Deflate Gate

http://wellsreportcontext.com/

The Patriots responded to the Well's report with a point by point online rebuttal. I find it fascinating that most people laugh at the response, assuming that the Patriots cheated.

More than anything, New England is upset that the NFL initially leaked incorrect massive information to media sources that was INCORRECT, making it look like the Patriots were guilty of everything they were accused of.

That incorrect initial release made it impossible for New England to ever look good or be given the benefit of a doubt in this matter. AND then the league NEVER admitted that the original leak was wrong.

The haters look at the Patriots as cheaters. Reasonable people who rely on logic, science, and evidence look at the whole matter as a travesty of justice.

IF the Patriots cheated in any way, it HAD to happen in the one minute and 40 seconds that their ball attendant was in the bathroom. Their late middle-aged, overweight man, who would not be allowed to use the bathroom again for over two hours, would take that time to take the balls out of two bags, on a sloping floor, release a little air from each, put them back in the bags, and leave INSTEAD OF GOING TO THE BATHROOM.

As a fifty-five year old guy myself, If I was on the jury, I know how I would vote.

As a person who recently blew up over 20 basketballs in a similar situation, I laugh at the time frame.

I learned a lot from reading the report.

1) Cheap air-pressure guages are inconsistent. Even the manufacturers admit this. Different people using more than one, will come up with a wide range of results.

2) People, including officials, have awful memories, and don't remember the little details of their work. Details that would sometimes mean a lot later on. And they can be pressured by those in charge to change their minds on those details.

3) Old, part-time employees are going to be blamed for a lot for things.

4) If a person that's writing the "official" report is going to be lead investigator, prosecuter, judge, and jury, he's probably going to slant it the way the person who hired him wants it slanted, to the point of drawing ridiculous conclusions off faulty conjecture. 5 million dollars will buy you an awful lot of biased/slanted opinions.

And you will get away with it because

5) The average American polled on things like this is uninformed and has no ability to read or think clearly.

6) People are fast to judge and rarely change their minds.


You'll notice that through all of this that I never once said the Patriots didn't do it. Brady and the equipment guys may very well have come up with, what they thought was the perfect plan to beat the system.

But the current evidence doesn't even come close to proving they did anything out of the ordinary that day. The science doesn't support the league's contention at all. And American justice demands reasonable guilt.

Which brings me to point number seven...

7) Because of things like blogs and Facebook, people have come to the conclusion that what they feel, their opinions, mean as much as evidence and facts. And as a result, the prospect of a trial by jury, in this country, has never been scarier.