Probably this would fit better in the Sports Thread, but we need some new topics here, too. The Patriots and Tom Brady are under fire for allegedly underinflating balls during last Sunday's game. The whole staff categorically denies wrong-doing, of course. Focus: What are your thoughts on teams and athletes who cheat? Do we place too much stock and put them up on too high of a pedestal, or should they be held to a higher standard due to their profession? Alt focus: Funny stories where you or your friends were caught cheating. At anything.
I don't put them on too high of a pedestal, personally, because they're human. I expect the same from them as I would any other profession. Don't cheat. If you do, and you get caught, be prepared to deal with the consequences. SGEDIT: Fixed quote.
Let me help this thread out by linking some decent sources, not fucking Buzzfeed. Just so the people who aren't caught up or usual sports readers can be well informed. Original NBC Report - http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/super- ... te-n291326 Follow-Ups - http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/20 ... n-any-way/ http://espn.go.com/boston/nfl/story/_/i ... -footballs As we've been chatting about already in the NFL thread, here are the facts. Usually, the fine would be 25,000. Since the league arbitrarily punishes people for shit, it could be a higher money fine and loss of draft picks. Patriot haters are concerned nothing will happen, because the commissioner and owner of the Patriots are fans. Also, the impact on the game is minimal. It gives the Patriots an edge to grip the ball better, but it slows velocity and gives the defense more time to intercept. The Colts had their perfectly fair untouched footballs. Also, none of the footballs used on kicks can be altered by the teams. Yes, athletes need to stop being put on pedestals.
This story is on literally every news station and news feed. The Buzzfeed article is as good as any, because right now they're all saying the same thing.
Alt Focus I know that that I am going to sound like a nerd here, but these stories are pretty funny. I played quiz bowl in high school and college and have been playing trivia games online for a few years. As you can probably imagine, there are quite a few people who cheat when the games happen in non-proctored environments. What makes it ridiculous is how low the stakes are; most of the time the only prize for winning is pride. Here are a few of the things that I have seen: -I play online Jeopardy! games at this one site, and there are people who have been caught googling answers. The two most notable examples were a guy who was recruited to play at the site after he played in the Teen Tournament on the real show and another one from the college tournament a few years later. It's hilarious that they didn't realize how transparent it was when it normally only takes a few seconds to type a response after you buzz on a clue, but they are barely able to "pull" correct responses to very hard clues in the 10 seconds that you're allotted. -I also play trivia on a website called Learned League. There are several people who have given correct responses to 80%-95% of the questions that they have played on the site, but when live events are held they claim to have "bad days" or "be affected by the time limit" when their batting averages drop to around 50%. Some people have been kicked out for cheating, and you can only join the site by being referred by another member, but I would estimate that 20%-30% of the active members still cheat to some degree. One of the most notable cheaters (who I can't believe hasn't been kicked out yet) is a guy who was a 3 game winner on Jeopardy! in the last year or two. There was a question about what "LGAP" stands for in accounting. Only about 11% of the people in the league got it, and several who have accounting backgrounds missed it and said that they had never heard of it. Yet, this guy, who is not an accountant, got it and claimed that he knew it "because his father-in-law is an accountant." Stories like that by players on how they knew things are common on the message board. -Back from my days playing college quiz bowl, there was an incident where a Harvard student who wrote questions for high school quiz bowl tournaments was able to gain access to the questions that the company was using for the national collegiate tournament. Harvard won the national titles with him on the team in 2009, 2010, and 2011 (My last year playing was 2009, but my team was not directly affected by it), but the titles were later vacated after it was determined that he did cheat. That story is here: http://www.slate.com/articles/life/cult ... story.html -My personal favorite: I have been a member of the Jeopardy! message board for a few years now. There is a weekly game called "Think Different" that goes on there, where a member of the board volunteers to run it, they come up with the questions, post them, and the object is to give the answer to each question that will be given by the fewest number of people. One member of the board noticed that there were some user names who kept doing extremely well in the games, and these particular users didn't post much outside of the Think Different games. They had, however, posted in a thread where you introduce yourself and one where you reveal the origin of your user name. The boardie who was suspicious noticed that these accounts had been very good at coming up with answers to questions that each earned one point and not duplicating answers, and also fell into a trap on one question where they all gave incorrect responses that showed a common misinterpretation of what the question was asking. This boardie also looked at how similar the posts were that these users made in the thread where you introduce yourself. He made a new thread to alert everyone of his concerns, and the moderators confirmed that these accounts all came from the same IP address. The person who was cheating came clean, and in the end he had a total of 15 accounts that he was using to cheat in these games. To top it off: he had also run the game under his main user name two times before he was caught, and he had even used these dummy accounts to cheat in his own games! He ended up apologizing and rescoring the games that he had run, but he hasn't been back to the board since then (I am not sure if he was banned).
