Patriots being investigated after Colts game (1 Viewer)

[Dinsy Ejotuz]

• The 12 footballs used in the first half for New England, and the 12 footballs used by the Colts, all left the officials’ locker room before the game at the prescribed pressure level of between 12.5 pounds per square inch and 13.5 psi.

• All 24 footballs were checked by pressure gauge at halftime. I am told either 11 or 12 of New England’s footballs (ESPN’s Chris Mortensen reported it was 11, and I hear it could have been all 12) had at least two pounds less pressure in them. All 12 Indianapolis footballs were at the prescribed level.

• All 24 footballs were checked by pressure gauge after the game. All 24 checked at the correct pressure—which is one of the last pieces of the puzzle the league needed to determine with certainty that something fishy happened with the Patriots footballs, because the Colts’ balls stayed correctly inflated for the nearly four hours. There had been reports quoting atmospheric experts that cold weather could deflate footballs. But if the Patriots’ balls were all low, and the Colts’ balls all legit, that quashes that theory.

Worth posting every couple pages or so.

Peter King could be spot on and I'm sure he has unnamed sources from the NFL offices. However, I would have to imagine the Goodell isn't happy with any leaks on the matter but my guess is he would go absolutely ballistic over any leaks that stated the NFL failed to follow proper procedures. Again, not saying the people talking to King don't have valid information but there is simply no way those sources would ever provide information that stated the refs didn't follow proper procedures.

King is such an NFL toady I always assume anything he prints was written by the PR guys on Madison Avenue. Would be surprised if his sources weren't NFL officialdom.

I agree, but the NFL's interest here would be to make this story go away so nobody doubts the integrity of its product in the run-up to the Super Bowl. This does the opposite.

Post-Ray Rice, I think the NFL is more worried about being transparent and making sure they get the punishment right.

The fact that it's the Patriots and Goodell destroyed the evidence last time probably also plays a role.

 

[[icon]]

• The 12 footballs used in the first half for New England, and the 12 footballs used by the Colts, all left the officials’ locker room before the game at the prescribed pressure level of between 12.5 pounds per square inch and 13.5 psi.

• All 24 footballs were checked by pressure gauge at halftime. I am told either 11 or 12 of New England’s footballs (ESPN’s Chris Mortensen reported it was 11, and I hear it could have been all 12) had at least two pounds less pressure in them. All 12 Indianapolis footballs were at the prescribed level.

• All 24 footballs were checked by pressure gauge after the game. All 24 checked at the correct pressure—which is one of the last pieces of the puzzle the league needed to determine with certainty that something fishy happened with the Patriots footballs, because the Colts’ balls stayed correctly inflated for the nearly four hours. There had been reports quoting atmospheric experts that cold weather could deflate footballs. But if the Patriots’ balls were all low, and the Colts’ balls all legit, that quashes that theory.

Worth posting every couple pages or so.

Significant doubt has been cast on the bolded. Making that assumption absent evidence to the contrary is a mistake IMO.

 

[[icon]]

This isn't about deflating balls; this is about is there a culture of cheating that they'll do anything to get an edge.

"This is a bigger issue, and I think most people are missing the issue. It's an issue of if there is a culture of cheating at the organization that most people look at as the gold standard in this league. Is there a culture of cheating and breaking the rules?''

http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/12216634/former-carolina-panthers-gm-marty-hurney-angry-spygate-amid-new-england-patriots-controversy

So the Seahawks have a "culture of PED abuse" then, since there was one incident involving it?

 

[ratbast]

Pats fan. The facts don't matter anymore. Checkmate.

I would say that "risk management" is the issue and that falls on the GM. Even if they didn't cheat it certainly isn't far off for someone to suspect it.

They should have seen this coming. Its a failure on the organization no matter how you slice it.

 

[Dinsy Ejotuz]

• The 12 footballs used in the first half for New England, and the 12 footballs used by the Colts, all left the officials’ locker room before the game at the prescribed pressure level of between 12.5 pounds per square inch and 13.5 psi.

• All 24 footballs were checked by pressure gauge at halftime. I am told either 11 or 12 of New England’s footballs (ESPN’s Chris Mortensen reported it was 11, and I hear it could have been all 12) had at least two pounds less pressure in them. All 12 Indianapolis footballs were at the prescribed level.

• All 24 footballs were checked by pressure gauge after the game. All 24 checked at the correct pressure—which is one of the last pieces of the puzzle the league needed to determine with certainty that something fishy happened with the Patriots footballs, because the Colts’ balls stayed correctly inflated for the nearly four hours. There had been reports quoting atmospheric experts that cold weather could deflate footballs. But if the Patriots’ balls were all low, and the Colts’ balls all legit, that quashes that theory.

Worth posting every couple pages or so.

Significant doubt has been cast on the bolded. Making that assumption absent evidence to the contrary is a mistake IMO.

I'd bet non-trivial amounts of money that if Peter King is reporting that someone in NFL brass told him it was true.

 

[KarmaPolice]

This isn't about deflating balls; this is about is there a culture of cheating that they'll do anything to get an edge.

