God, you should hear yourself. I don’t really give a shit one way or another about the Patriots — certainly not enough to continue a conversation with a True Believer. I’ll just say I’m confident I’m not the one who comes across as the climate change denying anti-vaxxer in this exchange, and with that, I leave you to defend the honor of your pure heroes without further input from me. Good day, sir! I said GOOD DAY!
Full metal Wingnut
@Morzer: Fair enough. He’s a pretty savvy businessman, so I give him props for that. Within the NFL of course, hardly been a force for good.
marduk
@Punchy: This is where Berman is brilliant, and why the league’s appeal is really stupid. Berman’s ruling is based on several procedural issues that he lays out in the decision- but at the end of his ruling he lays out several other issues brought up by the defense that he states he has not adjudicated but that would also vacate the punishment if he were to rule in Brady’s favor.
So if for whatever reason his decision is returned on appeal he could easily just rule on the issues he reserved judgement on and vacate the suspension again. It’s pretty clear that Berman doesn’t think the league has a factual leg to stand on, and all the procedural defects of their case derive from a lack of evidence that any wrongdoing occurred in the first place.
Bostondreams
@walden:
They didn’t ‘mimic the count’. They timed the shift to Big Ben’s cadence, and the Steelers jumped. And btw, they did that earlier in the game as well, and the Steelers ran a RB through the hole for a TD. Didn’t see them complaining then.
And if you have seen them do it on film, how do you not prep your line for it?
Full metal Wingnut
I do feel silly though since I’ve defended Belichick for a while now (I’m an old school Giants fan, from the Parcells days). Now that actual material cheating evidence has come to light with regards to the video recording.
I did admire Belichick being willing to push the envelope. Not cheating per se, but skating right up to the line pursuing every possible competitive advantage.
I know I sound like a Patriots apologist. On the contrary, it’s just that I have no reason to hate the Patriots. Like I said, I’m a Giants fan: muahahahahahahahaha
Full metal Wingnut
@Bostondreams: It’s just the defense equivalent of a hard count (which by the way the Patriots successfully used in getting the offsides against the Hawks in the last or maybe second to last play of the Super Bowl).
It’s hardly cheating-part of the game is paying attention for Christ’s sake. Honestly it’s no different from strategic clock management. Football’s more than just tossing and kicking an oblong leather ball-meatheads are just pissed they’re not smart enough to grasp that.
marduk
@Betty Cracker: Sorry to sully your subjective reality with facts from the objective one. The last time a news organization peddled lies about the patriots taping practices it resulted in a front page apology. The last time ESPN lied about the patriots taping practices they issued an apology, and that was just a few weeks ago. So you might want to avoid reading ESPN for the next month or so if you want to maintain your faith.
p.a.
@PaulW: It does happen elsewhere, but the Pats have their rep to overcome.
Did the Steelers need play-by-play instruction to know to cover Gronk? And not use slow linebackers when they did?
Paul in KY
@raven: And a Happy Friday to you too!
Paul in KY
@the Conster: You know, there’s a reason Belichek likes to wear that hoodie…
geg6
@Betty Cracker:
He rode the bench. Not happy to have him, but he did his time and should not be banned from making a living in his profession. Hopefully, it’s only for the one year on his contract and that Ben stays healthy so I don’t have to feel badly about watching. Took me years to get over the whole Ben thing (still won’t buy any swag with his name on it, but he has been a model citizen for many years now). I don’t want to go through that again.
geg6
@Loviatar:
Since my team’s record is better than that of the Pats as far was being a winning franchise goes, I see no need for my team to flop down into the gutter that Kraft and Belichick relish living in.
different-church-lady
What’s really brilliant about what the Patriots do the headsets is the way they’ve gotten the NFL to cooperate with it over all these years… since the NFL provides and operates the gear.
Betty Cracker
@geg6: I don’t think Vick should be banned from making a living in his profession either. I just wish the collective disgust of the fan base was such that no team would exercise its right to hire him.
gian
@JPL:
ESPN is the Judith Miller or steno Sue for the NFL office. Will repeat whatever from unnamed sources
Loviatar
@geg6:
Please tell me, which team is it that you root for that has a better record than NE over the past 15 years. I don’t see them listed anywhere in the NFL records. Like it or not since BB became coach NE has been the NFLs most successful team.
Additionally, like it or not their “culture of winning” works, so the question becomes why aren’t more owners demanding it of their coaches and why aren’t more fan bases clamoring for it?
Morzer
@marduk:
The facts are straightforward: the Patriots admitted wrongdoing and accepted their punishment. You can certainly continue to stamp your little foot and cry out against a cruel, hard world,if you wish, but when your own franchise has publicly accepted its guilt and punishment you look utterly ridiculous for attempting to defend a pass that it has already sold out from underneath you.
redshirt
@marduk:
Here’s a fact most people will ignore – even here – and instead they will stick to their beliefs.
