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Cherry-Picking: Confusing Correlation and Causation

August 7, 2017 by Lazy Man 2 Comments

It’s the weekend*, so I’m going to take a little liberty with this article. At its core, it is about critical thinking, but the journey is going to take us through a lot of sports talk. If sports talk isn’t your thing, please come back tomorrow where I hope to publish another article more related to money. I think the concept of critical thinking is important and this article should show how bad .

As with most sports talk, there’s a lot of bias. As a Red Sox fan, it’s not exactly easy for me recognize great Yankees, but I try to do my best. I recognize how amazing Rivera’s career has been and how great that Judge’s season has been. I have to get this disclosure out of the way because this journey is going to be about Tom Brady. I believe that Brady should be more popular than Beatles when they were popular than… well let’s not make that mistake again.

I’m going to be critical of a person today, but I hope he finds it as constructive criticism. I have great respect for his view and he’s clearly done his research. His main conclusion will be proven correct. Ty Schalter knows his football. (If he’s upset by this article he can always cherry pick that sentence as an endorsement. Hopefully we’ll see what I did there by the end of the article.) And if nothing else, I respect him as a Detroit Lions fan. I can channel my memory of the 1990 Patriots fan and can simply say it can get better. I still hope to have a room someday that simply shows Barry Sanders’ highlights. And even Barry said “I had good meetings with both of them, joked with Quinn about how similar Detroit is to Boston”. (Yes, I’m still disclosing fan bias, because we have to when sports is involved. It’s the ultimate partisanship.)

So the article I have an issue with is Schalter’s Tom Brady Will Be Bad Eventually. We all know that Father Time is undefeated. Pick any sports player and that’s true. Tyson, Trout, or Phelps, eventually every athlete loses the ability to compete… and it extends beyond people named Mike.

What sets this article apart is that it makes the case that Brady may be bad this year. In sharp contrast, a USA Today columnist has Brady leading the Patriots to a 19-0 record. Las Vegas casinos have favored the Patriots in every game this year. These are the best projections I’ve ever seen in more than 30 years of following the Patriots, so it’s worth looking into Schalter’s theory. Maybe he’s seeing things that we aren’t.

Let’s break down Schalter’s article with a few quotes:

“But despite Brady’s unwavering intent to demolish both the AFC East and time, it’s reasonable to ask how much longer he can keep this up.
Brady’s 2016 season didn’t just stand out from the rest of the NFL — it towered over his own recent campaigns.”

In consecutive sentences, Schalter put Brady ahead of the rest of the NFL and asked if he can continue it. That’s a fair question to ask, but it is a little strange in an article suggesting that he’ll “eventually be bad… maybe even this year.” Again, I have no problem with “eventually”, just the prediction of it being this year. I grant Schalter no literal license with “maybe”, because maybe can be like Wayne describing how monkeys might fly out of his butt. It seems to cover the grey area from 0.1% chance to 99.9% chance. It seems that Schalter is clinging closer to the 99.9% chance than the 0.1% chance of Brady being bad.

“Compared with his other recent seasons, 2016 almost looks like an aberration:”

The article continues to show a few graphs of Brady’s statistics that generally move up from 2013 to 2016. They don’t show that 2016 was an outlier and I’m not sure how to “almost” counts in a statistical analysis.

Additionally some of the graphs, such as “win percentage” and “touchdowns per interception” are deceptive. While a QB can and does contribute largely to “win percentage” there are other factors involved (such as the defense)… any football fan would agree.

Touchdowns for a QB aren’t always a great indicator of great performance. The TD can be often decided by a playcall inside the 5 yard line. I’m not throwing it out completely, but it’s a little like using RBIs in baseball.

Interceptions are worse, especially in Tom Brady’s case. He’s thrown very few interceptions in general over the 2013-2016 seasons. The interception rates are 1.8 and 1.1 through 2015 before his record-breaking 2016 number of 0.5. Interceptions are a particularly weird statistic… sometimes the ball bounces off the receiver’s hands and the defender gets it. In baseball terms, we’d call that an error on the receiver. Conversely, sometimes a QB passes the ball right at a DB and he fails to catch the ball. DBs drop potential interceptions all the time. The 2007 Patriots would be 19-0 if not for this dropped interception.