"This is a bigger issue, and I think most people are missing the issue. It's an issue of if there is a culture of cheating at the organization that most people look at as the gold standard in this league. Is there a culture of cheating and breaking the rules?''

http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/12216634/former-carolina-panthers-gm-marty-hurney-angry-spygate-amid-new-england-patriots-controversy

where a lot of people disagree us that:

1. Doing things to get an edge on your opponent <> cheating.

2. Being punished once 10 years ago <> a "culture" of cheating.

Also, if this is the "culture" of NE, how come they don't seem to show up in the tops of the list for most fined teams for the seasons for infractions, PEDs, substance abuse, etc..? I see teams like Det, Mia, and Indy on there. It feels just the opposite most of the time - a "trouble" player goes to NE and gets his #### together and excels.

 

[12punch]

I think there's a huge psychological aspect to getting your balls just so you want them and thinking you can tell the difference, when my guess is in most cases, even professional qb's would not be able to in a blind test.

No way. A fully inflated ball from a "just enough" inflated ball feels very different in every sport. Even to a schlub like me. 12.5 vs 10.5 is a BIG difference.

It's a big difference if you have both balls and you are trying to compare. One will be obviously firmer than the other.

But, if the ref or QB are given a single ball, or a few of them pumped to the same PSI, are they going to be able to tell by feel whether they are above or below 12.5? I'd imagine quarterbacks have no idea what 12.5 "feels" like, or 10.5 feels like. What they know is whether they like the feel of the ball they are holding or not. I'd guess it would have to be much lower for someone to know by feel that a ball was illegally low pressure.

For example, any of us can compare two significantly differently inflated car tires and feel which one is firmer. But if you walked up to random car and felt one tire you wouldn't be able to say by feel whether it was inflated to 25 psi or 32 psi or 36 psi.

or for example, if you walked up to 2 random footballs and felt them

 

[Old Smiley]

• The 12 footballs used in the first half for New England, and the 12 footballs used by the Colts, all left the officials’ locker room before the game at the prescribed pressure level of between 12.5 pounds per square inch and 13.5 psi.

• All 24 footballs were checked by pressure gauge at halftime. I am told either 11 or 12 of New England’s footballs (ESPN’s Chris Mortensen reported it was 11, and I hear it could have been all 12) had at least two pounds less pressure in them. All 12 Indianapolis footballs were at the prescribed level.

• All 24 footballs were checked by pressure gauge after the game. All 24 checked at the correct pressure—which is one of the last pieces of the puzzle the league needed to determine with certainty that something fishy happened with the Patriots footballs, because the Colts’ balls stayed correctly inflated for the nearly four hours. There had been reports quoting atmospheric experts that cold weather could deflate footballs. But if the Patriots’ balls were all low, and the Colts’ balls all legit, that quashes that theory.

Worth posting every couple pages or so.

Significant doubt has been cast on the bolded. Making that assumption absent evidence to the contrary is a mistake IMO.

Note there's lot's of talk about meters in bullet point two and three but none in one. I don't read King so I don't know what he is or how good he is.

 

[ratbast]

It is kind of interesting that just the day before this broke there was an article on how Vegas messed up the early line and the Pats were getting big bets. It was written to be potentially disastrous for Vegas.

Big Honcho makes a few calls, media spin, suddenly money is flowing to Seattle.

I don't really believe this.

 

[Old Smiley]

Can somone tell me if the rules specify that a meter is to be used in the pregame check? I just don't see any wrongdoing here by anyone. Not the team not the refs nobody.

Edit: Hell not even the Colts. They used the rule book to their advantage. I ain't mad.

 

[shader]

• The 12 footballs used in the first half for New England, and the 12 footballs used by the Colts, all left the officials’ locker room before the game at the prescribed pressure level of between 12.5 pounds per square inch and 13.5 psi.

• All 24 footballs were checked by pressure gauge at halftime. I am told either 11 or 12 of New England’s footballs (ESPN’s Chris Mortensen reported it was 11, and I hear it could have been all 12) had at least two pounds less pressure in them. All 12 Indianapolis footballs were at the prescribed level.

• All 24 footballs were checked by pressure gauge after the game. All 24 checked at the correct pressure—which is one of the last pieces of the puzzle the league needed to determine with certainty that something fishy happened with the Patriots footballs, because the Colts’ balls stayed correctly inflated for the nearly four hours. There had been reports quoting atmospheric experts that cold weather could deflate footballs. But if the Patriots’ balls were all low, and the Colts’ balls all legit, that quashes that theory.

Worth posting every couple pages or so.

Significant doubt has been cast on the bolded. Making that assumption absent evidence to the contrary is a mistake IMO.

I'd bet non-trivial amounts of money that if Peter King is reporting that someone in NFL brass told him it was true.

But the NFL brass are taking the word of an official who was probably asked "did you check those balls?" "Um, yeah of course i did"

 

[12punch]

here's an experiment for all you guys asking for experiments

Its interesting, but immersing it in water changed the external pressure, which is relevant to gauge pressure.

well, this entire issue is nonsense, and we already know temp has some degree of an effect, but if the water in a bucket had much of an impact the pressure would have registered that change rather than the steady drop in conjunction with temp

I really just posted this because so many people have been asking about the math on the temp/pressure relationship, etc

 

[shader]

Can somone tell me if the rules specify that a meter is to be used in the pregame check? I just don't see any wrongdoing here by anyone. Not the team not the refs nobody.

It's an interesting idea. I guess how "wrong it is" depends on what the NFL does. I could see those rules as a guideline for the referees to go by. Or you could interpret them as the most important rules in the history of the NFL and rules that once broken, prove you are a cheater of the highest order. Depends on your perspective, I guess.

 

[[icon]]

It is kind of interesting that just the day before this broke there was an article on how Vegas messed up the early line and the Pats were getting big bets. It was written to be potentially disastrous for Vegas.

