[nolemmings]

Regardless of whether you believe the rule is stupid or that others do it, I still expect the NFL to penalize the Patriots when this is all said and done. Despite the outraged Robert Kraft demanding an apology unless “irrefutable” evidence is brought forth, that should not be and likely won’t be the level of proof employed by the league; rather a preponderance or “more probable than not” standard will be used. BTW, Kraft’s was another public presser faux pas, as the league had asked that comments be withheld during its investigation, and yet there’s defiance right out of the gate–or off the plane as it were-by the ersatz leader of Patriot Nation. Even sycophant Goodell cannot be pleased with that.

Interestingly, I had Letterman on in the background last night and his guest was Rachel Maddow, a diehard Patriots fan, who may have inadvertently done her team a disservice. I’m speaking third-hand and will defer to any more accurate accounts, but as I understand it, she spent time on her show poking fun at the whole incident and then asked one of her staffers or interns to re-create the whole 90 second bathroom scenario. She let him practice, then had him take two bags of 12 balls into the bathroom for 90 seconds to deflate as many as he could. He was successful on eight, which apparently satisfied her that it cannot be done as speculated. Now this guy is not a trained NFL equipment guy and has had at most a few hours of practice, yet he got through about 70% of the deflating, which also allowed for time removing and re-packing the balls in the bag. Personally I never thought the bathroom thing should be construed as the only factor, since the needle necessary to deflate is about the length of a man’s pinky finger and could easily be concealed in gloves or under a towel, etc. on the field. But I am curious to see if the NFL runs similar experiments with trained personnel as part of its investigation, as I was surprised that Maddow, who does not pretend to be a sports journalist or have any scientific insight and who is on record as loving the Patriots, still came somewhat close to burning her own team.