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Gifs/vines + All-22 video (+ social media and message boards) have changed the way fans interact with the game, for the better. And forced sports writers to elevate their game. Just as important. (Pete Prisco writes some readable things when he is reviewing game film but is otherwise useless. Peter King is no longer required reading and I wonder how much he really knows about the game.) The NFL ought to recognize that there is money to be made by encouraging this deeper engagement with the game. You don't lose money by encouraging people to consume your product in new ways. Imagine if GM had discouraged young men from taking their Chevies apart and putting them back together in the 1950s. Yeah you don't want to foster the idea that a better car can be built on weekends in a garage than the factory's engineers could build. But they were still buying Chevies. kj

I'm trying to remember a play where he unbuckled that strap.

Worried about Aaron W. One play and he is questionable to return.

Bills with more penalties than 1st downs. And I didn't even have to look that up.

This looks like a comic book cover to me!

And you are angry with Goodell because you feel he can't follow the rules but want to overlook the fact that the Pats just rehired a guy who stole game balls from an official. Stole game balls from an official. While Goodell may have--maybe-- overstepped, nothing he did rises to that level of cheating. Do you see that contradiction?

Cautionary tale. Remember this the next time anyone complains about offseason conditioning programs.

As I mentioned upthread, if I'm Goodell, I force these 2 employees to testify now. Beyond that, though, the guy stole footballs from a game official and he isn't banned from stadiums for life? This is like the guy with the laser pointer in Detroit. He should be arrested for saying the word football. kj

So now that they are NFL employees, what is to stop their being asked questions under oath? They can't say no now, right? kj

Anti-Meh.

See that right there is why they are the lowest of the low and why I don't understand anyone defending them. Great example. This is only possible if they spend time looking at the rules for loopholes, exceptions, and gray areas. They go looking for ways they can bend the rules and if they break too it's just collateral damage. They are adhering to the letter of the rule book in order to violate the spirit. kj

A good sports journalist would note the big differences between T2 and the others on that list. 3 of those QBs are retreads with known, limited ceilings. Kirk Cousins spent his apprenticeship in the world's most dysfunctional sports franchise. And then Tyrod came over from one of the stable franchises where he worked with smart coaches and learned from Flacco, who is pretty good. Remember Elmo: "One of these things is not like the other." If any of those guys are going to carry a team, it's TT. I don't mind PP raising doubts about our QB, but there is more to be said than "I watched him 6 years ago in college and he didn't do enough to get me away from the buffet." kj

Plus it feels like these posts are in a particular order.

But my understanding of how this lines up is different than yours, in terms of the weight of the transgressions of each side. The NFL and its players, coaches, etc. have to promote fairness on the field. It is clear (perfectly clear to me, and certainly beyond the legal standard required in this setting) that Brady subverted that fairness. I want him punished, not in a pitchforks-and-torches way, but in the interest of fairness. The NFL caught him in this, and would have been able to prove this had Brady turned over his cell, and if the 2 employees were made available. But they have enough direct and circumstantial evidence to prove it. Now it is being proposed that the NFL acted out of bias in its investigations, and that its in-house lawyer played an inappropriate role in the drafting of the Wells report. Note that the level of certainty of these accusations is far, far lower than that for the Brady accusations. They could have been acting out of bias, and they could have re-written the report in-house. And those things might be bad, ergo Brady deserves to be exonerated. I say might, because no one has really shown me anything that comes close to a procedural violation that would outweigh Brady's offenses. Was the NFL biased? Well, when they have evidence of cheating they should do everything possible to root that out and punish it. Maybe to some that looks like bias. To me that looks like promoting fairness on the field. Maybe they re-wrote the definition of "everything possible," although that has only been suggested in the vaguest of terms and not proven. Did Pash re-write the report? Maybe, maybe not. It's still not clear to me that I should care, unless what was in the report was false. And no one is making that claim anymore in any convincing way. In short, I don't think any of these concerns, even if proven, show evidence that the process wasn't fair. What is clear is that Brady cheated. That cheating is a concern to me that far, far outweighs the stuff about Goodell's overreaching, real or imagined. You simply can't have a league that allows players to do this kind of thing. You can, however, have a league that allows the in-house lawyer to edit the reports of outside investigators. That doesn't pose anywhere near the threat to the game we follow that the cheating does. kj

Same question needs to be answered by Brady in re: his phone. It's not the NFL that has destroyed evidence at the center of this case.

Doesn't this belong in the Brady thread? kj

It's not clear that it is broken. But it is clear that Brady cheated. It only looks broken if you think that Wells didn't meet the "more likely than not" standard. It may be broken, and I'd like the league and NFLPA to have that discussion. But that doesn't negate the cheating, nor should it erase the punishment. And we aren't anywhere near the "more likely than not" standard for the claim that the discipline problem is broken. People are forgetting that the Brady side is litigating in the media and they threw a lot of stuff at the wall. Don't mistake the slime sliding down the wall for proven facts. kj

When is the next cut-down date?

TBD sleeper cells? Hmmm.

I've come around to this position, too. So the entire Patriots roster should be suspended 4 games. kj

I'll ask you straight up and without any antagonism, without trying to pick a fight: why aren't you outraged? I'm genuinely curious. I just can't get past people saying this isn't a big deal. And I'm not speaking from Patriot-hate, either. This whole episode is such a huge act of disrespect to the game to me. kj

I'm concerned with how cheaters did cheat and not how they could have cheated. kj

I guess I'll never understand how a fan of this game can think that stealing footballs from game officials is trivial. And Goodell's arrogance is more than matched by the Patriots in all of this.

That may be a problem, but I don't see the urgency to fix it now, when we have a franchise that is stealing footballs from game officials in the playoffs. Which is a bigger threat to the integrity of the game? kj

So then you have arrived at the legal standard required to assign guilt: "more probable than not." Nothing more is required, under the law or the terms of the CBA. All this time spent arguing and you convinced yourself. kj