Big Honcho makes a few calls, media spin, suddenly money is flowing to Seattle.

I don't really believe this.

IMO this is as as those who think the patriots are secretly deflating the balls on the sidelines.

 

[The General]

The process is supposed to include metering the ball.

The same website followed a crew around and filmed the whole process a while back. Probably about 12 people watched it originally. It shows them sticking a meter thing in the ball and checking it.

The process is SUPPOSED To include metering every ball. In practice, given the number of QBs who are on record discussing high/low pressure balls, and the teams allegedly upset that this was brought to light SEEMS to indicate this was an unenforced "grey area".

I have no doubt that when doing a piece on "how to pre-check the balls" in front of TV cameras, the officials gave the full dog and pony show. I also have little doubt that officials do NOT go through that whole process before every game when there aren't cameras on them.

Yup. Exactly what I think.

It's just worth pointing out to people who keep acting as if this isn't an issue.

Can't see anyway they could prove this unless someone says something.

Even if refs say they checked it the process doesn't look too official, as you'd expect.

Will be different story next year for sure.

The reports that the refs were aware of this issue before the game suggests that they might have been more diligent than usual (if they aren't always diligent -- maybe they are).

Hadn't heard that, is this an assumption or had you read that somewhere coming from the refs/nfl sources.

Would love them to say we know for sure, 100% that they were tested accurately.

 

[Gandalf the Grey]

It is kind of interesting that just the day before this broke there was an article on how Vegas messed up the early line and the Pats were getting big bets. It was written to be potentially disastrous for Vegas.

Big Honcho makes a few calls, media spin, suddenly money is flowing to Seattle.

I don't really believe this.

I expect this is going to help the Patriots. Obviously they had a legit/even likely chance to win the SB. IMO this cements a SB win for the Pats (unless something ridiculous happens like a player/coach suspension, but I think there's zero chance of anything like that).

 

[Dinsy Ejotuz]

The process is supposed to include metering the ball.

The same website followed a crew around and filmed the whole process a while back. Probably about 12 people watched it originally. It shows them sticking a meter thing in the ball and checking it.

The process is SUPPOSED To include metering every ball. In practice, given the number of QBs who are on record discussing high/low pressure balls, and the teams allegedly upset that this was brought to light SEEMS to indicate this was an unenforced "grey area".

I have no doubt that when doing a piece on "how to pre-check the balls" in front of TV cameras, the officials gave the full dog and pony show. I also have little doubt that officials do NOT go through that whole process before every game when there aren't cameras on them.

Yup. Exactly what I think.

It's just worth pointing out to people who keep acting as if this isn't an issue.

Can't see anyway they could prove this unless someone says something.

Even if refs say they checked it the process doesn't look too official, as you'd expect.

Will be different story next year for sure.

The reports that the refs were aware of this issue before the game suggests that they might have been more diligent than usual (if they aren't always diligent -- maybe they are).

Hadn't heard that, is this an assumption or had you read that somewhere coming from the refs/nfl sources.

Would love them to say we know for sure, 100% that they were tested accurately.

It's been reported, yes.

 

[jonessed]

If it wasn't a big deal Brady wouldn't have done it to begin with and certainly would not have lied about it.

 

[12punch]

If it wasn't a big deal Brady wouldn't have done it to begin with and certainly would not have lied about it.

because he doesn't bother with small deals?

 

[pizzatyme]

If it wasn't a big deal Brady wouldn't have done it to begin with and certainly would not have lied about it.

because he doesn't bother with small deals?

No, only small balls.

 

[Da Guru]

Brady was 11-21 with deflated ball. 11-14 with proper inflation.

 

[eBrian]

It's a big difference if you have both balls and you are trying to compare. One will be obviously firmer than the other.

But, if the ref or QB are given a single ball, or a few of them pumped to the same PSI, are they going to be able to tell by feel whether they are above or below 12.5? I'd imagine quarterbacks have no idea what 12.5 "feels" like, or 10.5 feels like. What they know is whether they like the feel of the ball they are holding or not. I'd guess it would have to be much lower for someone to know by feel that a ball was illegally low pressure.

For example, any of us can compare two significantly differently inflated car tires and feel which one is firmer. But if you walked up to random car and felt one tire you wouldn't be able to say by feel whether it was inflated to 25 psi or 32 psi or 36 psi.

Any of us maybe not, but if you take a 25psi tire to a tire garage, I bet the guy working there can tell. What a lot of this has come down to, for me, is that someone with the familiarity of a football like Brady, as an elite veteran NFL QB who has played football for many years and handles multiple footballs all day long through practice, would have been able to tell.

You could probably give me 2 balls, one at 10.5 and the other at 13.5 and I might not be able to tell the difference. I'd have to conduct several tests of my own before I could notice a difference (I'm guessing here, never have handled an NFL football). But someone who handles footballs all the time should be able to. I sit in front of a computer all day. If someone adjusted the resolution of my monitor, or changed the settings of my mouse sensitivity by 16%, I would notice.

I can't get past Brady's statement that he didn't notice the ball pressure was different from, as he stated "12.5 is perfect for me" (paraphrased). If 12.5 is perfect, and that's what he's been using for the last 20 years of playing football, then I cannot believe that he did not notice it had dropped to 10.5, or even 11.0, etc.

 

[shader]

I know Belicheck has gotten a lot of crap over the years, some of it quite deserved.

