Patriots being investigated after Colts game (2 Viewers)

[moleculo]

I just ran some numbers w/ ideal gas law. to get from 12.5 PSI to 10.5 PSI takes a drop in temperature of 87 degrees F, so we rule out natural depressurization.

I've seen this posted in a few places and everyone makes the same mistakes: You have to convert temp to Kelvin and people are measuring the pump pressure, not the absolute pressure. Taken from another board:

Your math is off, remember that you're using the actual pressure for these calculations (a 12.5 PSI ball has 27.2 PSI of total pressure in it). If you use the nominal PSI, you get results saying that it only loses about 0.4 PSI from the temperature change; that's wrong. It's about 1.6 PSI from a 70F to 40F, or just over 1 PSI lost from 70F to 50F.

If they were 12.5 to begin with, temperature difference could take them to about 10.9 PSI (going from 70F to 40F). Still not enough to explain the whole difference, but perhaps approaching the point where repeated measurements letting air out, game abuse, leaking over time, and precision of the meter could explain the difference.

good point - forgot about absolute pressure. It's a 37 degree difference to lose 2 PSI. I suppose that's conceivable to see a 37 degree drop between inside and outside, or at least, close enough for rounding/gauge errors to creep in.However, thinking this thru further - I doubt that when the NFL investigated and measured the pressure of the game balls, they were in 40 degree weather. They likely were measured in a league office at standard room temperature, making the whole temp/pressure drop irrelevant.

 

[belljr]

What if the MLB allowed this??

Oh wait the home team is responsible for rubbing all the sheen off the ball and giving them to the umpire.

I never understood why in football everyone plays with the same balls. Why home team and away team sets?

 

[Thorn]

This is a big deal. The timing couldn't be worse. The biggest microscope in sports is the weeks leading up to the superbowl, and for this to break now means it can't be swept under the rug. The NFL is interested in international expansion, they have to be very careful with the optics.

Here's how this will play out with the international press:

• one of the teams in the Superbowl got caught cheating.
• that team has gotten caught cheating before.
• If they cheat with equipment rules, and spying on other teams, how else have they been cheating?
• What kind of competitive advantage have they gained by doing all of this?
• Does the NFL have any integrity at all?

I don't think they can sweep this under the rug. Belichick is now a repeat offender, I don't think Godell will have a choice but to throw the book at him. This incident has brought the integrity of the entire league under question at a time when the whole world will be watching.

Here are the facts as I see them:

• 11 of 12 balls being under inflated rules out a leak or faulty equipment.
• I just ran some numbers w/ ideal gas law. to get from 12.5 PSI to 10.5 PSI takes a drop in temperature of 87 degrees F, so we rule out natural depressurization.
• Underinflated balls can gain a team a non-trivial competitive advantage - goes to motive.
• There are rules, spelled out in black and white, as to regulation. this isn't a wishy-washy spirit of the law here. The Patriots were caught red handed using illegal equipment.
• The Patriots are repeat offenders.
• The last coach involved with shenanigans was suspended for a year.

The above, coupled with the intense media focus during superbowl week, will leave Godell no choice but to suspend Belichick and possibly his staff for at least a year, plus dock draft picks. High ones.

I'm not a Patriot hater, even if I strongly dislike some of their fans. I respect the hell out of Bill Belichick and that whole organization. However, I believe that Belichick has fostered an organizational culture that encourages pushing the boundaries of legality.

You actually think the league will view this as worse than a scandal that involved attempting to injure opposing players?

 

[TobiasFunke]

The real tragedy is here is that the media seems to be opting for "Deflate-gate" over "BALLGHAZI"

 

[Baloney Sandwich]

pretty good breakdown of things from Mike Reiss:

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. -- Putting thoughts in one place on the story about the New England Patriots and deflated footballs:

Need more information on the pregame process. One of the key unanswered questions is the process that referee Walt Anderson and his staff underwent when inspecting the footballs before the AFC Championship Game. Did they weigh each ball? Just feel them? If they went through a thorough weight check of each football, and then conducted the same weight check during the game/after the game to find the footballs now had less than 2 pounds per square inch that what they initially did, that would be significant.