It’s fascinating, in a way, because it’s like the same mentality that gets people to vote Republican against their own interests, or deny global warming, despite the facts.
Facts don’t seem to matter much anymore, even though we can access facts more easily then ever before.
And not like it will matter, but here’s a link stating that the Pats had headphone issues last night too.
http://www.boston.com/sports/football/patriots/2015/09/11/morning-sports-roundup-bill-belichick-says-patriots-had-headset-issues-too/r2b3WJMmctVJPvk53man3I/story.html?p1=Must_Reads
Loviatar
As learned from Wall Street, NE’s most important assets aren’t their player’s talent/skills, or their coach’s creativity/methods, its their lawyers ability to obfuscate. Just win baby and let the lawyers do their job.
Al Davis knew this 50 years ago.
redshirt
@Morzer:
You’re aware that all teams videotape the other teams signals, for ever, right? The Patriots “crime” was videotaping from a recently (one game prior) prohibited location. OH THE HORROR!
The real “crime” was they developed a system for interpreting other teams signals that was superior by far to all other teams.
They hate us cuz they ain’t us.
elmo
@Betty Cracker: That’s really the distinction for me too. Nobody should be legally barred from earning a living after serving their time. But I don’t have to root for the guy, and I’m allowed to wish that my own revulsion was so widespread that nobody ELSE would root for him either. He chose to make his career as a professional entertainer. That’s what football is – entertainment. His livelihood depends on public goodwill to a much greater extent than an accountant or a carpenter.
And yes, I apply pretty much the same standard to other alleged and convicted criminals in the NFL – once I believe a player guilty of reprehensible conduct, I don’t root for them. Ben Roethlisburger is one. Ray Lewis is another. I don’t require a criminal conviction beyond a reasonable doubt, because I’m not taking anybody’s freedom away – I’m just not rooting for them and I don’t want them to succeed.
Morzer
It is certainly amusing to see the Cheatriot cybermob ignoring the fact that Kraft and the franchise accepted their punishment and the loss of draft picks. When the franchise itself cops to being guilty like that, you’d have to be deranged to believe them innocent. Still, I daresay the “Hernandez was framed” mob are pretty easy to whip up into a gullible frenzy. It is what makes them a mob, rather than a group of citizens capable of facing the facts with dignity.
Joe Shabadoo
@redshirt: Exactly.
The stuff everyone hates the Patriots for is the smallest time stuff imaginable in a league pumped full of PEDs.
redshirt
@Morzer: Because they broke a recently made rule and accepted it. So what? Is it a big deal?
geg6
@Loviatar:
I didn’t qualify it with an arbitrary number of years. I’m talking about the franchise. And, yes, it’s the Steelers. The Pats aren’t qualified to lick their shoes as far as a franchise goes.
geg6
@redshirt:
Because, of course, there is no way that the league would collude with the Pats. That would never happen.
/sarcasm
geg6
@redshirt:
So all the teams go into other teams’ locker rooms and steal stuff from there, too?
Morzer
@geg6:
Give the Patsies five minutes and they’ll swear that “Jeff Pash DID NOT STOMP THE TAPES! There were no tapes!”
Rob
@marduk: Why do you think McNally called himself “the deflator” and joked that he “was not going to ESPN … yet”? Just curious.
Morzer
@Rob:
Well, obviously he had a yuuuge, classy Boston sensayumor…. *cough*
marduk
@Morzer: Are you talking about accepting the penalty from videotaping from a prohibited location, that the patriots never denied? Or are you lying about the patriots admitting to deflating footballs?
different-church-lady
@redshirt:
Or support a big war that’s otherwise an obvious pile of horseshit. Or impeach a president over a blowjob. Or believe a Sec. of State is culpable in a mob death overseas. Or…
redshirt
@geg6:
Not a literal shred of proof.
But even, you realize that teams – all teams in the history of teams – try to find out information ahead of time? That all NFL players get fined by their respective teams if they don’t turn in their playbooks. Guess why?
Morzer
@marduk:
Apparently you missed Robert Kraft himself standing up and accepting the loss of the two picks and the discipline for the Patriots’ latest outbreak of incompetent dishonesty.
As for the public apology by the Patriots to the league after being caught cheating for the first time, I am sure you’ll tell us that it was really just a matter of failure to pay off a parking ticket in due time because the Patriots are just a bighearted, absentminded franchise like that.
redshirt
@Morzer: And so what team do you root for?
marduk
@Morzer: So lying, and doubling down on it. Classy.