But in his entire career, Brady has never had a smudge on his record. He's been a squeaky clean guy, much like Peyton Manning.

I think we should give him the benefit of the doubt over a backroom official who puts properly inflated balls in the sink as part of his "official" pregame testing.

 

[shader]

It's a big difference if you have both balls and you are trying to compare. One will be obviously firmer than the other.

But, if the ref or QB are given a single ball, or a few of them pumped to the same PSI, are they going to be able to tell by feel whether they are above or below 12.5? I'd imagine quarterbacks have no idea what 12.5 "feels" like, or 10.5 feels like. What they know is whether they like the feel of the ball they are holding or not. I'd guess it would have to be much lower for someone to know by feel that a ball was illegally low pressure.

For example, any of us can compare two significantly differently inflated car tires and feel which one is firmer. But if you walked up to random car and felt one tire you wouldn't be able to say by feel whether it was inflated to 25 psi or 32 psi or 36 psi.

Any of us maybe not, but if you take a 25psi tire to a tire garage, I bet the guy working there can tell. What a lot of this has come down to, for me, is that someone with the familiarity of a football like Brady, as an elite veteran NFL QB who has played football for many years and handles multiple footballs all day long through practice, would have been able to tell.

You could probably give me 2 balls, one at 10.5 and the other at 13.5 and I might not be able to tell the difference. I'd have to conduct several tests of my own before I could notice a difference (I'm guessing here, never have handled an NFL football). But someone who handles footballs all the time should be able to. I sit in front of a computer all day. If someone adjusted the resolution of my monitor, or changed the settings of my mouse sensitivity by 16%, I would notice.

I can't get past Brady's statement that he didn't notice the ball pressure was different from, as he stated "12.5 is perfect for me" (paraphrased). If 12.5 is perfect, and that's what he's been using for the last 20 years of playing football, then I cannot believe that he did not notice it had dropped to 10.5, or even 11.0, etc.

Because he holds the ball for one or two seconds. I'm sure the balls get swapped out every few plays, though I don't know the logistics of it. He's diagnosing defense, blitzes, looking at primary, secondary and tertiary receivers, and trying to win a huge game.

Stopping to think about the psi of a particular ball in the few seconds he's holding it is probably not high on his priority list.

I'm sure if you handed him 2 different balls, one 12.5 and one 10.5 and had him feel them and take a few seconds to analyze them, he could probably tell the difference if that was his focus. But I think it's laughable to think he would notice during the game.

 

[TobiasFunke]

I know Belicheck has gotten a lot of crap over the years, some of it quite deserved.

But in his entire career, Brady has never had a smudge on his record. He's been a squeaky clean guy, much like Peyton Manning.

I think we should give him the benefit of the doubt over a backroom official who puts properly inflated balls in the sink as part of his "official" pregame testing.

You think we should give the benefit of the doubt to the guy who stood to benefit from the alleged deflation and whose reputation and legacy would take a massive hit if he was guilty of wrongdoing over the guy whose job it is to maintain fair play ... why, exactly? Because you think he's a super duper swell guy?

 

[Baloney Sandwich]

I know Belicheck has gotten a lot of crap over the years, some of it quite deserved.

But in his entire career, Brady has never had a

smudge on his record. He's been a squeaky clean guy, much like Peyton Manning.

I think we should give him the benefit of the

doubt over a backroom official who puts properly inflated balls in the sink as part of his "official" pregame testing.

Well he did forget to pull out of Bridget Monahan

 

[James Daulton]

The NFL is going to come down hard on the Pats. Perhaps Belichick wasn't aware, but there's no way that the footballs Brady's going to use aren't set to his specifications.

I'm guessing loss of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd round picks + $500K total fine.

 

[Run It Up]

This isn't about deflating balls; this is about is there a culture of cheating that they'll do anything to get an edge.

"This is a bigger issue, and I think most people are missing the issue. It's an issue of if there is a culture of cheating at the organization that most people look at as the gold standard in this league. Is there a culture of cheating and breaking the rules?''

http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/12216634/former-carolina-panthers-gm-marty-hurney-angry-spygate-amid-new-england-patriots-controversy

where a lot of people disagree us that:

1. Doing things to get an edge on your opponent <> cheating.

2. Being punished once 10 years ago <> a "culture" of cheating.

But if something happened 10 years ago and you talk about it every minute, its like it happened a minute ago, for 10 years.

 

[Gandalf the Grey]

It's a big difference if you have both balls and you are trying to compare. One will be obviously firmer than the other. But, if the ref or QB are given a single ball, or a few of them pumped to the same PSI, are they going to be able to tell by feel whether they are above or below 12.5? I'd imagine quarterbacks have no idea what 12.5 "feels" like, or 10.5 feels like. What they know is whether they like the feel of the ball they are holding or not. I'd guess it would have to be much lower for someone to know by feel that a ball was illegally low pressure.

For example, any of us can compare two significantly differently inflated car tires and feel which one is firmer. But if you walked up to random car and felt one tire you wouldn't be able to say by feel whether it was inflated to 25 psi or 32 psi or 36 psi.

Any of us maybe not, but if you take a 25psi tire to a tire garage, I bet the guy working there can tell. What a lot of this has come down to, for me, is that someone with the familiarity of a football like Brady, as an elite veteran NFL QB who has played football for many years and handles multiple footballs all day long through practice, would have been able to tell.