In this case, Brady only threw 2 interceptions in 2016. He’s had other years when he threw 4. As the denominator becomes small, it becomes hard to statistically consider it in such a ratio. One bad bounce and a 30/2 TD/INT ratio becomes 30/3. We can plot a 15 and a 10 on a graph and show a big drop. The drop doesn’t mean anything because it was simply a bad bounce out of hundreds of throws.

Anyone doing statistical analysis will tell you that putting a weird numerator over a weird denominator is just crazy pants.

A third graph in the article shows QBR, which goes up and down. The result is that 2016 is essentially the same as the 2014 season. We’ll get to the down year in 2015 in a bit. As Sarah Silverman might say, “Put a pin in it and we’ll get back to it later.”

Let’s move on:

“Before the start of the 2015 season, Brady seemed to be on the decline; his rate stats in 2013 and 2014 were the worst since he first achieved All-Pro status in 2007. ‘Worst’ is relative: Over this stretch, he was good enough to earn four Pro Bowl nods, four division titles and a Super Bowl win.”

“Before the start of the 2015 season, Brady seemed to be on the decline” works towards the idea that he might rounding out his career. However, there’s the pesky 2015 and 2016 statistical seasons. And it is fair to say that comparing Brady’s stats now to his record-destroying 2007 season with superstar receiver Randy Moss is very unfair. Even with this extreme comparison, it is qualified that “‘Worst’ is relative” along with a bunch of awards.

The idea of Tom Brady’s decline was debunked in 2015 (according to Schalter analysis). But….

“Brady’s numbers improved in 2015 and then skyrocketed in 2016 — but his overall 2015 numbers don’t tell the complete story. In that season, his production started off significantly better than the previous two seasons, but he wasn’t able to sustain it:”

There’s a number of graphs that follow this, but let’s stick with the beginning: “Brady’s numbers improved in 2015 and then skyrocketed in 2016…” This negates all the pre-2015 analysis of a “decline”, right? If Lebron James’ “numbers improved in 2015 and skyrocketed in 2016” would anyone write an article titled, “Lebron James Will Be Bad Eventually” with a subtitle of “Maybe even this year.” If Mike Trout’s “numbers improved in 2015 and skyrocketed in 2016” would anyone write that article?

“The drop-off in his level of play over the last month of 2015 was unmistakable, and it carried into the playoffs. His two-interception, four-sack, 56.4-rated passing performance in the AFC championship game was one of the worst playoff outings of his career.”

It’s true that Brady’s numbers declined after week 12 in 2015. The graphs again are deceptive. In this case there are only two data points… weeks 1-12 and weeks 13+ (includes post season).

While the drop-off might be “unmistakable”, let’s focus on the fact that football is a team sport. Sandra Bullock can tell you about “The Blind Side.” If you need a reminder here’s the opening monologue. That’s one player. Football fans know the offense is a combination of the offensive line, the tight ends, the wide receivers, and the running backs. It is important to keep defenses honest with a running game. A good football statistician would talk about play-action.

What Schalter didn’t mention is that the Patriots had a bad string of injuries that decimated their offense. They lost their “Blind Side” early in the season with Nate Solder’s injury. They were able to compensate for it for a bit.

Wide receivers who can get open in a second like Julian Edelman are gold. Having a certain Hall of Famer Gronk as a tight-end also helps the whole machine work. Edelman got injured and missed the last half of the season. Gronk played through his injury, but he didn’t seem to close to 100%.

Dion Lewis averaged 55 yards/game as a receiver and was most productive rusher (via Y/A). But Lewis got injured and played only 7 games. Blount had 700 yards rushing, but he got injured after 12 weeks… perhaps not coincidentally related to the “Brady drop-off.” The Patriots gave carries to special teamer Brandon Bolden. Steven Jackson and James White combined for 106 yards on 43 carries.