Difference between supplying under-inflated footballs and altering them; officials' role in the process. The reason that more information on the pregame process is critical is that it would help clarify if the Patriots simply supplied under-inflated footballs or if the footballs were manipulated in some form after they were initially inspected. From this viewpoint, the Patriots would still be held accountable for supplying underinflated footballs, but it would yield a lesser penalty when compared to potentially altering the footballs after they were inspected. The reason is that while teams should be supplying footballs that meet specifications, there is also a responsibility on the part of the officials to regulate that. That's why they have the pregame check in the first place. Officials also touch the football on every play, so they are a big part of this story, too.

Comparing Patriots footballs to Colts footballs. There's always the chance that weather conditions/elements could lead to a reduction in the weight of the football. So it would be helpful to know the weight of the footballs the Colts used in the game for a comparison -- both from the pregame inspection and a postgame inspection.

Quarterbacks are particular about their footballs. We know about Eli Manning's process with footballs from a 2013 New York Times piece. On the CBS broadcast of the Patriots-Packers game on Nov. 30, broadcasts Jim Nantz and Phil Simms talked about Aaron Rodgers' preferences for an over-inflated football. In the Tampa Bay Times on Wednesday, writer Rick Stroud relayed a story about how quarterback Brad Johnson altered footballs leading into a Super Bowl, paying $7,500 to do so. So we know many quarterbacks are specific in this area and Tom Brady is as well when it comes to how the footballs he uses in a game are broken in. That all seems fair game, as long as the weight of the football is within regulations.

Didn't have an impact on the game. It goes without saying, even though Colts tight endDwayne Allen said it, the deflated footballs had no impact on the outcome of the AFC Championship Game. This is more of an issue of "integrity of the game" when it comes to either supplying footballs within the rules/potentially altering the footballs after they have been inspected.

Patriots always going to be under the microscope. Based on history and their consistent success, a story like this gains more traction with the Patriots than most (if not all) others. For example, if the same thing that happened in the Panthers-Vikings game from November occurred in a Patriots game -- when heaters were used on footballs on the sideline -- it's safe to say we would have heard a lot more about it. So there is a balance here between separating the key facts of what the NFL is looking into and how the Patriots are perceived.

Analyzing incomplete information. At this point, we have incomplete information and more facts are needed to make a final judgment. From this viewpoint, this is the greatest challenge in the 24/7 news cycle we now live in. It's obviously too early to rush to any judgment, but when 11 of 12 footballs come in under weight, it naturally raises questions as to how that can be the case.

 

[ROCKET]

Penalty should amount to the same as Tomlin's purposely walking onto the field and cutting off a player headed for the endzone.

How is this more egregious than that?

 

[parrot]

I just ran some numbers w/ ideal gas law. to get from 12.5 PSI to 10.5 PSI takes a drop in temperature of 87 degrees F, so we rule out natural depressurization.

I've seen this posted in a few places and everyone makes the same mistakes: You have to convert temp to Kelvin and people are measuring the pump pressure, not the absolute pressure. Taken from another board:

Your math is off, remember that you're using the actual pressure for these calculations (a 12.5 PSI ball has 27.2 PSI of total pressure in it). If you use the nominal PSI, you get results saying that it only loses about 0.4 PSI from the temperature change; that's wrong. It's about 1.6 PSI from a 70F to 40F, or just over 1 PSI lost from 70F to 50F.

If they were 12.5 to begin with, temperature difference could take them to about 10.9 PSI (going from 70F to 40F). Still not enough to explain the whole difference, but perhaps approaching the point where repeated measurements letting air out, game abuse, leaking over time, and precision of the meter could explain the difference.

good point - forgot about absolute pressure. It's a 37 degree difference to lose 2 PSI. I suppose that's conceivable to see a 37 degree drop between inside and outside, or at least, close enough for rounding/gauge errors to creep in.However, thinking this thru further - I doubt that when the NFL investigated and measured the pressure of the game balls, they were in 40 degree weather. They likely were measured in a league office at standard room temperature, making the whole temp/pressure drop irrelevant.