You could probably give me 2 balls, one at 10.5 and the other at 13.5 and I might not be able to tell the difference. I'd have to conduct several tests of my own before I could notice a difference (I'm guessing here, never have handled an NFL football). But someone who handles footballs all the time should be able to. I sit in front of a computer all day. If someone adjusted the resolution of my monitor, or changed the settings of my mouse sensitivity by 16%, I would notice.

I can't get past Brady's statement that he didn't notice the ball pressure was different from, as he stated "12.5 is perfect for me" (paraphrased). If 12.5 is perfect, and that's what he's been using for the last 20 years of playing football, then I cannot believe that he did not notice it had dropped to 10.5, or even 11.0, etc.

Because he holds the ball for one or two seconds. I'm sure the balls get swapped out every few plays, though I don't know the logistics of it. He's diagnosing defense, blitzes, looking at primary, secondary and tertiary receivers, and trying to win a huge game.

Stopping to think about the psi of a particular ball in the few seconds he's holding it is probably not high on his priority list.

I'm sure if you handed him 2 different balls, one 12.5 and one 10.5 and had him feel them and take a few seconds to analyze them, he could probably tell the difference if that was his focus. But I think it's laughable to think he would notice during the game.

Based on everything I've read, and comments from ex QB's, I think it's laughable to think he wouldn't notice.

/shrug

 

[parrot]

I know Belicheck has gotten a lot of crap over the years, some of it quite deserved.

But in his entire career, Brady has never had a smudge on his record. He's been a squeaky clean guy, much like Peyton Manning.

I think we should give him the benefit of the doubt over a backroom official who puts properly inflated balls in the sink as part of his "official" pregame testing.

You think we should give the benefit of the doubt to the guy who stood to benefit from the alleged deflation and whose reputation and legacy would take a massive hit if he was guilty of wrongdoing over the guy whose job it is to maintain fair play ... why, exactly? Because you think he's a super duper swell guy?

Hanlon's Razor - never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained through incompetence.

 

[Thunderlips]

Looks like it's a little more serious for the thread NEP fans today. Have the goalposts been moved again?

 

[TobiasFunke]

I know Belicheck has gotten a lot of crap over the years, some of it quite deserved.

But in his entire career, Brady has never had a smudge on his record. He's been a squeaky clean guy, much like Peyton Manning.

I think we should give him the benefit of the doubt over a backroom official who puts properly inflated balls in the sink as part of his "official" pregame testing.

You think we should give the benefit of the doubt to the guy who stood to benefit from the alleged deflation and whose reputation and legacy would take a massive hit if he was guilty of wrongdoing over the guy whose job it is to maintain fair play ... why, exactly? Because you think he's a super duper swell guy?

Hanlon's Razor - never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained through incompetence.

Assuming that a ref didn't do his job on perhaps the single most important day to do said job in his career- a conference championship game in bad weather- doesn't strike me as an "adequate" explanation.

 

[Workhorse]

• The 12 footballs used in the first half for New England, and the 12 footballs used by the Colts, all left the officials’ locker room before the game at the prescribed pressure level of between 12.5 pounds per square inch and 13.5 psi.

• All 24 footballs were checked by pressure gauge at halftime. I am told either 11 or 12 of New England’s footballs (ESPN’s Chris Mortensen reported it was 11, and I hear it could have been all 12) had at least two pounds less pressure in them. All 12 Indianapolis footballs were at the prescribed level.

• All 24 footballs were checked by pressure gauge after the game. All 24 checked at the correct pressure—which is one of the last pieces of the puzzle the league needed to determine with certainty that something fishy happened with the Patriots footballs, because the Colts’ balls stayed correctly inflated for the nearly four hours. There had been reports quoting atmospheric experts that cold weather could deflate footballs. But if the Patriots’ balls were all low, and the Colts’ balls all legit, that quashes that theory.

Worth posting every couple pages or so.

Significant doubt has been cast on the bolded. Making that assumption absent evidence to the contrary is a mistake IMO.

I'd bet non-trivial amounts of money that if Peter King is reporting that someone in NFL brass told him it was true.

ORLY???

I quoted a source in July as saying Janay Rice made a moving case for leniency for Ray Rice during the June 16 meeting. My source was incorrect. According to Judge Jones' report, Janay Rice was asked only one question during the hearing—how she felt—and she cried and said, "I'm just ready for it to be over." I regret the error, and should have vetted the story further before publishing the account of one source.

To: Our readers.

From: Peter King, editor-in-chief, The MMQB

An addendum to the Ray Rice coverage:

Earlier this summer a source I trusted told me he assumed the NFL had seen the damaging video that was released by TMZ on Monday morning of Rice slugging his then-fiancée, Janay Palmer, in an Atlantic City elevator. The source said league officials had to have seen it. This source has been impeccable, and I believed the information. So I wrote that the league had seen the tape. I should have called the NFL for a comment, a lapse in reporting on my part. The league says it has not seen the tape, and I cannot refute that with certainty. No one from the league has ever knocked down my report to me, and so I was surprised to see the claim today that league officials have not seen the tape.

I hope when this story is fully vetted, we all get the truth and nothing but the truth.

 

[Run It Up]

I know Belicheck has gotten a lot of crap over the years, some of it quite deserved.

But in his entire career, Brady has never had a smudge on his record. He's been a squeaky clean guy, much like Peyton Manning.

I think we should give him the benefit of the doubt over a backroom official who puts properly inflated balls in the sink as part of his "official" pregame testing.

