#DeflateGate (Court of Appeals Reinstates Suspension)

[kozlodoev]

just saw the sport science deflategate

They said the 2lbs per square inch is the equivalent of the weight of a dollar bill

That's not about weight. PSI is a measure of pressure, hence it mostly affects the firmness of the ball. And yes, given that the difference in weight will come from the extra air, it sounds about right.

[kozlodoev]

Brilliant.

http://youtu.be/vd3D2gsPUR0

[Roy H.]

There is zero evidence because there is zero evidence, I don't know how to explain it better. "The balls were irregular at halftime therefore the Patriots tampered with them" is not evidence, it is conjecture.

Of course it's evidence.

Refs check the balls for both teams.  Both comply.  Refs have balls until a bit before kickoff, then Pats are in charge of Patriots balls afterwards; Colts are in control of Colts balls.  At halftime, refs check the balls of both teams.  Colts still comply, Patriots 90%+ not in compliance, to a significant degree.

Is there any other reasonable explanation?  Circumstantial evidence is evidence, and it all points at the Pats.

[Redz]

[Smitty77]

There is zero evidence because there is zero evidence, I don't know how to explain it better. "The balls were irregular at halftime therefore the Patriots tampered with them" is not evidence, it is conjecture.

Of course it's evidence.

Refs check the balls for both teams.  Both comply.  Pats are in charge of Patriots balls afterwards; Colts are in control of Colts balls.  At halftime, refs check the balls of both teams.  Colts still comply, Patriots 90%+ not in compliance, to a significant degree.

Is there any other reasonable explanation?  Circumstantial evidence is evidence, and it all points at the Pats.

Totally agree Roy.  That being said, what should the punishment now be??

[esel1000]

There is zero evidence because there is zero evidence, I don't know how to explain it better. "The balls were irregular at halftime therefore the Patriots tampered with them" is not evidence, it is conjecture.

Of course it's evidence.

Refs check the balls for both teams.  Both comply.  Pats are in charge of Patriots balls afterwards; Colts are in control of Colts balls.  At halftime, refs check the balls of both teams.  Colts still comply, Patriots 90%+ not in compliance, to a significant degree.

Is there any other reasonable explanation?  Circumstantial evidence is evidence, and it all points at the Pats.

Totally agree Roy.  That being said, what should the punishment now be??

I'm actually with Koz on this even though I think it's highly plausible that Belichick messed with the balls (and I'm a Pats fan).

What evidence is there? Refs check the balls before the game... they checked out. But if they provide the balls right before game time (maybe a very short window) there isn't enough time to leak the balls after they were checked... and a ball boy obviously isn't on the sideline with cameras blaring during the game letting out air...

That means the balls were messed with before the game... meaning the refs were too incompetent to catch it, meaning even if Belichick and the Pats messed with the balls the NFL A. cannot prove it and B. would have to admit their own employees screwed this up which looks very very bad for them.

I'm sure if the officials had caught it they would have told Bill "you can't do this fix it" and it would have been a non story. Actually the story would be "Belichick tries to gain every advantage, duh." Who knows maybe the Pats have done this before every game and the refs have never caught it (and wouldn't have this time)

There really is no way to prove it

[kozlodoev]

There is zero evidence because there is zero evidence, I don't know how to explain it better. "The balls were irregular at halftime therefore the Patriots tampered with them" is not evidence, it is conjecture.

Of course it's evidence.

Refs check the balls for both teams.  Both comply.  Pats are in charge of Patriots balls afterwards; Colts are in control of Colts balls.  At halftime, refs check the balls of both teams.  Colts still comply, Patriots 90%+ not in compliance, to a significant degree.

Is there any other reasonable explanation?  Circumstantial evidence is evidence, and it all points at the Pats.

First of all, the officials are in charge of the balls afterwards. No-one has yet answered when the Pats equipment personnel received the balls -- although indications are that this customarily happens immediately before kickoff. There were 47(!) TV cameras at Gilette that night and god knows how many fans with cellphones, and I'm still waiting for footage of the Pats ball boy letting air out of TB's footballs.

Second, the only thing that the book explicitly prohibits is tampering with the footballs after they're approved for play. It makes no prescriptions about how teams should treat their balls prior to presenting them for inspection, and clearly points at the officiating crew as the sole authority of whether a ball is fit for play. There are things you can do prior to presenting balls for inspection to make sure a football loses some pressure before game time without tampering with it the way everyone seems to suggest. It's not against the rules, and if an official deems a ball unfit for play they can remove it at any time.

[kozlodoev]

I'm actually with Koz on this even though I think it's highly plausible that Belichick messed with the balls (and I'm a Pats fan).

