khiladi;1936247 said:
How does the NFL set a rule for taping signals being an 'unfair advantage' when you claim that it is not possible to measure it? How do you argue it qualifies as an unfair an advantage? According to your logic, this can only be measured by a team losing or winning, but them, to borrow your own words:
I never said it is impossible to measure whether they gained an unfair advantage.
I said that it is impossible to measure whether the "unfair advantage" resulted in a win.
It's the same as saying that an official's blown call - no matter how critical - determined whether a team won or loss.
Does an official's blown call give one team or the other an unfair advantage?
YES!
Does an official's blown call determine whether a team wins or loses a game? NO!
Why?
Because a win is a product of a number of things that go on in a game.
If you can't understand what I'm saying, then, yes, something is very wrong with
your ability to understand logic and reason.
It is quite inderstandeable why you made upon some ridiculous argument that the NFL punished the 'illegality' of the act, but not the act itself. That still doesn't answer the question of how the act becomes illegal in the first place. I know this may be hard, but follow me for a moment Mr. Logic:
Do you mean "understandable"?
But let's continue ...
1.
It is not because the Patriots won, it is HOW they won that can give weight to the idea that they got an unfair advantage, which caused them to win. In this case, we aren't talking about whether they got an unfair advantage or not, which they clearly did, but whether or not the unfair advantage impacted the outcome of the game. There is what is called an issue of degrees when committing a wrong. It has all the relevance in forming a judgement about a matter? Human beings possess discursive reasoning, meaning all their judgements are predicated on evidence, not absolute fact.
Your living in an imaginary world... and you don't understand basic logic...
Now you're contradicting yourself.
khiladi said:
I thought the unfair advantage argument is measured by whether something falls within the rules or not, and winning or losing is irrelevant to it. The practical measurement is established by an agreed upon code of conduct, not by the outcome of the game. ...
It is not because the Patriots won, it is HOW they won that can give weight to the idea that they got an unfair advantage, which caused them to win.
And you question
my logic.
Make up your mind, will you. If the unfair advantage resulted in winning, it's not irrelevant. It is very much relevant.
And that's my point. Thank you, again.
If it can be determined that the unfair advantage produced a win, Goodell could have made the Pats forfeit the game. But I suspect any reasonable thinking person would understand that he wouldn't do that because it can't be determined whether that "unfair advantage" actually produced a win.
At best, we can say that the Pats violated the rules and were punished accordingly.
Yes, cheating gives an unfair advantage. But how much and whether it contributes to the win, we don't know. That's my point. And if you had any ounce of understanding context, you would have picked that up by now.
But here's where you entered this debate:
SoS - Pats are cheaters.
Tyke1doe - You're still bitter aren't you?
SoS - Yes, because they're cheaters.
Tyke1doe - So are the Cowboys because they cheated. Jimmy Johnson even admits they did.
SoS - That's not cheating because it wasn't illegal.
Tyke1doe - So illegality defines cheating. Well, Cowboys players admitted taking drugs during their playing days.
SoS - ignores that argument. Starts to complain about too much straw in this thread.
Khiladi - we're questioning your axioms not your logic. (Of course, then you contradict yourself by questioning my logic. You don't know what you're arguing in this thread. But that happens when you join an argument in midstream.)
Tyke1doe - my statement was predicated on SoS's response. See above.
Khiladi - continues to argue a point not in dispute and then contradicts himself by saying the issue of winning is irrelevant to the cheating incident and then arguing that the cheating helped the Pats to win.
If this is the type of logic they taught you in school, you'd better sue for a refund.
P.S., the NFL does have a rule that speaks to this matter as to when an action
directly impacts a game and its outcome.
Let's say it's 4 seconds left and T.O. catches a pass and is running for what is sure to be a TD. And a Giant comes off the sidelines and tackles T.O. before he scores.
If I'm not mistaken, there is a provision within NFL rules that would award T.O./Dallas with a touchdown.
Is the action by the Giants player not in the game cheating?
Yes.
Why? Because he's not suppose to be on the field and interfering with the play.
So in that case, the NFL can award a victory because the action had a
DIRECT impact on the game and was not the product of human error - in the case of a blown call by an official.
When the action is directly linked to a situation which determines whether a game is won or loss, this rule proves that the NFL can take appropriate action.
But in the case of "cheating by stealing signals," all you can say is that it gives a team an "unfair advantage" and even then, you can't be sure because there's no way to determine that definitely.
And as Jimmy Johnson said, the Cowboys used to cheat too, but they didn't see any advantage of doing so. Simply put, they cheated but they didn't receive an unfair advantage by doing so.
My points are simple and very logical - if you don't have a red, white and blue axe to grind.