Morzer
@marduk:
You really can’t handle the facts, can you? The Patriots accepted the discipline handed down by the league after being caught cheating. Didn’t you notice that they were docked two draft picks and fined $1million for their latest round of dishonesty? Kraft accepted the punishment. Facts. End of story.
Rob
Marduk, why do you think McNally called himself “the deflator” and joked that he “was not going to ESPN … yet”? Any opinion on that?
Rob
Marduk, any opinion on why McNally called himself “the deflator”, and joked that he “was not going to ESPN … yet”?
redshirt
@Rob:
Questions for you: How many New England balls were actually deflated, and by how much? Also, in the same game, how many of the Colts balls were also below the minimum PSI?
different-church-lady
Why do coaches even have headsets? They should make them do it all at field level.
Rob
@redshirt: I don’t know. Just wondered if Pats’ defenders had an opinion on why McNally wd call himself that.
Goblue72
I love the smell of butthurt in the morning. Smells like a Pats victory.
Betty Cracker
@Rob: IIRC, some members of the sect interpret the remarks of Disciple McNally as a reference to his personal weight loss. However, other learned theologians regard the scriptures from whence it came as wholly apocryphal.
Morzer
@Goblue72:
So you are telling us that Patriots’ victories smell like ass?
Keith G
Interesting discussions going on here. Everything from ball inflation needles, to headsets, to dogs. Quite a carnival.
The men who run/own the NFL are collectively as big a pool of human scum as one is likely to find in corporate America.
Their view of their players is not unlike the way a pre rehabilitated Vic felt about puppies. Their franchise higher cheerleaders whom they are fighting in court so that they can continue to also be treating like dogs. They run scams to get public treasuries to pay for their corporate infrastructure. And when confronted with the facts that show the very thing they do to earn billions of dollars causes great health problems for the people who earn those billions for them, they do everything they can to avoid responsibility.
And people above are arguing over which is the most righteous franchise. Give me a fricking break.
This has been dictated on a mobile device while I have been mobile. I hope that it is reasonably understandable as I am not in a position to edit. Sorry about that.
different-church-lady
Steelers are over it. But who knows what kinds of punishments Capt. Ahab Goodell will hand out?
Howard Beale IV
All of the headset get now being provide to the NFL is from Bose-based in Massachusetts.
different-church-lady
@Howard Beale IV: It’s more probable than not Belichick was generally aware of the death of the guy who’s name is on the mouthpieces.
Full disclosure: I’ve done work for them and from what I know about their stuff, I’m not at all surprised it malfunctions.
marduk
@Rob: I don’t have any idea what the various text excerpts that Wells included in his report were about. Notably the Wells report has McNally using the term “deflate” unambiguously as a synonym for weight loss in at least one other instance. Wells did interview both McNally and Jastremski where they explained the texts he asked them about, however Wells didn’t include their explanation in his report (and later refused to make the interviews and other notes available to Brady’s defense, one of the major points that led Berman to overturn the suspension).
I would like to point out that the Wells report has McNally calling himself the “deflator” (in May 2014, the middle of the offseason) before the alleged conspiracy to deflate balls was hatched in response to the overinflated balls at the Jets game (in October 2014) so it’s obvious he wasn’t referring to any ball deflation scheme unless he had access to a time machine.
? Martin
@walden:
Winners.
Maybe this is new to NFL fans, but F1 fans know all about the rulebook. There are no customs, no polite understandings – there are rules. That’s why F1 ended up with 6 wheel cars and two that were effectively 200MPH hovercrafts – the teams find every loophole and exploit it to their advantage.
Belichick is doing exactly what he should be. If there is no rule against mimicking the call, then you fucking mimick the call and draw the offside. Why would you leave a tactic out of your arsenal? And this is not unheard of in other sports either.
Heliopause
They certainly are shameless, aren’t they? But then, much like the GOP and their little Trump problem, this is of the NFL’s own doing. You coddle these people for years out of self-interest, then when they get out of control and openly embarrass you in public you struggle to find any way of stopping it.
Rob
@marduk: I don’t remember a use of “deflate” to unambiguously refer to weight loss, can you remind me? I also do not think Wells expressly claimed that the “conspiracy” (if there was one) was hatched only after the 2014 Jets game, did he? The report notes that Brady stated his preference for deflated balls at least as far back as 2011. Also, the “deflator” reference by McNally during the off-season (May 2014) was the one where he immediately followed up with “I’m not going to ESPN … yet”, so it doesn’t look like he was referring to his diet then.
redshirt
@Heliopause:
See? No idea what the facts are, but ready with an opinion.
gian
@Rob:
There’s context to the quotes.
http://www.sbnation.com/lookit/2015/5/6/8560913/text-messages-tom-brady-deflategate-patriots-jim-mcnally-john-jastremski
On mobile but they include things like “fuck Tom” and “the refs fucked us the balls were 16 psi.”