Here’s what a local Boston website said around week 12: The Coaches Know that Tom Brady is Hit Way Too Much:

“As the offense currently stands, the playcalling is putting Brady in the scopes of the defenders since the Patriots aren’t a threat to run the ball. Since defenders aren’t concerned about the run, they’re keying in on the quarterback and hitting him at a relentless pace. The fix will have to come from a combination of better playcalling, better blocking, better rushing, and better route running.”

Comparing Brady’s numbers from weeks 1-12 with the star LT, the 2 star RBs, and the #1 WR healthy is very different from comparing the numbers to them all being injured. Brady has always been able to maximize the talent around him, but the difference between the 2006 and 2007 Patriots might have something to do with upgrading from Reche Caldwell to Randy Moss, Wes Welker, etc. The rest of the roster does matter.

The “drop-off” didn’t actually carry into the playoffs as Schalter claims. Brady had his best passer rating in 3 years of playoffs games in the first game. (And yes this cherry picking a bit, but it negates any kind of “drop-off” logic.) Then there was the AFC championship that Schafter brought up. Despite the numbers, Brady actually performed very well considering the circumstances. As NBC Sports notes Brady was hit more times in that game than ANY QB in ANY game that year. Von Miller destroyed Marcus Cannon and it won him one of the biggest contracts in football.

I had a back and forth with Schalter on Twitter, but he essentially said that it is part of playing quarterback. He’s not wrong, but having a running game and play-action essential… as is an offensive line. You have to give credit to Denver’s defense too. Despite all that, the Patriots would have tied the game if their kicker hit his extra point opportunities.

Let’s get back to the 538 article:

“Unlike in 2015, Brady may have looked sharp late in the 2016 postseason because he had fewer games on the odometer — and not by his choosing. His Deflategate-related suspension for the first four games of the 2016 season not only served as a rallying cry for the entire Patriots organization, but also spared his body and arm from a month of bumps, bruises and repetitions.”

Brady might have also looked good in the 2016 postseason because he had a complete team. Marcus Cannon went from one of the worst offensive lineman to the best when the Patriots brought their sure HoF coach Dante Scarnecchia out of retirement. The book has always been that if you give Brady time he’ll beat you. That alone could be difference. Of course the Patriots also had more weapons even with Gronk injured. Danny Amendola, Chris Hogan, and Malcolm Mitchell caught the ball at 65% or better. Martellus Bennett filled in for Gronk despite battling injuries himself. Edelman was the team’s leading receiver. Blount stayed healthy and James White added more protection from the runnning game.

It’s an easy formula: Brady + protection + dangerous receivers + running game = Great Offense.

The problem here is a classic one of causation vs. correlation. The correlation of the Patriots’ performance drop-off in 2015 lead Schalter to put the blame on Brady when a deeper analysis shows that it might have been the surrounding people. In 2016, we never got data to support any kind of slowdown in performance. All we have to go on is that Brady had the statistically best season of any quarterback in 11 years according to Pro Football Focus.

Yes he was better than he was in 2007 or 2010 when he won the MVP. It doesn’t make sense to speculate on a drop-off that didn’t happen.

So the “pattern” is a bad causation/correlation and something that didn’t happen.

Back to the article:

“This season, Brady will have no such early-season sabbatical. He’ll be facing players who were born while he was in college at the University of Michigan. Thriving at his age in the NFL is certainly rare — but it’s not unprecedented. Warren Moon, Brett Favre and Peyton Manning all had a dominant season at or near age 40. But all three experienced a sudden decline in performance, as if a switch had been flipped on their ability:”

Moon and Favre played in a different era of football. The league protects quarterbacks much more now. Favre took a lot of hits and was certainly a tough guy to take them. Let’s remember that Favre’s good post-40 season came when he went away from the “gunslinger” to the dropping shorter high-percentage passes. I give him credit for learning a new trick as an old dog. However, this has always been Brady’s game and he’s arguably the best ever at it. It stands to reason that he’d fair better than Favre.

