WhitewalkerInPhilly

To the shock of absolutely no one. I feel that way too. I think they saw the firestorm coming and overpunished, expecting some resistance so all sides could save some face at the end of it. I don't think he planned on the response being quite so insane and inane.

I think that if Marrone stuck to being "CEO HC" like he claimed, things could have been ok. He could have said, "Jesus, the system I'm trying to run doesn't fit my players. I hear Greg Roman is free. Let's bring him in here." But instead he didn't, and he quit. BTW, after seeing the schemes on some of those run plays, I am going on record that Roman is a massive improvement. Running the ball might be "conservative", but some of the things he's drawn up sure aren't.

As someone who graduated with a science degree that had me take Chemistry 101... So, either a 100 or so years of Chemical theory is wrong, OR the Pats have no idea what they are talking about.

Translation: Jesus, at least have the decency to give us a plausible lie to try to defend you!

I really don't get it. I expected the denial, just as I expect an appeal. But this is getting hilarious, and I would find it even funnier if I didn't have a nagging voice in my head saying that it will work.

Oh thank god. I'm tired of hearing people go on that we should expect a full overturn of all games. I would be annoyed of they knocked it down to one game. I would have a stroke if it was zero.

Jesus this thread escalated quickly...not that I should be surprised. Seriously people, wait and see. Roman got a functional offense with Alex Smith and an unpolished Kaepernick. Whoever wins, wins. I have hope in EJ's ceiling but I can accept Cassel's floor being higher.

That's pretty much my attitude. The starting CBs should be Gilmore and McKelvin, and maybe Graham if they don't rotate him to safety. And I'm not forgetting Robey in there either. That said, if we have learned nothing about our CB group over the last few years, we should have learned that the odds of our top 3 CBS going all season without one of them spending some time on the injury list to be slim to none. The last thing I want is another "and now Justin Rodgers is a starting CB" moment.

Breaking news: Bill Belicheck signs CB Justin Rodgers, is genius. [/sarcasm]

Not so much the appealing as the claims that the Pats** seem to be interested in filing a lawsuit. As mentioned already, I'm pretty sure that of the NFL gets sued, this is now an actual legal case and evidence and witnesses can be subpoenad instead of being voluntary as in the Wells report. What *is* on that phone that Brady wants to hide?

No, that's what I intended. The more Brady has his agent and team owner scream and stamp their feet, the more coverage and the more this gets dragged into the open. I don't know if one interview on the Phanatic is proof, but if he really wants to keep at it I suspect things get ugly.

Seriously Tom, it only gets worse from here if you keep pushing it. *Now* the knives are going to start coming out.

Two things I take away from this: -Rex is clearly learning. People were looking for a quote on Brady to throw fuel on the fire and Brady didn't give it to them. -Miller sounds up to speed. I'm penciling him in as a starting Guard.

We definitely needed to stretch the field more last year. For all the 49ers fan complaints of conservative play calling and predictability, I haven't seen anything as bad what Marrone and Hackett did with those "Spiller up the middle" plays.

I know it's a joke, but man, the Pats have a putrid CB group right now. The Eagles had likely the worst secondary last year, and Bradley Fletcher was by far the worst of their starting 2 CBs. They are likely going to be picked apart.

Look, I don't want to dismiss Hogan's performance, but at this point he's at best the 4th receiver on the team. Easley is the ST ace, and Goodwin has kick return ability. If I have to pick 5 WR, I'm sticking with Sammy, Woods, Harvin, Goodwin and Easly, and send our 7th rounder to the PS.

I don't see why they'd want to do a lawsuit then. they got a penalty, while serious, still isn't enough to seriously damage their playoff chances. In the Ray Rice case (which their new lawyer took on) the damage was already done to his reputation. In this case, there is no smoking gun, but if they open it, everybody looks bad. If Brady cops to it, admits he lied and ask for clemency he probably gets 2 games. A pittance, and he keeps his 4 SB rings and has a chance to do it all over next year.

Honest legal question here, because I honestly don't know. The Wells report was an independent investigation, which from what I've seen relies heavily on voluntary information and outside scientific testing. However, if Brady does indeed file a lawsuit (which they seem serious about now), wouldn't the NFL be able to subpoena the two equipment managers to testify, along with Brady's phone...the full thing now, not just printouts of texts?

I think that's for our best 11. To be fair, we look best in our nickel pacKage (arguably Big Nickel if you count Graham as a safety rather than a CB). This is not a bad thing.

I wish him the best of luck. While I agree with many here that Cassel has the highest floor of the candidates, EJ's ceiling is much higher. G-Ro (I am totally using that from now on) is the guy credited with adapting Ault's Pistol formation into something NFL ready, and helped a very raw Kaepernick get to the Super Bowl. If there's anyone who can get EJ at least to game manager level it's him.

Pretty much. We would have gone "Oh, lol, those Patriots again" and that would have been the end of it. But no, we had Kraft demanding an apology from Goddell for even suspecting something like it.

In all fairness, Farmer's texting didn't give a competitive advantage. He was *annoying* his OC. And he didn't assemble a ridiculous charade trying to defend it without admitting to it.

Yeah, like many I suspect Miller will be at LG. His area of strength is his run blocking, and Incognito has the flexibility to do both, so I'd put him on the side where we run the ball to. I also agree that Graham will probably slide to something like a CB/FS hybrid. I honestly think safety is an underappreciated position, so I see zero problems with putting a talented player with great ball skills but is a touch slower as a center fielder.

I agree it's nice to talk actual play rather than draft prospects. And Shady, despite his rep as a guy who dances, is not Spiller. He has far better vision and toughness. Seeing the holes in these blocking schemes, I think Shady might have another record season.

It really will be. The Marrone/Hackett combination was trying to be a hurry up, West Coast offense which didn't have a QB with great accuracy which then got slowed down because we kept playing good offenses. I wanted a new OC before Marrone left, and I would have been ok with having Roman brought in as HC. I really think Roman is one of the best choices for what we have: a run first team with a stable of running backs, and a line of relatively slow maulers, and QBs who should be expected to be game managers.