You think we should give the benefit of the doubt to the guy who stood to benefit from the alleged deflation and whose reputation and legacy would take a massive hit if he was guilty of wrongdoing over the guy whose job it is to maintain fair play ... why, exactly? Because you think he's a super duper swell guy?

Hanlon's Razor - never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained through incompetence.

Assuming that a ref didn't do his job on perhaps the single most important day to do said job in his career- a conference championship game in bad weather- doesn't strike me as an "adequate" explanation.

Thats assuming this isn't status quo for the ref - as has been suggested by a formal ball boy and official.

 

[Dinsy Ejotuz]

You guys are hanging your hats on some awfully flimsy hooks at this point.

[SIZE=14.2857141494751px]But sometimes 20:1 comes in, I guess. [/SIZE]Nothing to do but wait.

 

[TobiasFunke]

• The 12 footballs used in the first half for New England, and the 12 footballs used by the Colts, all left the officials’ locker room before the game at the prescribed pressure level of between 12.5 pounds per square inch and 13.5 psi.

• All 24 footballs were checked by pressure gauge at halftime. I am told either 11 or 12 of New England’s footballs (ESPN’s Chris Mortensen reported it was 11, and I hear it could have been all 12) had at least two pounds less pressure in them. All 12 Indianapolis footballs were at the prescribed level.

• All 24 footballs were checked by pressure gauge after the game. All 24 checked at the correct pressure—which is one of the last pieces of the puzzle the league needed to determine with certainty that something fishy happened with the Patriots footballs, because the Colts’ balls stayed correctly inflated for the nearly four hours. There had been reports quoting atmospheric experts that cold weather could deflate footballs. But if the Patriots’ balls were all low, and the Colts’ balls all legit, that quashes that theory.

Worth posting every couple pages or so.

Significant doubt has been cast on the bolded. Making that assumption absent evidence to the contrary is a mistake IMO.

I'd bet non-trivial amounts of money that if Peter King is reporting that someone in NFL brass told him it was true.

ORLY???

I quoted a source in July as saying Janay Rice made a moving case for leniency for Ray Rice during the June 16 meeting. My source was incorrect. According to Judge Jones' report, Janay Rice was asked only one question during the hearing—how she felt—and she cried and said, "I'm just ready for it to be over." I regret the error, and should have vetted the story further before publishing the account of one source.

To: Our readers.

From: Peter King, editor-in-chief, The MMQB

An addendum to the Ray Rice coverage:

Earlier this summer a source I trusted told me he assumed the NFL had seen the damaging video that was released by TMZ on Monday morning of Rice slugging his then-fiancée, Janay Palmer, in an Atlantic City elevator. The source said league officials had to have seen it. This source has been impeccable, and I believed the information. So I wrote that the league had seen the tape. I should have called the NFL for a comment, a lapse in reporting on my part. The league says it has not seen the tape, and I cannot refute that with certainty. No one from the league has ever knocked down my report to me, and so I was surprised to see the claim today that league officials have not seen the tape.

I hope when this story is fully vetted, we all get the truth and nothing but the truth.

"This person once did something wrong, so it's fair to assume they did a similar wrong thing at a later date" is probably not the argument Pats fans should make here.

 

[Dr. Octopus]

I know Belicheck has gotten a lot of crap over the years, some of it quite deserved.

But in his entire career, Brady has never had a smudge on his record. He's been a squeaky clean guy, much like Peyton Manning.

I think we should give him the benefit of the doubt over a backroom official who puts properly inflated balls in the sink as part of his "official" pregame testing.

Is that backroom official not squeaky clean?

 

[Thunderlips]

As it looks more and more like a he said/she said between the NFL and the Patriots....I think it's hard to believe that if the NFL was lax and didn't do that particular job on that particular day.....they'd have come clean as soon as the story started rearing its head because:

A) Why have this is a build up to the Super Bowl? As the story goes, it tarnishes The Big Game a bit.

and

B In the past in regards to things on the field (mainly blown calls)....they've fairly quickly admitted wrongdoing. The refts would have known if they didn't check them. Refs saying "we did a cursory look, that was wrong, we'll be more diligent" is much better than the fiasco they have now.

 

[devouredbychaos]

The NFL is going to come down hard on the Pats. Perhaps Belichick wasn't aware, but there's no way that the footballs Brady's going to use aren't set to his specifications.

I'm guessing loss of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd round picks + $500K total fine.

LOL! Stop watching ESPN already. It's becoming more and more obvious the Pats had nothing to do with this, and it's quite the non story that the media has blown into a million pieces. Even Tony Romo and Rich Eisen are in the Pats corner.

 

[shader]

I know Belicheck has gotten a lot of crap over the years, some of it quite deserved.

But in his entire career, Brady has never had a smudge on his record. He's been a squeaky clean guy, much like Peyton Manning.

I think we should give him the benefit of the doubt over a backroom official who puts properly inflated balls in the sink as part of his "official" pregame testing.

You think we should give the benefit of the doubt to the guy who stood to benefit from the alleged deflation and whose reputation and legacy would take a massive hit if he was guilty of wrongdoing over the guy whose job it is to maintain fair play ... why, exactly? Because you think he's a super duper swell guy?

Both are possibilities. Let me know which one sounds more likely to you:

1. The officials feel the balls, inspect them quickly and them deem them suitable for game play, but don't go through the considerable hassle of measuring all 24 game balls.