Warren Moon was a great passer, but he was also known for his ability to scramble. He had a lot of miles on those legs. When he played in the 80s and 90s, he surely took a lot of hits. This was a time when the Lotts and Atwaters were celebrated for their jaw-dropping hits. I think it would be fair to argue that Moon playing well at 41 would be similar to a player playing at 45 today’s game.

Then there’s Manning. We all know the stories about his injuries. Yes, as the body gets older it’s harder to heal. However, these injuries were extreme. He literally went from being the best quarterback to the worst. He was injured that last season and everyone could see it. Of course Brady could get injured too. It’s also possible that Drew Brees or Aaron Rodgers gets injured too.

Predicting an injury is a difficult situation. I think you talk about when it happens and when you understand the scope of it. I think its fair to say that injuries usually aren’t the reason for a career to end.

There’s a statistical problem of a small sample size here. Each player has their set of circumstances. Brady will eventually has his as well, but we don’t what that is now. There’s nothing in his statistics to show that he’s any different today than he was 10 years ago. What we know is that he’s created a business around being athletic for a long time and loves playing football. This past offseason, he said that football is particularly fun now because he “has all the answers to the test.” You can’t show him something on the football field that he hasn’t seen. Warren Moon didn’t have the benefit of all the advanced film study we have today.

Back to the article:

“New England seems intent on helping Brady replicate his 2016 season. This offseason, the team traded for speedy wideout Brandin Cooks to bolster the Brady arsenal. Patriots owner Robert Kraft compared the impact of this spring’s trade for Cooks to the team’s acquistion of Randy Moss in 2007. That deal sparked the greatest statistical season of Brady’s career. Some experts are projecting the Patriots to go undefeated, as they did after Moss arrived.”

Once again, this goes against the narrative of the article. The Patriots did indeed add more weapons. Also Gronk appears to be healthy. Brady has never had a bad season when he has players out there. Injuries can and will happen. That’s the nature of the sport.

“There are a lot of reasons to believe Brady will stay excellent, from his self-care regimen to the talent around him to perhaps the best head coach in NFL history. But Favre and Manning were both playing their best football immediately before playing their worst.
Brady picking up at age 40 where he left off at age 39? That would be unprecedented.”

Except that Warren Moon got much better from age 40 to 41. Even in Moon’s age 42 season (his last as a starter) he had a higher QB rating than he did during his 4 year span from age 28-31.

Your Turn

I think it’s likely that Schalter was tasked with writing an article that supported an agenda. Since anyone can have a website and express their views (this is one example), a lot of people have the same ideas. It’s at least an interesting idea to explore that Brady hasn’t put together a full 16-game regular season for 2 seasons. Unfortunately, I think analysis of 2015 missed the mark and there’s no data to support a performance drop in 2016. It was quite the opposite. Predictions of a perfect season show that many aren’t expecting it in 2017 either.
Schalter will be right, Brady will be bad “eventually.” Of course Max Kellerman said that last year. And he did it again this year.
Predict something that going to eventually happen enough times and you’ll be right… but you could be wrong a bunch of times first. The problem is that when you are eventually right, people will go back and say, “You were wrong too many times, so this means nothing.”
So what do you think? Do you see cases of odd statistical analysis used to cover up the whole story?
* It WAS the weekend when I started and intended to publish the article.

You Don’t Want to Read This

June 2, 2016 by Lazy Man 1 Comment

Seriously… go back and read the title again.

Still here?

A few times a year, I have to write an article for me. This is one of those articles. The vast majority of my articles are for you, the reader. (And I have around 2100 articles here: Archive.)

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Something didn’t happen more than 500 days ago and it’s still making news.

As Boston Globe article states, “… fatigue is setting in here in New England, and the rest of the country is downright comatose. ‘Enough is enough,’ is all I hear from people on the street.” (Are you still doubting this article’s title?)

