Mel Mudkiper posted:

By that logic Watergate wasn't a thing

Shimrra Jamaane posted:

By former Patriots employees who remain nameless and off the record. Who knows what their role in the team was if any. "per sources" is the journalistic partner of "im just asking questions"

Mel Mudkiper posted:

By that logic Watergate wasn't a thing

Shimrra Jamaane posted:

Comparing this and the avalanche of information that came out from Deepthroat is disingenuous and you know it.

Shimrra Jamaane posted:

Shimrra Jamaane posted:

Comparing this and the avalanche of information that came out from Deepthroat is disingenuous and you know it.

Burger Trench posted:

When Schefter talks about a player signing via his sources, do you believe him? Do you uniformly reject all news from unnamed sources, or only the totally believable ones about the Patriots cheating?

Shimrra Jamaane posted:

Schefter has a good personal track record. I consider a good track record being information from unnamed sources that later come out with evidence that there is truth to it. When Schefter says that some "source close to such and such a player" says that he is signing with X team and then he does, well that pretty conclusively ends that.

Shimrra Jamaane posted:

Schefter has a good personal track record. I consider a good track record being information from unnamed sources that later come out with evidence that there is truth to it. When Schefter says that some "source close to such and such a player" says that he is signing with X team and then he does, well that pretty conclusively ends that.

Ehud posted:

Outside The Lines also has a good track record.

Shimrra Jamaane posted:

Schefter has a good personal track record. I consider a good track record being information from unnamed sources that later come out with evidence that there is truth to it. When Schefter says that some "source close to such and such a player" says that he is signing with X team and then he does, well that pretty conclusively solves that question.

Burger Trench posted:

Don Van Natta Jr. (born July 22, 1964) is an American journalist and writer. He is an investigative reporter for ESPN, which he joined in January 2012. He previously worked for 16 years as an investigative correspondent at The New York Times, where he was a member of two Pulitzer Prize-winning teams.

Ozu posted:

lol Van Natta has won multiple Pulitzer's.

quote:

But knowing the first 15 or 20 offensive plays scripted by an NFL team is knowing the future. The best defensive coaches can take that information and give you a very high likelihood of exactly where the football is going to go – even on passing plays. And if those same defensive coaches can disguise defensive looks well enough, it's possible they could coax a quarterback into throwing the ball right into an area where the defense wants it. Even if an opposing offense goes off script after a few plays, that's still a window where the defense would have an immensely higher percentage of disrupting a series or forcing a turnover.

This isn't just stealing a set of plays; it's stealing part of the game.

Now, does that mean the Patriots did it? I can't say. I have never heard this allegation before and I would be hard pressed to ever prove it without an employee – or multiple employees – saying they were the ones going into the locker rooms and lifting the sheets.

Is such a thing possible? It's hard to say. I can remember occasions where I have seen locker rooms with a door open during warm-ups and nobody inside. I have also seen locker rooms closely guarded by jacketed, walkie-talkie wielding employees who perch themselves in front of the doors and never leave. I'd say nowadays, the latter is the norm.

But 10 years ago? Who knows. Things were a lot looser back then. Journalists used to be able to go down to the field and mill around during team warm-ups. We could chat up executives or owners or even the occasional player. One time back in that era, I took a wrong turn prior to a game and walked into a locker room that had only one person inside: an armed security officer who was holding several dozen little bags filled with jewelry belonging to the players.

Is it feasible that during such an era, low-level employees like locker room attendants, ball boys and equipment managers could have been lifting game materials from the opposition? Sure. I could see that happening if a team was dumb enough to leave something so valuable lying around. But I'll also say this: for years I have tried to get players to tell me the first scripted play in a game. And in the spare few times I've been successful, I almost had to sign a confidentiality agreement to get it done.

What's striking about this supposed infraction is the absence of a major investigation. The New York Jets will "sting" the taping of play signals. The NFL will "sting" the deflation of footballs. But in this case, teams chose to create fake scripts instead? As hated as the Patriots were, it never occurred to anyone to put a camera in the locker room and catch this in the act? That's an oddity to me, particularly given how much gossiping goes on between NFL teams.

Ozu posted:

lol Van Natta has won multiple Pulitzer's.

Mel Mudkiper posted:

Shimrra please respond to

Shimrra Jamaane posted:

Having never heard of him before today he sounds like a professional and credible journalist who has been awarded with a high honor based on a history of quality investigative research.

Mel Mudkiper posted:

meaning?

Mel Mudkiper posted:

meaning?

Shimrra Jamaane posted:

So launch an official independent investigation into the allegations.

Mel Mudkiper posted:

Like the Wells Report you totally 100% believe is true?

lol nice edit

Mel Mudkiper posted:

Run an official independent investigation

*highly damning report is released from official independent investigation*

No, I mean a different official independent investigation

Shimrra Jamaane posted:

I understand the immense importance of anonymous sources in journalism and how critical they are for any real shot at investigative reporting in pretty much any context. I don't mean to diminish that even though I appear to be doing so.

Here, this part of an article by Charles Robinson (I have no idea who this is) on Yahoo sums up my feelings on the allegations. Take it or leave it if its reasonable to feel this way or not.

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/latest-cheating-allegation-against-patriots-is-most-damning-of-all-180544622.html

TubeStank posted:

Lmao "I don't know who this guy is but here's an article I just found that runs contrary to a guy who has won two pulitzers and writes for a thing that won a peabody"

This is approaching StarcraftM levels of homerism

Spoeank posted:

Hahahahahahah gently caress off

Shimrra Jamaane posted:

It doesn't run contrary to the OTL report at all. It says simply that if true its horribly damning (I agree) but at the same time that nothing has been proven yet. The allegations have been made. Now look into them. Is that wrong?

Mel Mudkiper posted:

Considering the last time the allegations were investigated you denied them, yes

Shimrra Jamaane posted:

When a federal judge specifically calls out the independence of the Wells Report, not once but multiple times, and then uses it as part of his basis for his ruling I think taking it with a large grain of salt is probably for the best.


A federal court basically smacked down the Wells Report as not being independent. He literally used scare quote around the word independent in his ruling. This is something that literally happened. And the appeals court will most likely reaffirm it. You can say that the judge was wrong or corrupt or something but that would be even worse than me claiming that the investigative reporter is outright lying, which I am not doing.

TubeStank posted:

Considering otl has multiple coaches and employees stating that it was something they did it seems pretty gosh darn likely that it is something they did. Hell they even have a patriots assistant coach saying that they scrambled and jammed the other team's radio lines.

Sorry my man but the patriots are dirty cheaters

Shimrra Jamaane posted:

Let me quote this again because you apparently skipped over it.


A longtime, and by all accounts, reputable and upstanding federal judge in the NFL's own chosen venue publicly derided the Wells Report as not being truly independent in both court hearings and in his final judgement. Are you saying he's wrong? You can, but you'd literally be doing what you claim I'm doing with that investigative reporter.