Do you feel the New England Patriots deserve this for a Super Bowl ring?

[steve B]

Originally Posted by sports-rings

I imagine with solder, or glue, or a glue gun, it would be inexpensive to make your own needle ring.

That's true. I'm also a member of a makerspace (A co-op shop thing with different stuff, everything from a leather shop to 3-D printers) I could 3D print one, or even have one of the people that has done jewelery cast one for me.

But where's the fun in that?

Oh, wait. That would be fun.........


Steve B

[sports-rings]

Patriots will receive latest Super Bowl rings at Robert Kraft’s house Sunday

Look for social media (ie Twitter) to light up Sunday evening as players will be tweeting pictures of the newest Super Bowl rings:
New England Patriots Super Bowl XLIX ring

According to the Boston Globe, the New England Patriots will receive their Super Bowl XLIX Championship rings at the home of owner Robert Kraft this coming Sunday.

Despite Bill Belichick’s tendency (some would say obsession) to move on to the next game, the members of the Patriots get one more special chance to celebrate their victory over the Seahawks back in February.

This presentation has a drastically different feel than other Super Bowl ring ceremonies of recent past.

The manufacturer of the latest Super Bowl ring, Jostens, has made no mention of being awarded the contract to design and manufacture the ring, and no official announcement was made in the weeks leading up to this event.

It remains to be seen, if the design and size of the latest Super Bowl ring, is affected by the bad feelings and controversy many fans and other teams now feel towards Kraft, Brady, Belichick, and the rest of the Patriots organization.

Will the special occasion be filled with some awkward moments?

The win over the Seattle Seahawks was stunning and miraculous, because of Malcolm Butler’s highly improbable interception on the goal line, which clinched the win for New England. But it might be a bit awkward between Belichick and Butler on Sunday, considering the coach recently had the cornerback benched during OTAs.

Still, Butler will probably be there Sunday, as all the members of the 2014 roster, including Darrelle Revis, were extended an invitation.

Speaking of awkward, I wonder if Rodger Goodell received an invitation, and if he will be present too.

Revis (who signed with the division-rival, New York Jets), Belichick, and Tom Brady all in the same room together might be just as awkward.

Just last month, Revis was asked about Deflategate and he didn’t shy away from the topic. Revis, said that his former team has “a history of doing stuff. You can’t hide that … Tom was there when they did that stuff in the past.”

Looks like it will be a very interesting Sunday evening at the Kraft house.

[Lordstan]

I don't get people defending the Patriots. Since when did cheating become OK if it "didn't matter anyway in the result of the game". or "it was only a half a PSI, or a ton of other excuses Patriots fan will cry. So what they are saying is it's OK to cheat and the only reason people complain is because everyone is jealous. Using the excuse that it doesn't matter because everyone does it, doesn't fly either. If you can prove a team is cheating, prove it and they should be punished evenly across the board.
Perhaps it's my jealousy taking, but didn't the Patriots get caught cheating twice now? When does it stop being jealousy and start being a pattern of behavior? It seems like it would be pretty easy to look like a genius, Belicheck, if you have film of the team's signals and you know what plays the other team is calling. Perhaps he didn't have the videos when he was with the Browns.
Also, please stop with the Peterson and Rice comparisons. Neither of their issues had anything to do with their in game play or cheating. Both committed acts outside of the game, yet both were punished by the game, formally and informally. Rice, IIRC, had his contract terminated and has not been able to find any further employment within the game. Peterson was out for a year and now is having similar issues figuring out where he will play. Both of them suffered severe punishment for their behavior, deservedly so. Brady got a 4 game suspension. Personally, I don't think that is a particularly severe punishment for cheating in a playoff game, regardless of it's effect on the outcome. The crime is the intent of the action not the effect. It is still a crime even if a person is trying to kill someone, but misses the shot. It's a different crime(attempted murder instead of murder), but still a crime.
Brady was involved in deflating balls to gain an advantage. Belicheck videotaped the Jets to get their signals to gain an advantage. Even if neither action resulted in an actual advantage, they still tried to gain an illegal advantage, nonetheless.
Definition of Cheating
1) act dishonestly or unfairly in order to gain an advantage, especially in a game or examination.
Hmm. Sounds like the Patriots were cheating. I am jealous of the Patriots winning as much as they have. I can admit that, BUT what they did is still CHEATING. When you have a pattern of behavior like this, after a while, you have to start to wonder if all their winning is a result of honest skilled play or habitual cheating.
I didn't video tape opponents signals. I didn't deflate balls. I didn't make them cheat. They only have themselves to blame and deserve what they have gotten.

[steve B]

They only measured a few, but on one guage some of the colts balls were under spec too. So since cheating is cheating, and all cheating should be punished equally, they should also lose a few draft picks and get fined.

And since everyone gets hung up on the taping........
Every team tapes the other teams practices. There's a rule about where that can be done. About a month earlier the Jets had someone taping the patriots practice from an unapproved location. It was mentioned, and the guy taping was removed, and that's as far as that went. The follow up was a memo reminding teams of where they could tape from. (Actually an even better vantage point if it's signals you want) Then the Pats had a guy in the wrong place and the Jets complained. The problem wasn't the taping, it was ignoring the memo. And they paid pretty heavily for that.

If you punished every team equally for every instance of cheating you'd have no draft since they'd all have lost picks.