We like to think of the legal system as just and right, but the more I look at it, it seems very flawed. I find this frustrating because it seems easy to fix if we could just get rid of the red tape and use some common sense.

I’m going to write a little bit about football, but that’s just necessary background. This transcends football. (I don’t say that lightly because I love football.)

If that link above didn’t give away by now, I’m writing about DeflateGate… the NFL’s accusation that Tom Brady orchestrated a scheme to deflate footballs for some alleged performance enhancement.

As nearly 2 dozen scientists have put together in legal brief the “deflated” footballs are due to the Ideal Gas Law.

How would we feel about the NBA suspending Michael Jordan for 20+ games for defying gravity? At least in that case you could place some kind of direct causation.

Even if you don’t believe in the laws of physics, you are looking at a scenario where you are accusing of a person of orchestrating a scheme to take 0.02 PSI out of footballs (by Peter King’s math).

This is like convicting Bill Gates on no evidence of creating an elaborate scheme to rob a bank to steal 13 cents.

It seems that, legally-speaking, DeflateGate has become about whether an employer can arbitrarily take a person’s paycheck away by being the judge, jury, and executioner. That’s an over-simplification, but it’s a complex topic that would take more than 2,000 words to explain. (Also, I’m not a lawyer, but that’s my understanding from more reading on the topic than anyone should ever do.)

The impacted person of this legal matter (Tom Brady) has no ability to say, “Hey, this is banana pants crazy… can I have a fair trial on the merits of what I’m being accused of?”

That’s what I mean about things being “just and right.” Everyone seems to be arguing about whether an arbitrator can be obviously biased and whether we can create a subset “system” to deny people of their core legal rights.

And that’s probably why the biggest labor union in the US filed a legal brief explaining how the court was wrong and was “lacking in procedural fairness.”

I heard a convincing argument on the radio the other day. It was something like, “If you don’t side with labor unions you are against America.” That’s over the top, but there was grain of truth to it.

These amicus briefs are interesting. These are people who aren’t involved in the case who are saying, “Hey, you got this wrong.”

Scientists and labor unions are on the side of Tom Brady. Anyone else? Yes.

The New England Patriots also filed on the side of Tom Brady. That might seem like common sense to the general population, but this is like Marvel’s Civil War. The Patriots are an NFL franchise and the NFL enjoys a monopoly of televised professional football in America. The Patriots can’t go anywhere else with their business.

Are there more people going out the way to support this injustice? Yes.

Kenneth Feinberg filed a brief as well. Like you, I’ve never heard of him. It seems like his the top arbitrator in the nation. His resume includes arbitrating September 11th terrorist attacks, the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster, the Boston Marathon bombings, and the Zapruder film sale. It seems that Kenneth Feinberg is “kind of a big deal“, to borrow a phrase from a friend.

Did anyone else join the party? Yes, 10 law school professors decided to go out their way to side on Brady’s behalf.

Science and scientists, labor unions representing hard working Americans, the top expert in arbitration, and the legal experts (10 law school professors) are all on Brady’s side.

When I look at the NFL’s side, I can’t find anyone who isn’t paid by the NFL supporting it.

Did the laws of physics fail? Are nearly two dozen scientists wrong? Did the alleged infraction matter when Brady followed it up with an MVP-worthy season? Why did the Patriots cause a rift with the NFL for one player? Why are law professors and an extremely distinguished arbitrator upset about this?

I think I know the answers to these questions. Let’s discuss it in the comments. But first, please allow me to bring money into the discussion (this site is about personal finance).

This thing that scientifically never happened has come to an estimated (by ESPN) cost of 22.5 million dollars. That’s just legal fees from the lawyers, I don’t think it counts the costs to the public of the judicial system (the salaries of the judges, for example).

Imagine how much good we could with 22.5 million dollars! How many hungry people does that feed?

Should I Have Bought Tom Brady’s $200 Cookbook?

May 11, 2016 by Lazy Man 3 Comments

A friend contacted me the other day, “Assume you’ve heard about Brady’s $200 cookbook?”