2. Tom Brady instructs his ballboys to secretly deflate the air after the inspection, although this practice could subject him to heavy scrutiny, could easily be caught, and could also lead to ballboys deflating them too much or "messing up his footballs".

I'll go with option 1 as the more likely scenario, but that's just me.

 

[mbuehner]

It's a big difference if you have both balls and you are trying to compare. One will be obviously firmer than the other.

But, if the ref or QB are given a single ball, or a few of them pumped to the same PSI, are they going to be able to tell by feel whether they are above or below 12.5? I'd imagine quarterbacks have no idea what 12.5 "feels" like, or 10.5 feels like. What they know is whether they like the feel of the ball they are holding or not. I'd guess it would have to be much lower for someone to know by feel that a ball was illegally low pressure.

For example, any of us can compare two significantly differently inflated car tires and feel which one is firmer. But if you walked up to random car and felt one tire you wouldn't be able to say by feel whether it was inflated to 25 psi or 32 psi or 36 psi.

Any of us maybe not, but if you take a 25psi tire to a tire garage, I bet the guy working there can tell. What a lot of this has come down to, for me, is that someone with the familiarity of a football like Brady, as an elite veteran NFL QB who has played football for many years and handles multiple footballs all day long through practice, would have been able to tell.

You could probably give me 2 balls, one at 10.5 and the other at 13.5 and I might not be able to tell the difference. I'd have to conduct several tests of my own before I could notice a difference (I'm guessing here, never have handled an NFL football). But someone who handles footballs all the time should be able to. I sit in front of a computer all day. If someone adjusted the resolution of my monitor, or changed the settings of my mouse sensitivity by 16%, I would notice.

I can't get past Brady's statement that he didn't notice the ball pressure was different from, as he stated "12.5 is perfect for me" (paraphrased). If 12.5 is perfect, and that's what he's been using for the last 20 years of playing football, then I cannot believe that he did not notice it had dropped to 10.5, or even 11.0, etc.

Balls are NEVER the same pressure in play as they are measured, unless the temperature is identical. Its established that on a cold day you can lose better than 1psi of pressure, so every QB in the league plays with balls less inflated than they are used to outdoors in the winter. On a very cold day it could well be 2psi. You don't hear complaining or even anybody mention that.

 

[shader]

I know Belicheck has gotten a lot of crap over the years, some of it quite deserved.

But in his entire career, Brady has never had a smudge on his record. He's been a squeaky clean guy, much like Peyton Manning.

I think we should give him the benefit of the doubt over a backroom official who puts properly inflated balls in the sink as part of his "official" pregame testing.

Is that backroom official not squeaky clean?

Nothing to do with being squeaky clean. It's a matter of being thorough or not. And then when his job is potentially on the line, lying about it, if the reports from Peter King are true.

I have no idea what happened. I'm just pointing out that if the reports we have are true, Brady, the official, or Belicheck are lying. I don't see anyway around that, and I just find it incredibly hard to believe that Brady would not only allow this to happen, but would completely lie about it. If it turns out he did, I'll admit to being wrong. But I just don't believe it, right now.

 

[Pop Tart]

Weren't they discovered at halftime, and the officials re-inflated them at that time?

They still scored 28 points in the second half. Take away the 1st half points and the Pats still win 28-7

This is a joke.

This thread is impossible to read through but it's been said a lot. Most people agree that this doesn't matter in the scheme of that game, some say it would help and the previous game was very close. Whatever. Remove that from this.

The fact that they would change the ball after it is deemed good, then cover it up / lie about it, is the cheating / big deal part.

If the balls were properly measured before game - still waiting to see if that can definitively be said - then lower just a couple of hours later someone did that on purpose. There is no way some ball boy did that on his own.

Don't see how this is so complicated.

Agreed.

It's not complicated. It's a non-issue.

 

[shader]

As it looks more and more like a he said/she said between the NFL and the Patriots....I think it's hard to believe that if the NFL was lax and didn't do that particular job on that particular day.....they'd have come clean as soon as the story started rearing its head because:

A) Why have this is a build up to the Super Bowl? As the story goes, it tarnishes The Big Game a bit.

and

B In the past in regards to things on the field (mainly blown calls)....they've fairly quickly admitted wrongdoing. The refts would have known if they didn't check them. Refs saying "we did a cursory look, that was wrong, we'll be more diligent" is much better than the fiasco they have now.

I do agree with this to an extent. I have no idea what the NFL is doing.

 

[Pop Tart]

Weren't they discovered at halftime, and the officials re-inflated them at that time?

They still scored 28 points in the second half. Take away the 1st half points and the Pats still win 28-7

This is a joke.

This thread is impossible to read through but it's been said a lot. Most people agree that this doesn't matter in the scheme of that game, some say it would help and the previous game was very close. Whatever. Remove that from this.

The fact that they would change the ball after it is deemed good, then cover it up / lie about it, is the cheating / big deal part.

If the balls were properly measured before game - still waiting to see if that can definitively be said - then lower just a couple of hours later someone did that on purpose. There is no way some ball boy did that on his own.

Don't see how this is so complicated.

Agreed.

It's not complicated. It's a non-issue.

 

[devouredbychaos]

It's a big difference if you have both balls and you are trying to compare. One will be obviously firmer than the other. But, if the ref or QB are given a single ball, or a few of them pumped to the same PSI, are they going to be able to tell by feel whether they are above or below 12.5? I'd imagine quarterbacks have no idea what 12.5 "feels" like, or 10.5 feels like. What they know is whether they like the feel of the ball they are holding or not. I'd guess it would have to be much lower for someone to know by feel that a ball was illegally low pressure.