You think they pulled all the balls inside at halftime and warmed them to room temperature?

 

[JIslander]

The real tragedy is here is that the media seems to be opting for "Deflate-gate" over "BALLGHAZI"

 

[moleculo]

This is a big deal. The timing couldn't be worse. The biggest microscope in sports is the weeks leading up to the superbowl, and for this to break now means it can't be swept under the rug. The NFL is interested in international expansion, they have to be very careful with the optics.

Here's how this will play out with the international press:

• one of the teams in the Superbowl got caught cheating.
• that team has gotten caught cheating before.
• If they cheat with equipment rules, and spying on other teams, how else have they been cheating?
• What kind of competitive advantage have they gained by doing all of this?
• Does the NFL have any integrity at all?

I don't think they can sweep this under the rug. Belichick is now a repeat offender, I don't think Godell will have a choice but to throw the book at him. This incident has brought the integrity of the entire league under question at a time when the whole world will be watching.

Here are the facts as I see them:

• 11 of 12 balls being under inflated rules out a leak or faulty equipment.
• I just ran some numbers w/ ideal gas law. to get from 12.5 PSI to 10.5 PSI takes a drop in temperature of 87 degrees F, so we rule out natural depressurization.
• Underinflated balls can gain a team a non-trivial competitive advantage - goes to motive.
• There are rules, spelled out in black and white, as to regulation. this isn't a wishy-washy spirit of the law here. The Patriots were caught red handed using illegal equipment.
• The Patriots are repeat offenders.
• The last coach involved with shenanigans was suspended for a year.

The above, coupled with the intense media focus during superbowl week, will leave Godell no choice but to suspend Belichick and possibly his staff for at least a year, plus dock draft picks. High ones.

I'm not a Patriot hater, even if I strongly dislike some of their fans. I respect the hell out of Bill Belichick and that whole organization. However, I believe that Belichick has fostered an organizational culture that encourages pushing the boundaries of legality.

You actually think the league will view this as worse than a scandal that involved attempting to injure opposing players?

nope. I do think that the face that this is a second offense, and occurred 2 weeks before the superbowl will necessitate a stiff penalty.

 

[Anarchy99]

I was of the mind set that the weather or an equipment malfunction could have been in play, but I have since ruled that out (at least in my thinking).

If the balls were checked and they lost 2 lbs PSI of pressure, the same results would have been reflected in the Colts footballs. They weren't. If the pressure gauge was broken or there was a pump malfunction, the Colts footballs would have been way over inflated. They weren't. The Colts had their 12 footballs checked and they all were found to be within the range.

So I am becoming more skeptical that whatever happened was accidental. But we still need to know more of what happened.

 

[jonessed]

This is a big deal. The timing couldn't be worse. The biggest microscope in sports is the weeks leading up to the superbowl, and for this to break now means it can't be swept under the rug. The NFL is interested in international expansion, they have to be very careful with the optics.

Here's how this will play out with the international press:

• one of the teams in the Superbowl got caught cheating.
• that team has gotten caught cheating before.
• If they cheat with equipment rules, and spying on other teams, how else have they been cheating?
• What kind of competitive advantage have they gained by doing all of this?
• Does the NFL have any integrity at all?

I don't think they can sweep this under the rug. Belichick is now a repeat offender, I don't think Godell will have a choice but to throw the book at him. This incident has brought the integrity of the entire league under question at a time when the whole world will be watching.Here are the facts as I see them:

• 11 of 12 balls being under inflated rules out a leak or faulty equipment.
• I just ran some numbers w/ ideal gas law. to get from 12.5 PSI to 10.5 PSI takes a drop in temperature of 87 degrees F, so we rule out natural depressurization.
• Underinflated balls can gain a team a non-trivial competitive advantage - goes to motive.
• There are rules, spelled out in black and white, as to regulation. this isn't a wishy-washy spirit of the law here. The Patriots were caught red handed using illegal equipment.
• The Patriots are repeat offenders.
• The last coach involved with shenanigans was suspended for a year.

The above, coupled with the intense media focus during superbowl week, will leave Godell no choice but to suspend Belichick and possibly his staff for at least a year, plus dock draft picks. High ones.