My response surprised him… and it will probably surprise you.

“I’m seriously considering buying it.”

You might have missed the news, but Tom Brady has put a $200 TB12 Nutrition Manual up for sale.

You call it a cookbook, I call it a nutrition manual. It seems to be a little of both, containing both nutrition philosophies and recipes.

In any case, the $200 price tag made headlines. Although honestly, that seems like a bargain compared to Brady’s wife’s $700 coffee table book (even if the money for that went to charity).

So why is someone worth hundreds of millions of dollars selling a $200 book? Well, like everything Tom Brady does, it is the best.

“The manual is printed and hand assembled in the United States, and is printed on thick 100 pound text paper. The covers are made from natural wood with a laser-etched TB12 logo and title.”

and

“The TB12 Nutrition Manual is designed to be modified and expanded over time using its unique screw post binding: as we periodically update this manual with new or modified recipes, we will send additional pages to all purchasers of the manual.”

That sounds like the highest quality physical book I’ve heard of. I’ve also never heard of a lifetime of updated material and it nicely fits into the manual. That contrasts nicely with my siblings having bought Aerosmith’s original album (not updated) about multiple times as it went from vinyl, to 8-track, to cassette, to CD. It’s apples and oranges, but a refreshing change. (It would be more impressive if they promised at least ten new pages a year for the first 3 years or something.)

Aside from all that the big draw here is Tom Brady’s nutrition habits. I can imagine someone reading this in Arizona saying, “Why do you care about the nutrition habits of a football player? Shouldn’t you, ummm, look into a book from say, a nutritionist?”

That logic isn’t wrong.

I’m the first person to admit that we shouldn’t look towards athletes to be role models. It didn’t take me 35 years of being a sports fan to learn that athletes are people too. As a Patriots fan, I have lived through some ugliness. Before Tom Brady won a Super Bowl or was even particularly good (we are talking the first few games), I noticed something interesting in his interviews… He never said the wrong thing.

When he got railroaded by the NFL and the courts for something that science proves never happened, no one would blame him if he got upset. Instead, he pointed out that he turned to one of this favorite books, The Four Agreements, a book that I had never of. I learned a whole new philosophy and it suddenly became clear how and why Brady could keep his calm.

So while all athletes shouldn’t be role models, I think it’s clear that some can be.

Tom Brady’s nutrition is interesting to me on many levels. For one, Brady’s getting better as he gets older. We all know that Father Time is undefeated, but I’ve seen few people in sports give him a harder time.

His views are also uniquely extreme… and in some cases boarder on what I’d call quackery. In fact, I’ve debunked some “acid-alkaline principle” on this very website. On other hand, I have to applaud him when he says that Coca-cola is poison and that Frosted Flakes isn’t food.

This is interesting stuff to me. I’m not sure if it’s $200 worth of interesting, but interesting nonetheless.

I’m going to wrap this up with two other quick thoughts that are rolling through my head:

1) I don’t often “treat” myself to anything that costs very much. Typically, I just don’t see the value in the high-end “stuff” much of the time.

2) Brady has supplied me with hundreds and hundreds of hours of entertainment of the years for free (to paraphrase Bart Simpson). In fact, Tom Brady often takes bargain contracts that allow the team to be more competitive. He certainly doesn’t the need the money, but I don’t mind giving a little back as absurd as it sounds.

I Love Gisele’s $700 Coffee Table Book!

May 11, 2016 by Lazy Man 3 Comments

On Monday, I published a Devil’s Advocate post on Pharma Bro. If you were hiding under a rock, he jacked up the price of a medication by 40 times what it used to sell at. The “collective internet” (if there is such a thing) is upset at him… and justifiably so.

There was another bit of “crazy pricing” “news” that slipped under the radar last week. Pharma Bro’s drug wasn’t the only thing that seemed to be jacked up from $18 to the $700 range. News came out that Supermodel Gisele Bundchen will be making a $700 coffee table book available in November. In case you are wondering, it will contain all the things that make Gisele the highest paid model in the world… pictures.

