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College coaches have little incentive to actually invest time in developing a pro-style QB either. And plenty of incentive not to. kj

Will his presence affect our ability to attract or retain other talent? If my boss hired him, I'd be looking for a new place to work.

Pretty sure (but my memory is bad) that the various reports distinguished between the 12 Pats balls that were at issue and the Pats' kickers' balls. Somewhere they said that both team has 12 balls for regular plays and then some number of K-balls. kj

Being too drunk to meet your work responsibilities, which were literally just showing up to the facility to get treatment, suggests that things are a step or two more serious than you suggest. kj

Dude, you are the busiest poster in this thread. Hands down. And also the Bills fan most focused on the Patri*ts. Irony much? kj

Awesome.

Another story on this. http://www.citylab.com/politics/2015/01/the-burden-of-hosting-a-super-bowl/385004/ The mayor of Glendale has said the city will lose money on the event and the NFL responded by not giving him the customary free ticket to the game. Classy. 40% of Glendales debt is paying off sports facilities. kj

You are moving up the ladder of Buffalo Bills fandom, as we all are. Cynical to skeptical is just the first rung. 1. Cynical 2. Skeptical 3. Ray of hope: 'we're not DOOMED!' 4. Grudging acknowledgment of potential success 5. Sense that we are, in fact, going places 6. Cool confidence: 'We got this.' 7. Wide Right. kj

Have to stop using invisible ink and the sarcasm font together. kj

That's nothing. Try doing it with Kyle Orton throwing to him. Then we'll talk. kj

So to be absolutely clear: you acknowledge that they broke the rules but believe it doesn't matter? So we can move on to the semtencing phase?

You agree that Brady was the ultimate source of the tampering? That there was a rule against tampering with footballs that was broken? That the Patri*ts cheated? (Those are things stated or implied in Joe's statements.) Then you, me, and Joe are on the same page. Whether you or Brady or Joe think the rule is a good idea or not doesn't matter, you know. kj

I feel like I just opened the ark or something. All this time.

We don't have to prove that it mattered or had an impact on their winning %ages. They got caught tampering with equipment. End of story. It doesn't matter if stats show it was a big deal or not. The rules say they can't do it. They did it. It's part of a pattern. Make them pay. Draft picks + fine. It also doesn't matter which individual did it. The organization is unable to police itselfand that starts with Belichick. Ball boys don't do anything without instructions. And nothing that man does wastes time or energy. Make the organization pay and maybe their actions will begin to match their rhetoric about playing fair and staying far away from anything resembling cheating. The discussion about advantages and fumbling rates is a distraction. kj

Properly inflated, of course. kj

There is no penalty "already in place." You are confusing the penalty from the NCAA against the USC coach, which was $25,000, with the NFL's process. There is no specific penalty for tampering with footballs spelled out in the NFL bylaws. http://www.si.com/nfl/2015/01/21/new-england-patriots-deflategate-investigation-bill-belichick-tom-brady Crusade all you want, but please use facts. Also, to ignore the Patriots' history of cheating in evaluating this is silly. kj

If it were any other team, I'd be willing to dismiss this with a 5 digit fine and be done with it. But it's not. It's a team with a history of cheating and stretching the rules, led by a man who doesn't do anything unless there is an advantage to it. Context matters. Come down hard here and the Pats will think twice before doing something else shady, let alone illegal. Try to put too fine a point on it by arguing how much of an advantage it was encourages them to stretch the limits of the game further. kj

The quote you are looking for is here in the last 2 or 3 paragraphs: http://mmqb.si.com/2015/01/22/deflategate-reaction-of-nfl-coaches-bill-belichick-press-conference/ kj I strongly disagree. Absent an individual to definitively pin this on, the league can and should punish the organization. There is evidence that cheating happened and the only people in position to do it were patriot employees. The only reason we don't know which one is stonewalling and evasive answers to investigators' questions. Therefore, punish the organization. The appropriate punishment for me: Loss of draft picks at minimum and a suspension for the org leader, Belichick. kj

I'm too snippy today. Apologize to you for that. Second one today King isn't above suspicion, for sure, but I always felt he was very quick to accept the league's handling of Spygate and to ignore those transgressions when talking about the Pats. So I see his writing here as a departure from what I would have expected. And I am not quite seeing how his unambiguous opinion that they cheated is helping the league here. kj

I didn't mean to direct that harsh tone at you. I apologize. I do want to raise the point that it really doesn't matter if the league can tie it to any specific member of the organization. The organization needs to police itself, and has shown repeatedly that it can't. kj

It doesn't matter who specifically did it. It could only have been done by a Patriot staffer. All we need to know: the balls were tampered with, against the rules. And it could only have been done by a Patriots employee. The organization must be punished. kj

You are lawyering very well. No, he doesn't say they used a gauge but he is very certain that the balls were "at the prescribed pressure level ...". How else to get that judgment without a gauge? To think that they moved to replace those balls without a gauge defies logic. You said earlier that you would be surprised if they actually had a gauge, and now presented with evidence that they had one, you grasp at the possibility that they had it but didn't use it? Honestly, I can see no reason to question the conclusion that they cheated. And how is this shilling for the league when we don't know what judgment or punishment the league is going to announce? kj

They have evidence. The balls were deflated, all of them, to the point where the officials removed them from the game and made them play with the Colts balls.

Peter King weighs in with some inside information he is presenting as fact. Believe it or not, but it runs counter to what some here who want to give the Taintriots the benefit of the doubt are asserting. http://mmqb.si.com/2015/01/23/deflategate-patriots-super-bowl-xlix/ The balls for both teams were checked with a pressure gauge 3 times: pre-game (prior to being released to the teams), halftime, and postgame. And I am with him when he writes: "There is little doubt the New England footballs were tampered with by a human." http://mmqb.si.com/2015/01/23/deflategate-patriots-super-bowl-xlix/ Of course, the only humans who had the opportunity to tamper with them were Taintriots employees. This is evidence of cheating, solid and more than enough to punish the organization. (See Goodell's 2008 comments about not needing an airtight case when teams cheat to gain competitive advantage.) I don't care if it was the ballboys, Brady, Belichick or if Kraft himself were involved. The organization cheated, again. Loss of 2 high draft picks in 2015. kj

And I had given up hope of finding common ground with you. kj