I'm not a Patriot hater, even if I strongly dislike some of their fans. I respect the hell out of Bill Belichick and that whole organization. However, I believe that Belichick has fostered an organizational culture that encourages pushing the boundaries of legality.

You actually think the league will view this as worse than a scandal that involved attempting to injure opposing players?

This story is a massive black eye for the league and it's coming from a repeat offender. As an isolated incident I don't think it's nearly as serious, but from a PR standpoint it's much more serious.

I don't see how Belichek avoids a suspension. You can't have a team as successful as the Patriots continue to get caught cheating. It destroys the integrity of the league. They have to get him to stop. Obviously the fines and the draft picks didn't work.

 

[KellysHeroes]

Luck's and Gronk's grip strength is super like

 

[moleculo]

I just ran some numbers w/ ideal gas law. to get from 12.5 PSI to 10.5 PSI takes a drop in temperature of 87 degrees F, so we rule out natural depressurization.

I've seen this posted in a few places and everyone makes the same mistakes: You have to convert temp to Kelvin and people are measuring the pump pressure, not the absolute pressure. Taken from another board:

Your math is off, remember that you're using the actual pressure for these calculations (a 12.5 PSI ball has 27.2 PSI of total pressure in it). If you use the nominal PSI, you get results saying that it only loses about 0.4 PSI from the temperature change; that's wrong. It's about 1.6 PSI from a 70F to 40F, or just over 1 PSI lost from 70F to 50F.

If they were 12.5 to begin with, temperature difference could take them to about 10.9 PSI (going from 70F to 40F). Still not enough to explain the whole difference, but perhaps approaching the point where repeated measurements letting air out, game abuse, leaking over time, and precision of the meter could explain the difference.

good point - forgot about absolute pressure. It's a 37 degree difference to lose 2 PSI. I suppose that's conceivable to see a 37 degree drop between inside and outside, or at least, close enough for rounding/gauge errors to creep in.However, thinking this thru further - I doubt that when the NFL investigated and measured the pressure of the game balls, they were in 40 degree weather. They likely were measured in a league office at standard room temperature, making the whole temp/pressure drop irrelevant.

You think they pulled all the balls inside at halftime and warmed them to room temperature?

didn't realize until just now the 2 psi difference was found at halftime. No, I don't. That seems like a pretty important aspect here.

 

[zilladog]

Pats fans rejoice:

This is the exact sort of media fuel that led to 18 straight wins in '07, and will lead to a patriots fourth Lombardi. They'll come out and beat the Seahawks with a deflated beach ball just to drive the point home.

 

[JIslander]

Penalty should amount to the same as Tomlin's purposely walking onto the field and cutting off a player headed for the endzone.

How is this more egregious than that?

Well, we DO know that was the only time Tomlin did that. This, who knows...

 

[Workhorse]

I'd like to see Belichick suspended for the Super Bowl, yet show up on the sidelines with a wig and fake mustache a la Bobby Valentine.

 

[parrot]

I just ran some numbers w/ ideal gas law. to get from 12.5 PSI to 10.5 PSI takes a drop in temperature of 87 degrees F, so we rule out natural depressurization.

I've seen this posted in a few places and everyone makes the same mistakes: You have to convert temp to Kelvin and people are measuring the pump pressure, not the absolute pressure. Taken from another board:

Your math is off, remember that you're using the actual pressure for these calculations (a 12.5 PSI ball has 27.2 PSI of total pressure in it). If you use the nominal PSI, you get results saying that it only loses about 0.4 PSI from the temperature change; that's wrong. It's about 1.6 PSI from a 70F to 40F, or just over 1 PSI lost from 70F to 50F.

If they were 12.5 to begin with, temperature difference could take them to about 10.9 PSI (going from 70F to 40F). Still not enough to explain the whole difference, but perhaps approaching the point where repeated measurements letting air out, game abuse, leaking over time, and precision of the meter could explain the difference.

Now, purely speculative, but if a ball dropped from 12 point something to 10 point something, might not a guy like Morontenson possibly report a 2lb drop?