Steve B

[steve B]

A NY article from 2007 with some details

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/fo...ticle-1.276337

[Lordstan]

That's OK with me. Cheating is cheating and should not be tolerated by the league for any team. If they are going to let teams slide on things then there will always be claims of unfairness when someone is actually punished. If no one in league management thinks a certain action is illegal or unfair, then why not repeal or amend the rule to reflect actions that create unfair play.
As far as the Colts balls are concerned, if the league found evidence that someone on the Colts purposely deflated them in a preplanned manner, then I agree. Considering one of the trainers on the Patriots was called "The Deflator" made it a little bit more in your face giving the rules a big middle finger. If there is evidence the Colts had something similar, I have no problem punishing them as well.
Brady, of course, made it worse for himself by not cooperating with the investigation. Everyone knows that taking the fifth amendment is not an admission of guilt, but pretty much everyone assumes that it is. Him refusing to cooperate was seen by the league and many others in the same way. He certainly has the right to have some righteous indignation believing that the league singled him out unfairly if he wants, but people also have the right to make judgement about him and his complicity in the situation by those actions.

[sports-rings]

Here's The New England Patriots 2014 Super Bowl XLIX Ring!

The Patriots New Super Bowl Ring Is a Stunner:

Not much is know about the latest Super Bowl ring. We know it was made by Jostens and it does not appear that Kraft and the organization down-played their latest championship ring due to all the scandals they have been involved in.

The ring is huge and is comprised of 205 diamonds. Compared to the Saints Super Bowl XLIV ring shown below, you can see just how big the latest championship ring is.

These huge rings are so heavy and large, they are completely uncomfortable to wear, however, they are absolutely stunning.



Here's what Jostens said about the Patriots Super Bowl XLIX ring is a press release:

In keeping with tradition, the championship ring features a unique shape and industry-changing design. The stunning ring, handcrafted by Jostens, celebrates the team's DO YOUR JOB attitude with the largest Super Bowl ring ever made, crafted in white gold with a minimum of 4.85 carat weight and a total stone count of 205 diamonds. The ring showcases the team's four Lombardi Trophies; each created by a marquise-cut diamond.

The ring top features the team's iconic Patriots logo, surrounded by 44 pavé-set round diamonds. The words WORLD CHAMPIONS flank the ring top and 143 additional round diamonds are pavé-set to complete this uniquely shaped ring. The right side features the season's motto DO YOUR JOB, the final score of the historic game, the season record and the Super Bowl XLIX logo. The left side lists all four championship years, a silhouette of Gillette Stadium and the player's name and number. Each player's number is set in diamonds.

[steve B]

I think we're not so far apart, I think as long as something outside the rules is handled equally that's ok.

Spygate was certainly against the rules, but I think it was a big deal made of very little. Since all teams tape, and even from the approved places the signals are probably visible to anyone with a good camera there shouldn't be anything there. A coach that doesn't think he needs to change his signals often is probably going to have those signals read even if it's by a bench guy who's paying attention. (One baseball book I read gave a limited look at how Varitek changed his pitch signals every inning with a formula that involved the inning and I think score or something. Very complex, and a bit of a surprise all the pitchers could follow it. )

And yeah, the evidence against the Pats looks bad. I'm a fan and convinced they did it. But to see the related problems swept aside and ignored is .......vexing. The rule is poorly written, as it doesn't account for temperature change which is high school level physics.
It's poorly enforced, with hardly any oversight of the checked balls after the first check. That could be solved with a simple sticker over the hole, but there's nothing. And some of the texts used as evidence indicated that one group of refs deliberately overinflated. Was it because they knew some would be let out? Basically working around the rule breaking without dealing with it? Or ......what?
And it's enforced with lousy equipment. The gauges used are apparently cheap sporting goods store ones supplied by maybe the refs, maybe the team. There wasn't much agreement between the gauges used at halftime. One read low and those readings were taken for the report the other gave readings that were much more borderline and were sort of ignored. A guage that's truly accurate costs a fraction of what one superbowl ring costs and yet nobody uses one?! That's pretty poor. (I've sold those gauges and have a friend that did calibrations on them for years 15years ago a very nice one was about $1000, an extremely good one that was capable of being NIST traceable as accurate was closer to 10K)

Heck, there's even a company that has a ball right now that self inflates to the correct pressure.

So the rule needs revision.

But the NFL also needs its Darth Vader. Someone for everyone to get worked up about to take attention away from some other harder to fix problems.
It sort of reminds me of what an ex Yankee player said about Steinbrenner. He checked the attendance figures first every day. If the Mets drew more he'd say something crazy about a player or coach which got him lots of press and more attendance. But he only said stuff about the guys who were stars and tough enough to take it. Never the marginal bench guy who might be hurt by it in some way.

Would it even be news if it was the Titans or Bucs? Yes, it should be, but nobody would complain, and it would probably just be a minor fine and a "hey knock it off" letter if anyone did.
Of course the Falcons and Browns got some solid punishment for their rulebreaking but it's not quite the news the deflating thing has been. Of course they were 7-9 and 6-10, so it's difficult for most people to get crazy about it.

Steve B

Originally Posted by Lordstan

That's OK with me. Cheating is cheating and should not be tolerated by the league for any team. If they are going to let teams slide on things then there will always be claims of unfairness when someone is actually punished. If no one in league management thinks a certain action is illegal or unfair, then why not repeal or amend the rule to reflect actions that create unfair play.
As far as the Colts balls are concerned, if the league found evidence that someone on the Colts purposely deflated them in a preplanned manner, then I agree. Considering one of the trainers on the Patriots was called "The Deflator" made it a little bit more in your face giving the rules a big middle finger. If there is evidence the Colts had something similar, I have no problem punishing them as well.
Brady, of course, made it worse for himself by not cooperating with the investigation. Everyone knows that taking the fifth amendment is not an admission of guilt, but pretty much everyone assumes that it is. Him refusing to cooperate was seen by the league and many others in the same way. He certainly has the right to have some righteous indignation believing that the league singled him out unfairly if he wants, but people also have the right to make judgement about him and his complicity in the situation by those actions.