The jets organization really got screwed by bellicheck when he was their head coach for a weekend before quitting to go to new England. That was cheap.
Grumpy Code Monkey
@? Martin:
This. Belichick gets paid to win, not to play nice. Same for his players. The only rules that matter are the ones that cover player safety and scoring. Everything else is more of a guideline that gets blurred over as circumstances permit.
Rob
@gian: Thanks. LOL at Brady buying Uggs for (male?) staff members.
Heliopause
@redshirt:
Funny. I could write that Jesus was a fraud and nobody would bat an eye, but mildly troll (in a thread that is designed outright to be a troll) a sports team and people completely lose their shit. But don’t change, the internet is more fun this way.
redshirt
@Heliopause:
Did you read the thread? And I’ve not lost my shit. I like this. I’m pointing how people come with their opinions set regardless of facts.
FlyingToaster
On this headset mess:
As best as anyone who’s been to Gillette Stadium as a techie knows*, there is some PITA problem with headsets, broadcast booth repeaters, and likely a resonance from some set of metal frames in the stadium.
So, if the NFL actually gave a fuck, they’d come to the stadium on Thursday, have one bunch of meatheads sit in the booths and blather while two other bunches tested out frequencies until they found at least two that weren’t fucked up.
And they’d do it in every stadium. And record those frequencies for that week, in a binder, and be able to look it up on Thursday Night/Sunday/MondayNight. And have failover in case some satellite truck in the lot starts stomping on a frequency during pregame. And this shit would stop happening.
* The techie was not me; I was writing other software, and one of my fellow contractors piped up with “headsets never fucking work right at Gillette”, leading to a discussion of RF interference in metal-frame environments.
MoeLarryAndJesus
Does the F in Tim F stand for Fuckwit? Because there is no more to this stupid headset business than there is to the rumor I’ve just started that Tim Fuckwit is the father of Bristol Palin’s current oven bun.
Anti-Patriots hysteria is somehow popular these days on some of my favorite sites, including this one. It has the same intellectual heft and factual underpinning that Jonah Goldberg’s worst writing does. Nice company you keep, F., you dumb bastid.
MoeLarryAndJesus
@geg6: The Steelers were the shitbucket of the league for decades before rampant steroid use got them 4 rings in the 70s. Of course many of the great players on those teams are now dead because of the after effects of those drugs. I’m sure you think it was worth it.
The Patriots are 8-2 against the Steelers under Belichick, which has unmanned you, your team, and most especially Mike Tomlin, who is using this headset nonsense to deflect from the plain fact that his team played like amateur assclowns.
There are 106 testicles in a bag in the parking lot at Gillette. They’ll be packed in dry ice and shipped to Pittsburgh for reunions with their owners. But you may want to inject some HGH into them first. They’re a little on the small side.
lol chikinburd
Jesus. Read this thread and tell me that NFL fandom can any longer be described as anything but a garbage hobby for garbage people.
MoeLarryAndJesus
@lol chikinburd: Unlike some crank that refers to itself as lol chikinburd, you mean?
different-church-lady
And just to close this thread out:
different-church-lady
@FlyingToaster:
I’m curious about the “broadcast booth repeaters”. What are they used for? This novice would assume that anything coming out of that booth would be immediately hard-wired to an uplink dish, either on the stadium or in a truck.
FlyingToaster
@different-church-lady: The wireless bridges that they use to talk to the sideline cameramen and on-camera talent. These aren’t wired (for obvious reasons); the guys in the booth need to see it live, in order to talk to the sideline people, and it’s too far for bluetooth, so RF it is. It’s line of sight to the antennas wired into the booths; from there, it’s wired both to the booth and on out to the satellite trucks.
Also I’m pretty sure Gillette has both Cell and Radio-repeater antennae on top of the stadium, because otherwise you’d never get a mobile connection, and if someone’s listening to a radio play-by-play, they couldn’t get a line-of-sight signal.
At Gillette I suspect some combination of metal frame configuration, leaky electrical hookups, lack of maintenance, lazy media operations (misconfiguring their wireless setups), and the NFL not being willing/able/competent to invest in good DECT 6.0 (or better) spread spectrum communications gear. Like what standard baby monitors use.
James E Powell
Man, this thread is just filled with comments by people who clearly do not know what they are talking about.
LAC
@Betty Cracker: it is probably because he did his time and is trying to make amends. It is really hard for you to understand that some people get that and are not going to drown the stadium in dog woofs Jesus, you got some assholes who actually killed people tripping the light fantastic out here, with no shame. Assholes who rape and punch women and spend not one day behind bars. You can put it in perspective, you know.
MoeLarryAndJesus
@James E Powell: It was Breitbartesque in spots.