Also, will a leather NFL football expand in rainy conditions?

Where is Soulfly III? This is starting to sound like the Gordon case. "If we are just standing by the ball, and the temp has dropped it from 12.5 to 10.9 AND THEN we touch it, does the heat from our body decrease it another .1? Could it be that the Pats are just innocent bystanders in all this because Andrew Luck's hands are abnormally warm? We should test for that."

You don't think we're putting a whole lot of faith in a single report from a guy with a bit of a checkered history as far as the accuracy of his "breaking stories" reports, and quoting an unnamed second-hand source?

 

[moleculo]

Pats fans rejoice:

This is the exact sort of media fuel that led to 18 straight wins in '07, and will lead to a patriots fifth Lombardi. They'll come out and beat the Seahawks with a deflated beach ball just to drive the point home.

fifth? when was the fourth?

 

[Officer Pete Malloy]

This story is a massive black eye for the league and it's coming from a repeat offender. As an isolated incident I don't think it's nearly as serious, but from a PR standpoint it's much more serious.

It is?

 

[parrot]

Pats fans rejoice:

This is the exact sort of media fuel that led to 18 straight wins in '07, and will lead to a patriots fifth Lombardi. They'll come out and beat the Seahawks with a deflated beach ball just to drive the point home.

fifth? when was the fourth?

We're still in denial over 2007.

 

[zilladog]

Pats fans rejoice:

This is the exact sort of media fuel that led to 18 straight wins in '07, and will lead to a patriots fifth Lombardi. They'll come out and beat the Seahawks with a deflated beach ball just to drive the point home.

fifth? when was the fourth?

fixed. sorry,my kid was distracting me as I typed that, didn't notice the error. Thanks for catching that.

 

[ROCKET]

Penalty should amount to the same as Tomlin's purposely walking onto the field and cutting off a player headed for the endzone.

How is this more egregious than that?

Well, we DO know that was the only time Tomlin did that. This, who knows...

Ok so it's the only time we know he broke a rule which was more egregious and a much higher degree of cheating then it should be punished less harshly.

Could you even imagine if the Tomlin incident had never happened and BB stepped in front of a guy running for the EZ in the AFCG? He would be banned.

 

[bicycle_seat_sniffer]

Pats fans rejoice:

This is the exact sort of media fuel that led to 18 straight wins in '07, and will lead to a patriots fifth Lombardi. They'll come out and beat the Seahawks with a deflated beach ball just to drive the point home.

fifth? when was the fourth?

lmfao epic fail

 

[Workhorse]

Matt Leinart weighing in:

Matt Leinart ‏@MattLeinartQB 5m5 minutes ago

Every team tampers with the footballs. Ask any Qb In the league, this is ridiculous!!

 

[Dr. Octopus]

Pats fans rejoice:

This is the exact sort of media fuel that led to 18 straight wins in '07, and will lead to a patriots fourth Lombardi. They'll come out and beat the Seahawks with a deflated beach ball just to drive the point home.

So they'll try hard to win the Super Bowl now because of this?

 

[Dinsy Ejotuz]

Weird how the weather deflated the Patriots' balls, but not the Colts'.

 

[zilladog]

Pats fans rejoice:

This is the exact sort of media fuel that led to 18 straight wins in '07, and will lead to a patriots fourth Lombardi. They'll come out and beat the Seahawks with a deflated beach ball just to drive the point home.

So they'll try hard to win the Super Bowl now because of this?

All I'm saying is they love to use negative press as a motivator.

 

[Dr. Octopus]

Matt Leinart weighing in:

Matt Leinart ‏@MattLeinartQB 5m5 minutes ago

Every team tampers with the footballs. Ask any Qb In the league, this is ridiculous!!

Do you know of any quarterbacks in the league we could ask Matt?

 

[bicycle_seat_sniffer]

its like Pine Tar

 

[Baloney Sandwich]

Weird how the weather deflated the Patriots' balls, but not the Colts'.

link?

 

[Dr. Octopus]

Pats fans rejoice:

This is the exact sort of media fuel that led to 18 straight wins in '07, and will lead to a patriots fourth Lombardi. They'll come out and beat the Seahawks with a deflated beach ball just to drive the point home.