I'm sure the Pats "messed with the balls". One thing  that is abundantly clear so far is that every team and every QB has their own routine of messing with the balls that starts days and perhaps weeks before the game is played.

The point is that inflating the balls to 12.5 lbs. PSI in a 85F degree room, presenting them for inspection, and then taking them to play in 50F weather with the expectation that they will lose some pressure is not against the rules.

[mgent]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/patriots/2015/01/21/new-england-patriots-deflating-footballs-may-not-as-easy-as-it-sounds/22113343/

Interesting read.  I'm still very skeptical about how this has been leaked with the NFL not being command of all the facts yet.

What the heck does that prove?  The article is a complete waste of space.  All it says is the reason a human couldn't pull it off is because they're not a computer, capable of letting out an exact amount of air and "what if he messes up and takes too much out?"

We're honestly trying to say this is impossible, purely due to a precision factor?  It’s not brain/spine surgery.  You put a needle inside a ball for a second.  Oops, I left it in for 1.5 seconds!!!  So what?  You'd have to screw up in some unbelievable manner.  Not to mention you get diminishing returns when deflating a ball.  The air rushes out when fully inflated and you insert the needle, then exponentially slows down.

There's simply nothing hard about holding a needle inside a ball for 2 seconds without going over/under by 2 seconds.  It's not like the article makes it out to be, you don't have to "know when to pull to the needle."  Each football deflates at the exact same rate, I'd say it's extremely hard for a ball boy to get confused.  It doesn't even take skill , you're just going by time.  Everyone's born knowing what a second feels like.  Plus, he's obviously not trying to do this on the first time.  He has all the practice in the world if he wants.  It's not like it takes special training/practice/IQ to repeat the exact same 2 second task 11 times in a row, in fact I bet you a chimp (or some less intelligent monkey) could pull that off for the proper reward.

[KeepRondo]

This story just piles onto all the other stories that demonstrate how the NFL's front office is incompetent.

I doubt there will be any penalties but the NFL will change their rules regarding how and who handles the footballs before games.

Anyone who gets bent out of shape about this being about the Patriots just makes me laugh. The rules will change and the Patriots and every other team will look for other things to exploit.

[rocknrollforyoursoul]

There is zero evidence because there is zero evidence, I don't know how to explain it better. "The balls were irregular at halftime therefore the Patriots tampered with them" is not evidence, it is conjecture.

Of course it's evidence.

Refs check the balls for both teams.  Both comply.  Pats are in charge of Patriots balls afterwards; Colts are in control of Colts balls.  At halftime, refs check the balls of both teams.  Colts still comply, Patriots 90%+ not in compliance, to a significant degree.

Is there any other reasonable explanation?  Circumstantial evidence is evidence, and it all points at the Pats.

Totally agree Roy.  That being said, what should the punishment now be??

Considering that this infraction is the equivalent of going 50 mph in a 45-mph zone, the penalty should be minimal—which means the league will do something drastic like dock us a couple draft picks and slap us with a huge fine.

[EJPLAYA]

Don Shula is our generations version of Nostradamus!! Only Pats fans can look at this and say it doesn't matter. I hope all your kids get suspended from school for cheating on a test and they tell you they only cheated on 15% of the questions and so that didn't create an advantage! Cheating is cheating...

[BitterJim]

Don Shula is our generations version of Nostradamus!! Only Pats fans can look at this and say it doesn't matter. I hope all your kids get suspended from school for cheating on a test and they tell you they only cheated on 15% of the questions and so that didn't create an advantage! Cheating is cheating...

...except this is more like them being suspended for using a pencil instead of a pen despite all students using pencils AND the teacher having approved of it before the test

Also, what kind of person hopes for kids to get suspended from school?

[Eja117]

Don Shula is our generations version of Nostradamus!! Only Pats fans can look at this and say it doesn't matter. I hope all your kids get suspended from school for cheating on a test and they tell you they only cheated on 15% of the questions and so that didn't create an advantage! Cheating is cheating...

Well wait a second. Did they get a 100% and get caught cheating on the extra credit portion and the teacher said they could use their smartphone to find the answer as long as they don't use wiki, but they ended up following a link to wiki anyway? Because this is sorta like that.

Stupid rule. Stupid enforcement. Stupid news story.

[Neurotic Guy]

Don Shula is our generations version of Nostradamus!! Only Pats fans can look at this and say it doesn't matter. I hope all your kids get suspended from school for cheating on a test and they tell you they only cheated on 15% of the questions and so that didn't create an advantage! Cheating is cheating...

You're right.  But this is sports and not my kid.  And it's the Patriots, not the Lakers.  I'll support Bill, and make all sorts of rationalizations, just as we all did (those of us who remember) when Red Auerbach was finding devious ways to gain an advantage.