Wait, the teams themselves pick the balls for games? Surely you play with whatever ball the officials throw you?
Apparently teams provide their own footballs. The Pats and Colts brought their own for when they were on offense. Seems kind of weird really. Here's a novel idea, let the refs bring the dam balls and then hand out whichever on they reached for first. Football is getting kind of eccentric when it comes to these things. The Tony Romo incident happened and now kicking balls need to be scuffed up before a game. I had no idea about the personal team balls until I was listening to the Dan Patrick show about a day ago and they were talking about it.
Pretty much that. And this is a non story in my mind. It's like last year. They had nothing to talk about so we heard about Sherman for 2 weeks. The media had to latch on to something and this is what they had available.
A-fucking-men. If it had been a close game, I ALMOST could understand all the scrutiny, but 45-7? They would've won using a properly inflated whole fucking cow.
The refs are still just part-time employees. I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if the two issues were somehow related.
I'm sorry what? Because they're part time employees they can't be provided footballs by the NFL and fill them before the games? Football has some issues, officiating seems to be one of those things that doesn't go away. In the NHL and NBA and baseball you have guys that devote careers to it. I'd think the same sort of devotion is true in the NFL but maybe I'm wrong
If the refs get more responsibility they're going to bargain for more money. Given how hard the NFL has fought to avoid giving them any more compensation, it wouldn't surprise me if that could be the reason why the refs aren't responsible for the game balls in the first place. I mean it's such a stupid practice to begin with; is it really far-fetched that the reason for its existence is equally stupid?
Yes, yes it is. Tell me why a professional with any sort of integrity and respect for the game would mind taking 20 minutes to fill up footballs before a game. They're not asking the refs to do anything exceptional or difficult, just hook up an air pump and fill up some footballs. I wonder how high school football is ran in Texas. Does each team get to fill up their own balls or do the refs provide them? I can't think of a single case in which the team providing their own footballs makes any sense whatsoever. Maybe college football is different. Did Ohio State and Oregon each provide their own game balls? If any underpaid grunt in Sports Authority will do it without thinking twice, why would an official in the NFL object to filling game footballs with air before each game?
Labor matters have nothing to do with why this practice exists. It exists because the players want it that way. Prior to 2006, everyone played with the same balls. The fact that each team now independently provides them is the result of advocacy by quarterbacks (notably Peyton Manning and Tom Brady). Quarterbacks are finicky and superstitious, and want the balls to be exactly how they like them. So they spend all week roughing up the balls, treating the leather, scuffing them just a certain way, etc. Eli apparently does it for months. Whether this is a good idea or not, it clearly isn't an attempt to save pennies on ref pay.
I'm not saying that my argument is in fact real the reason refs don't handle all the balls, just that I wouldn't be surprised if something as stupid as that was reason the current practice hasn't been changed.
For the most part I really don't care about professional sports, and bullshit like this isn't motivating me to start. That is all.
The problem most people with sports have about sports is that they think it's about sport. It isn't, sports, college or otherwise, is purely entertainment programming at this point. Hence, I rarely watch it anymore. It's like reality tv. It appears to be reality, but once you get done with all the bullshit, it's almost as scripted as Ishtar. And about as good.
Pro sports would have a lot more admiration if "For Love Of The Game" was still a valid catchphrase. Sure, there are athletes (Nick Swisher springs to mind) who play because they love their sport. But let's face it: too many play For Love Of their custom-made Ferrari and living room shark aquariums. If athletes played simply because they loved the sport, LeBron James would be bouncing in a Akron dive bar and Anna Kournikova would be a mail-order bride. It's all about money. And that's where cheating comes in: it's not about cheating to win a trophy, it's about cheating to get those victory and stat bonuses that people always seem to forget exist.