BRH

I know, seen it too often. But I like what I'm seeing right now

Not much touch on those deep balls eh Tommy boy

I'm lovin it A pick six here and I just might go run naked in the snow.

Keep hitting Brady like that and he will break. He's already throwing scared off his back foot.

"I could not have been more direct in my questioning and they all denied knowing anything." Period. I think he needs to say whether he believes them.

Bingo. Or they could have tried the Spygate defense of "that's not how we interpreted the rules." Instead they went with flat-out denials and dared the league to produce evidence. It was my very first thought. Actually my second. "Who tf is Jeff Blake" was my first. Seriously, it took me awhile to remember the dude.

Love the way that headline was written. As if the refs wouldn't make the same signal if the Seahawks lined up in such a formation.

Yes. It does. He operated his entire career under a system that is completely different from the one that's been in place for the last nine seasons. How is "back in the day everyone did it out in the open" even the slightest bit relevant today?

I absolutely believe that the exact PSI level of a ball would be the last thing on the mind of an NFL quarterback in the heat of a game. I also believe that it's one of the things that an NFL quarterback wants to have exactly right BEFORE the game, and he knows exactly how he wants that to be. Whether Brady can tell the difference while dropping back with a lineman in his face is immaterial. In his mind he knows the ball is already exactly how he likes it, thus freeing him to think about the lineman in his face. Brady has been absolutely truthful in saying that he doesn't think about it during the game, but that isn't the point. He doesn't think about it during the game because he knows it has all been taken care of already. But if you hand him an 11 ball and a 13 ball in a relaxed situation and ask him to tell the difference, if he tells you he can't he's a bigger liar than OJ trying to get the glove to fit.

That's great: a guy who hasn't played in 10 years tells us what the common practice was when he played, and his entire career took place BEFORE the rule change.

And TMQ weighs in: More goodies at the link.

He probably took something he shouldn't have and needs the "cold" excuse to set up his alibi during appeal.

You know I'm only going around on this because, like everyone else, I have nothing better to do. But I will point out that until we know the identity of the "person of interest," we aren't going to know his true title. We only know him as "the locker room attendant" because that's what Glazer called him. I could definitely see a situation in which the league wanted to leak the information but protect the identity from the public for now. A true shot across the Patriots' bow, like "We know who it was, and now you know we know. Care to change your story?" And of course Kraft doubled down, for a whole host of reasons, chief of which are that he knows there was no camera in the bathroom AND he knows the kid isn't going to give his dad up. That's my theory and I'm sticking to it. For now.

I'm sure he has actual coaching responsibilities and that those have increased since he started. I'm also sure that this would fall under his "other duties as assigned." Bill could tell him, look, I'm giving you a job on the coaching staff of an NFL team, something you would never get unless you were related to me. In exchange I just need you to do this one thing on Sundays before the game. It'll take you no more than, oh, about a minute and a half. The rest of the time you can act like a coach, okay?

I do, and I think there's a difference between tanking because you know you're good enough to hook on somewhere else, and tanking because you have an agreement with another team. One is being a douchebag. The other is being a douchebag AND tampering.

His son will do anything his daddy tells him to do is how I look at it.

Think about it. Who would be less likely to talk out of school about such activities, some random ball boy or the coach's son? You do know that Steve Scarnecchia, son of then-Pats' DC Dante Scarnecchia, was a key figure in the SpyGate videotaping? My bad. Obviously it was doctored!

A reporter, with no experience in such matters, managed to take 12 footballs out of a bag and deflate them in 40 seconds, by himself. I only wish they had video of the experiment to go with it, but (a) I'm sure someone will come out with that and (b) the apologists will say it was doctored.

He's in his third year as a "coaching assistant," and the Patriots don't list an equipment manager in their media guide. The last one to hold that title (publicly) left to battle an eventually-fatal illness... three seasons ago. I ain't sayin', I'm just sayin'.

Sure, but that was a referee's call regarding something that happened (or didn't happen) on the field for everyone to see (or not see). What the Pats do with spying, deflating balls, etc, happens by design entirely away from the view of officials. Completely different matter. He's got a little Flutie in him, doesn't he?

And we can attempt to explain this away via a multivariate analysis, or we can use Occam's Razor.

And that also explains why the Patriots "won" three SBs with Pioli in control of the roster and none since, no doubt. Maybe Belichick knows how much harder it is to fumble with his balls - heh huh heh - and that's why he's more likely to cut people who do.

And how does Aaron Rodgers like his footballs again?

This keeps coming up. There is an entirely different set of balls used specifically for the kicking game, including kickoffs.