(05-10-2015 01:46 PM)DefCONNOne Wrote: (05-10-2015 01:33 PM)_C2_ Wrote: Not that I condone cheating but this had no effect on the game. I really don't care or think it matters, even if he had been doing it for years.
It does, however, take some of the shine off the organization for being known cheaters repeatedly but for this incident isolated by itself? I'm not fazed.
There was rule (championed by him), he knowingly broke the rule, then lied about knowingly breaking said rule and finally obstructed the investigation into his breaking of said rule.
If it had no effect on the game, as you (and Patriots fans) say, then why is their a rule for it? Patriots fans can't/won't answer it.
Good question. Why is there a rule?
According to claims repeated by the prosecution in this case, it has been "common knowledge" throughout the NFL for years that Brady used footballs that were below the minimum spec, and nobody objected to it, including the other 31 teams who would be harmed if that practice gave him an unfair advantage.
Now, I don't have any way of knowing if that allegation, or any other allegations repeated in the Wells Report, are actually true. And I'm not a lawyer. But I'm given to believe that if parties (in this case the NFL and other teams) knowingly, and for an extended period of time, willingly acquiesce to a practice that is against their interest, they effectively waive their right to exert a claim for damages later.
So either the other teams do not/did not believe that using footballs inflated below 12.5 psi gives an opposing QB an advantage, or they don't care if it does. In the NFL's case, one could make the argument that they actually
prefer that a QB be allowed to use whatever ball he likes, which is why they changed their procedures 9 years ago.
If the NFL has no effective procedures to assure that footballs used in a game remain within their arbitrary spec, and has pretty much ignored this rule from its inception, then why have a spec at all?