They are probably a little more interesting this one:

Gisele Showing the Love. She’s the older one. The younger one is my son’s future wife.

At least with a pharmaceutical, you’d be getting something potentially life saving, right? Who needs a $700 coffee book, rigth? Doesn’t this feel like Kanye’s $120 T-Shirt?

I’m sure the book itself is not cheap to make. Our wedding photo album wasn’t cheap, and it didn’t have nearly the 300 photos in Gisele’s book.

However, the big difference here is what I got to at the end of the sale page. I feel like they buried the lead:

“Gisele is donating all her proceeds from the book to charity.”

And that’s the difference. That’s why people love Gisele and hate Pharma Bro. Sure go ahead and charge an outrageous price, but if it’s optional, the money goes to charity, and you are being straight-up with what you are selling, I’m on board.

I’m not sure if my wife would be on board (and it certainly isn’t in the budget). That only increases your chances of being one of the lucky 1000 people who will own the book, right?

In a related story, I got a tip that a non-profit charitable organization may be able to get a signed football by Gisele’s husband, Tom Brady, to auction off as a fundraiser. I was told this by someone affiliated with such an organization. She may not have meant it this way, but I’ve got a new savings goal for my Digit Account.

I have a feeling my wife might be a little more open to this purchase. However, the next time she’s watching a red carpet show and complains about me watching football, I might remind her that we could have had a Gisele book instead.

How do you feel about donating to charity to get things? On one hand, I feel like donating to charity is it’s own reward. On the other hand, I feel like I might as well get something cool if the thing is of nominal cost (such as a football or a book).

Of Bill and Brady

August 1, 2015 by Lazy Man Leave a Comment

I didn’t get as much writing done this week. I was a little blocked, but I had a bunch of other priorities to take care of.

Since it is Saturday, I’m going to test something a little new… something not related to money. Consider it bonus reading.

In reading the news this I found a story that showed, Bill Cosby had been accused of sexual assault multiple times nearly 10 years ago. It seems like for nearly 10 years the public didn’t notice.

As more and more accusers came on over the last several months, I blocked it out. I couldn’t reconcile these things with Bill Cosby. Fat Albert and Dr. Huxtable would be shocked at all these accusations. At 39, I understand that these are simply characters, but the characters have become synonymous with the man. I don’t think I’m alone in having difficulty redefining a viewpoint that has been established for decades.

At the same time, I’ve been enthralled by everything that’s come out about DeflateGate. I’m originally from the Boston area. I’ve been a Patriots fan since before they were 1-15 embarrassment that sexually harassed a female reporter in the locker room. I have no tolerance for sexual harassment. That was a team that was easy to hate.

I don’t want to get too much into DeflateGate, but unfortunately I’m going to have to. The objective coverage is very different that what was reported on the national news back in January.

I’m sure that most people don’t want to read more, but it is very important to the point I want to make at the end.

Houston Texan’s fan and lawyer Steph Stradley covers it quite well. By now we know that science shows no deflating of footballs occurred. That’s from an independent unpaid source, which is a whole lot better than the well-known science-for-hire firm Exponent (according to the LA Times). Of course it is also statistically impossible balls were deflated and it required. Additionally, the NFL had to conclude the referee’s memory was wrong about the gauge used, because that would have also exonerated the Patriots.

Why wouldn’t the NFL want to exonerate the Patriots? Because it appears they’ve orchestrated the witch hunt in the first place. It wasn’t a big story until “league sources” leaked to ESPN’s Chris Mortensen that 11 of the 12 Patriots footballs were 2 pounds PSI under the legal limit. This information was not only false, but the Patriots BEGGED the league to correct it… and they didn’t. Maybe the NFL liked being the first story in national news getting attention on Saturday Night Live. It sure seemed like that was case, because they could have deflated the story by releasing the correct information that only they had.