So they'll try hard to win the Super Bowl now because of this?

All I'm saying is they love to use negative press as a motivator.

So this is good news. Now they'll be motivated to win the Super Bowl.

 

[Thorn]

I love this thread.

 

[MattFancy]

Weird how the weather deflated the Patriots' balls, but not the Colts'.

Do we know that for certain?

 

[Workhorse]

Jeff Zrebiec ‏@jeffzrebiecsun 48m48 minutes ago
Harbaugh said Ravens diin't notice anything about not-inflated balls. Said that kicking balls were soft but attributed that to weather

 

[Officer Pete Malloy]

Pats fans rejoice:

This is the exact sort of media fuel that led to 18 straight wins in '07, and will lead to a patriots fourth Lombardi. They'll come out and beat the Seahawks with a deflated beach ball just to drive the point home.

So they'll try hard to win the Super Bowl now because of this?

All I'm saying is they love to use negative press as a motivator.

So this is good news. Now they'll be motivated to win the Super Bowl.

It's all part of the plan.

Belichick had the ball boy secretly deflate the balls without letting the Patriot players know.

After the game Belichick leaks the story.

Crap hits the fan.

Pats getting all kinds of bad press now.

Belichick knows the bad press will motivate his team.

Pats go on to win the SB 84-3.

 

[rockaction]

Whoops. ESPN and Mark Brunell discussing this now.

"Huge advantage."

 

[rockaction]

Jerome Bettis:

"Huge"

"I can control this football a lot better"

"Totally different."

 

[Dinsy Ejotuz]

Weird how the weather deflated the Patriots' balls, but not the Colts'.

link?

Link? Seriously?

Yeah, the NFL didn't think to check the other footballs before they threw gasoline on the fire and announced the Patriots balls were deflated. Bet it never even crossed their mind.

Someone should tell them, stat.

 

[cstu]

Didn't have an impact on the game. It goes without saying, even though Colts tight endDwayne Allen said it, the deflated footballs had no impact on the outcome of the AFC Championship Game. This is more of an issue of "integrity of the game" when it comes to either supplying footballs within the rules/potentially altering the footballs after they have been inspected.

It didn't impact that game but they deflated the balls for a reason and could have made the difference in a closer game.

IMO the league needs stricter control over the balls that are used to prevent tampering.

 

[rockaction]

Louis Riddick, NFL Front Office:

"Your fingers are melting into it."

"Huge advantage"

 

[Dr. Octopus]

Pat McAfee @PatMcAfeeShow · 12h 12 hours ago

If New England was to be DQ'd.. We'd be their replacements right??... I should probably lay off these strawberry margs

 

[Baloney Sandwich]

Weird how the weather deflated the Patriots' balls, but not the Colts'.

link?

Link? Seriously?

Yeah, the NFL didn't think to check the other footballs before they threw gasoline on the fire and announced the Patriots balls were deflated. Bet it never even crossed their mind.

Someone should tell them, stat.

so it should be fairly easy for you to provide a single link that mentions this was done

 

[CR69]

I find it amusing how Patriots fans try to claim that every team does things like this and what happened during spygate, yet no other team gets accused or caught doing it. Just admit that Belichick does everything he can to gain an advantage, including cheating, and own it.

Considering they didn't learn from the huge fines and loss of a first round pick, I hope Goodell comes down extremely hard. $1m fine for Belichick, $10m fine for Kraft and the loss of their first two picks for 2 years sounds about right.

 

[ROCKET]

Weird how the weather deflated the Patriots' balls, but not the Colts'.

link?

I guarantee you the Colts balls were inflated perfectly as they knew the they were dropping a dime on the Pats going into the game.

The Pats obviously managed to deflate the balls, how we will never know. It's done by every team, Matt Leinart and Dan Klecko have already said it.

So of course the Pats will be the team to made an example of for it. Then the NFL will revamp the ball process to where the teams don't supply the balls or they will be like the kicking balls that come right out of the box. Haters will hate and deny the fact that this is like pine tar, stickem or curved blades in hockey. It will no doubt be made out to be a huge advantage once again stolen by the Pats and only the Pats.

