Green Bay is the only team with this form of ownership structure in the NFL, which is in direct violation of current league rules stipulating a maximum of 32 owners per team, with one holding a minimum 30% stake. The Packers’ corporation was grandfathered when the NFL’s current ownership policy was established in the 1980s.

So the league doesn’t want any more community-owned franchises. The Packers demonstrate that a community-owned team can be very profitable, so I wonder why the league cares how the ownership is structured?

Dak wrote:

One interesting point that Long makes is that the referees handle the footballs the most, implying that maybe they should have noticed. But, the refs don’t play the game, squeeze the ball, throw the ball, catch the ball, hold on to the ball while someone’s trying to strip it, etc.

Right. And the refs didn’t deflate the balls either. The Patriots did that. So let’s not blame the refs for any of this. That just deflects blame from where it truly belongs…with the Patriots.

• This reply was modified 9 years, 10 months ago by nittany ram.

Zooey wrote:

Fine by me.

Nathaniel Hackett is not a football name. Just don’t like the sound of it.

Agreed. Nathaniel Hackett sounds more like a colonial era rabble rouser than a football coach.

The Rams need someone who understands x’s and o’s. They don’t need a gadfly to King George.

• This reply was modified 9 years, 11 months ago by nittany ram.

Mackeyser wrote:

Per Roger Goodell, ignorance is not an excuse. Just ask Sean Payton…

Good, because I highly doubt Belichick was completely oblivious to the deflated football situation (just as I don’t believe Payton knew nothing about his team participating in bounties). Seems to me there’s little that would escape his notice, or rules broken without his approval even if it was unspoken.

wv wrote:

http://www.sharpfootballanalysis.com/blog/2015/the-new-england-patriots-prevention-of-fumbles-is-nearly-impossible

“….The 2014 Patriots were just the 3rd team in the last 25 years to never have lost a fumble at home! The biggest difference between the Patriots and the other 2 teams who did it was that New England ran between 150 and 200 MORE plays this year than those teams did in the years they had zero home fumbles, making the Patriots stand alone in this unique statistic.

Based on the desire to incorporate full season data (not just home games, as a team theoretically bring “doctored footballs” with them on the road) I performed the following analysis:

I looked at the last 5 years.of data (since 2010) and examined TOTAL FUMBLES in all games (as well as fumbles/game) but more importantly, TOTAL OFFENSIVE PLAYS RUN. Thus, we can to determine average PLAYS per FUMBLE, a much more valuable statistic. The results are displayed in the chart below. Keep in mind, this is for all games since 2010, regardless of indoors, outdoors, weather, site, etc. EVERYTHING…

One can CLEARLY SEE the Patriots, visually, are off the chart. There is no other team even close to being near to their rate of 187 offensive plays (passes+rushes+sacks) per fumble. The league average is 105 plays/fumble. Most teams are within 21 plays of that number.

I spoke with a data scientist who I know from work on the NFLproject.com website, and sent him the data. He said:

Based on the assumption that fumbles per play follow a normal distribution, you’d expect to see, according to random fluctuation, the results that the Patriots have gotten over this period, once in 16,233.77 instances”.

Which in layman’s terms means that this result only being a coincidence, is like winning a raffle where you have a 0.0000616 probability to win. Which in other words, it’s very unlikely that it’s a coincidence….
…see link…”

The comments after the article are interesting, btw

w
v

Deflated footballs are easier to hold on to, so that could account for the highly improbable statistical disparity between the Patriot’s plays/fumble and everyone else’s. Just sayin.

The next time Belichek negotiates a deal with Satan he should have his lawyers make sure it stipulates that the public won’t find out about the cheating. Yeah, he’ll get the wins and any repercussions from the cheating will be relatively mild but to non-Pats fans the victories will always be tainted. His legacy is forever tarnished.

http://www.salon.com/2015/01/23/7_enormous_lies_american_sniper_is_telling_america_partner/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

lyser wrote:

The good news is lots of “balls” jokes now. A few off the cuff:

“I always thought Tom Brady had deflated balls”

“I am always careful to check Tom’s balls now”

“Luck’s balls were perfect”

“Bellycheat has funky balls”

“Don’t Deflate my balls bro”

Those were terrible, better check my balls ’cause my game is off.

Some balls are held for charity,
And some for fancy dress…
But the balls that are deflated are the balls that I like best…

Got to hand it to Wilson. He made some huge throws on his last two drives. Beautiful throws.

He could just be having a bad game but it looks like Russell Wilson isn’t much of a passer when he’s forced to throw. Bad decision after bad decision.

So the NFL’s investigation into misconduct committed by the NFL clears the NFL of any wrong-doing?

Well, at least we know it was impartial…

zn wrote:

wv wrote:
Does Kyle use the same system
that BS does?

Itz always the same names that
get reshuffled. It annoys me
for some reason. I’d just as soon
Fisher hire from within.

w
v

Shanahan runs a WCO, Schott ran a variation on Coryell.

In a response to the Sando tweet someone wondered whether Fisher would allow Shanahan to use his zone running scheme.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_run

zn wrote:

zn wrote:
d the team’s inability to make adjustments at halftime

This is a crock. I would sit there during games listening to the broadcast analysts (usually an ex-player) talk about the adjustments.

Yeah, I agree. I think Schotty was under-appreciated. He was a good coach. Note how the Rams offense often got off to a quick start. For example they ranked among the best in the league at scoring on their first possession. I think that speaks to Schotty’s understanding of how to dissect and attack a defense. However, despite adjustments, in the second half they would begin to fade. The third string QB, the reshuffled o-line, the lack of experience and inconsistency at receiver – eventually that will catch up with you. Especially when you are facing the murderers’ row of defenses the Rams faced…Seattle, San Fran, Arizona, etc…

Winston actually “Quarterbacked” better. He used more head movement, and threw with better anticipation of the field than Mariota did. Reminded me why I held him in such high esteem before he started his boneheaded mistake filled year. If he wasn’t a knucklehead I’d draft him over Mariota, but being a knucklehead is something you have to grow out of, and that doesn’t happen overnight.

All 3 of these guys threw one baaaad ball and got it picked. All 3 guys recovered and kept pushing.

I hope he doesn’t drop to #10 and force the Rams into making a bad decision.

I think taking him would be a HUGE mistake.

I don’t think Mariota or Winston are sure things. They are not Manning or Luck.

It’s a weak QB draft and by lack of competition they’ve floated to the top. That doesn’t mean either will be good at the next level. I have this nightmare of Winston falling to # 8 or #9 nor #10 and Fisher sitting there saying–well–I guess we gotta get him now.

I don’t want him anywhere near this team. His talent isn’t THAT special. And even if it is–I just see a knucklehead and sometimes you can’t fix that–it just gets worse.

No thanks.

Yeah, and Fisher isn’t afraid to take a chance on a knucklehead. He’s done it many times with mixed results.

Karl Sweetan is out for the Lions but it doesn’t matter – 17-7 over the Cowboys at the half.