As DeadSpin reports Chris Mortensen won’t disclose who the lying source is. I used to like Mortensen, but I don’t see why he’d have allegiance to those who lie to him. A respectable journalist would out that source as untrustworthy to send a message to all sources that you better not use reporters to defame others. Deadspin writes:

“Whoever Mort heard this from, it’s someone powerful enough that he can’t afford to burn them, because he’ll need that source in the future. This is the devil’s bargain made all sports league “insiders” like Mortensen: being plugged-in means they always run the risk of being used for their sources’ agendas—and every once in a while, just rarely enough to maintain trust—their sources’ lies.”

I guess it does make sense why Mortensen doesn’t talk. He needs to be on the NFL’s league office good side if he’s going to get truthful information in the future.

By why would the NFL have an agenda against the Patriots? The strong rumor is that the NFL’s Mike Kensil was Mortensen’s source. Mike Kensil has long worked for Patriots rival the NY Jets… especially during a time when Patriots coach Bill Belichick spurned the organization. Kensil’s father, Jim Kensil, was the President of the Jets.

Kensil at halftime reportedly said to the Patriots equipment manager: “We weighed the balls. You are in big f—— trouble.” Obviously that’s unprofessional behavior, but beyond that, it is strong evidence of a witch hunt. He certainly wasn’t qualified to do the mathematical analysis in a rushed halftime that didn’t allow the NFL to check all the Colt’s footballs.

It’s clear that Goodell had something to gain in this. He’s had a very tough year starting with the Ray Rice incident. The best way for him to restore his image is punish a team that most of the nation loves to hate. After all, the Patriots have routinely beat the rest of the NFL over the last 14 years. They are still believed to have a “history of cheating” based on 2007’s SpyGate (which other teams were doing) even though they have only two players from that time on their roster. Many of the coaches are different as well.

However as the Washington Post points out In trying to restore his authority through DeflateGate, Roger Goodell undermined his credibility.

The NFL realized that it was getting nowhere with the deflated footballs. When science proves it didn’t happen, it is hard to indict a team. This is when they changed the story to it being about Brady’s cooperation. The independent report that the NFL paid $5 million dollar for said that Brady was “totally cooperative.”

Brady upgraded his phone and destroyed his old phone as all celebrities are advised to do. This gave the NFL a new straw to grasp at. They didn’t want the phone before. They had all the communications from other Patriots employees. Brady gave them all the phone numbers and times of texts. He identified the 28 people associated with the NFL, so that the NFL could contact them. The NFL said that it would be too much work.

Of course the NFL is overstepping its bounds in asking for the phone in the first place. As Brady is part of a player’s union that protects the players and their privacy, it would be terrible if Brady set the precedent that the NFL can accuse and demand a player give up its privacy.

Goodell asked Brady to bring new information to his appeal. Of course, since science concluded that nothing occurred there’s no evidence to bring. Goodell gave Brady a fool’s errand.

The aforementioned lawyer, Steph Stradley illustrates how it doesn’t matter what you say, you’re still going to be guilty.

Throughout this whole thing, many have asked Brady to just admit wrongdoing and take the punishment and move on. As many others have pointed out, this is like accepting a life sentence for being merely suspected of jay-walking. No reasonably intelligent person would take the punishment and no reasonably intelligent person should make such a statement.

Comparing Bill Cosby and Tom Brady

It probably doesn’t make much to compare the two, but I find it interesting how easy we’ve lost objectivity.

We have a culture that can ignore dozens of rape accusations if the alleged raper is funny and personable. We ignore the issue for a decade.

On the other hand, we are going on a witch hunt to nail Tom Brady who has been a squeaky clean ideal NFL ambassador for his 15 year career. It’s unfathomable that he might have told some equipment people to remove air of footballs. And though there’s no evidence of him having anything to do with it or that air was let out of footballs at all, we’ll throw the book at him.

When you put them both together it seems really crazy right? That’s cognitive dissonance for you. And if nothing else, hopefully you’ll take a minute to read about the term and understand how crazy us humans can be.