 

[cstu]

Cheaters never win...oh, wait, nevermind.

 

[Dinsy Ejotuz]

Weird how the weather deflated the Patriots' balls, but not the Colts'.

link?

Link? Seriously?

Yeah, the NFL didn't think to check the other footballs before they threw gasoline on the fire and announced the Patriots balls were deflated. Bet it never even crossed their mind.

Someone should tell them, stat.

so it should be fairly easy for you to provide a single link that mentions this was done

Believe what you need to believe, I guess.

 

[Don Quixote]

Deflated Patriots' balls haven't been this newsworthy since Horatio Gates' after George Washington spoke at Newburgh.

 

[CR69]

Lol @ Patriots fans trying to dismiss this as everyone being haters. Your team cheats, deal with it.

 

[zilladog]

sorry if someone already posted this.

http://thornography.weei.com/sports/boston/2015/01/21/brad-johnson-bribed-someone-to-tamper-with-super-bowl-footballs/

BRAD JOHNSON BRIBED SOMEONE TO TAMPER WITH SUPER BOWL FOOTBALLS 01.21.15 at 9:57 am ET

By Jerry Thornton Brad Johnson is an admitted Super Bowl cheater. (Stephen Dunn/Getty Images)

Pro Football Talk – Former Buccaneersquarterback Brad Johnson has admitted to paying a bribe to have the footballs tampered with before the 2003 Super Bowl.

Johnson, whose Buccaneers beat the Raiders at Super Bowl XXXVII, said he paid $7,500 to some people he did not identify so that they would scuff the balls set to be used in the Super Bowl, making them easier to grip. According to Johnson, there were 100 footballs set aside for the game, and the people he bribed tampered with all 100, to Johnson’€™s specifications.

“I paid some guys off to get the balls right,” Johnson told the Tampa Bay Times. “I went and got all 100 footballs, and they took care of all of them.”

That’€™s a shocking admission — Johnson is confessing that he cheated to help his team win the Super Bowl, and that people who work for the NFL accepted a bribe to help one team cheat in the Super Bowl.

Jon Gruden, who coached the Buccaneersin that Super Bowl, said today on ESPN Radio that he was aware that Johnson was concerned about being able to grip the balls in that game, but Gruden did not say whether he was aware of Johnson breaking the rules to get an advantage. …

The NFL is already investigating whether the Patriots cheated. Now the NFL should broaden its investigation, find out who Johnson bribed, and make sure nothing like that ever happens again.

We could sit here and argue about who did or did not put underinflated balls in the game Sunday or overinflated balls in the NFC championship game or how much Brad Johnson tampered with the balls in Super Bowl XXXVII all day long. But I don’t want to be accused of saying “Everybody does things to the ball” just because so many Super Bowl-winning quarterbacks admit to doing things to the ball.

No, the bottom line here is that Johnson and Jon Gruden cheated. Johnson flat out admits to cheating in the most direct way possible. And there’s only one recourse for the NFL to follow to make this thing right.

Fine and suspend Bill Belichick, take away his draft picks and put a big old asterisk on all his championships and send the Colts to Super Bowl XLIX.

What’s fair is fair.

 

[parrot]

I find it amusing how Patriots fans try to claim that every team does things like this and what happened during spygate, yet no other team gets accused or caught doing it. Just admit that Belichick does everything he can to gain an advantage, including cheating, and own it.

Considering they didn't learn from the huge fines and loss of a first round pick, I hope Goodell comes down extremely hard. $1m fine for Belichick, $10m fine for Kraft and the loss of their first two picks for 2 years sounds about right.

No other team had a disgruntled ex-coach now coaching in the division looking to gain an edge apparently. And that coach later came out and said he never would have done it if he had had any idea of how far it was going to be blown out of proportion. He at least understood that the infraction was WHERE the Patriots had the camera, not WHAT they taped, unlike so many other observers. And it's largely because it was the Patriots that it became such a huge story. Other coaches have ADMITTED to doing the same thing, and no one says a word.