For example, any of us can compare two significantly differently inflated car tires and feel which one is firmer. But if you walked up to random car and felt one tire you wouldn't be able to say by feel whether it was inflated to 25 psi or 32 psi or 36 psi.

Any of us maybe not, but if you take a 25psi tire to a tire garage, I bet the guy working there can tell. What a lot of this has come down to, for me, is that someone with the familiarity of a football like Brady, as an elite veteran NFL QB who has played football for many years and handles multiple footballs all day long through practice, would have been able to tell.

You could probably give me 2 balls, one at 10.5 and the other at 13.5 and I might not be able to tell the difference. I'd have to conduct several tests of my own before I could notice a difference (I'm guessing here, never have handled an NFL football). But someone who handles footballs all the time should be able to. I sit in front of a computer all day. If someone adjusted the resolution of my monitor, or changed the settings of my mouse sensitivity by 16%, I would notice.

I can't get past Brady's statement that he didn't notice the ball pressure was different from, as he stated "12.5 is perfect for me" (paraphrased). If 12.5 is perfect, and that's what he's been using for the last 20 years of playing football, then I cannot believe that he did not notice it had dropped to 10.5, or even 11.0, etc.

Because he holds the ball for one or two seconds. I'm sure the balls get swapped out every few plays, though I don't know the logistics of it. He's diagnosing defense, blitzes, looking at primary, secondary and tertiary receivers, and trying to win a huge game.

Stopping to think about the psi of a particular ball in the few seconds he's holding it is probably not high on his priority list.

I'm sure if you handed him 2 different balls, one 12.5 and one 10.5 and had him feel them and take a few seconds to analyze them, he could probably tell the difference if that was his focus. But I think it's laughable to think he would notice during the game.

Based on everything I've read, and comments from ex QB's, I think it's laughable to think he wouldn't notice./shrug

You mean the ex QBs who are on ESPN trying to make the Pats look like they did something that didn't happen. Cool story bro. Aikman is the only one outside ESPN that's said it makes a difference. Everyone else has said its no big deal and has no effect on anything.

 

[rjv]

This isn't about deflating balls; this is about is there a culture of cheating that they'll do anything to get an edge.

"This is a bigger issue, and I think most people are missing the issue. It's an issue of if there is a culture of cheating at the organization that most people look at as the gold standard in this league. Is there a culture of cheating and breaking the rules?''

http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/12216634/former-carolina-panthers-gm-marty-hurney-angry-spygate-amid-new-england-patriots-controversy

where a lot of people disagree us that:

1. Doing things to get an edge on your opponent <> cheating. -As long as you don't break the rules of the game,which the Pats did.

2. Being punished once 10 years ago <> a "culture" of cheating.-This is the definition of culture of cheating.

 

[shader]

It's a big difference if you have both balls and you are trying to compare. One will be obviously firmer than the other.

But, if the ref or QB are given a single ball, or a few of them pumped to the same PSI, are they going to be able to tell by feel whether they are above or below 12.5? I'd imagine quarterbacks have no idea what 12.5 "feels" like, or 10.5 feels like. What they know is whether they like the feel of the ball they are holding or not. I'd guess it would have to be much lower for someone to know by feel that a ball was illegally low pressure.

For example, any of us can compare two significantly differently inflated car tires and feel which one is firmer. But if you walked up to random car and felt one tire you wouldn't be able to say by feel whether it was inflated to 25 psi or 32 psi or 36 psi.

Any of us maybe not, but if you take a 25psi tire to a tire garage, I bet the guy working there can tell. What a lot of this has come down to, for me, is that someone with the familiarity of a football like Brady, as an elite veteran NFL QB who has played football for many years and handles multiple footballs all day long through practice, would have been able to tell.

You could probably give me 2 balls, one at 10.5 and the other at 13.5 and I might not be able to tell the difference. I'd have to conduct several tests of my own before I could notice a difference (I'm guessing here, never have handled an NFL football). But someone who handles footballs all the time should be able to. I sit in front of a computer all day. If someone adjusted the resolution of my monitor, or changed the settings of my mouse sensitivity by 16%, I would notice.

I can't get past Brady's statement that he didn't notice the ball pressure was different from, as he stated "12.5 is perfect for me" (paraphrased). If 12.5 is perfect, and that's what he's been using for the last 20 years of playing football, then I cannot believe that he did not notice it had dropped to 10.5, or even 11.0, etc.

Balls are NEVER the same pressure in play as they are measured, unless the temperature is identical. Its established that on a cold day you can lose better than 1psi of pressure, so every QB in the league plays with balls less inflated than they are used to outdoors in the winter. On a very cold day it could well be 2psi. You don't hear complaining or even anybody mention that.

According to Peter King, the Colts balls stayed at the correct PSI throughout the game and even after the game.

Personally, I find the "weather caused the balls to lose PSI" theory a bit lacking in substance.

 

[SeniorVBDStudent]

I find it laughable that even if it is proven that brady lied that it will change a thing. "Well i was going to make him a first ballot HOFER but then he lied about deflating those balls". Sure.

 

[James Daulton]

The NFL is going to come down hard on the Pats. Perhaps Belichick wasn't aware, but there's no way that the footballs Brady's going to use aren't set to his specifications.

I'm guessing loss of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd round picks + $500K total fine.

LOL! Stop watching ESPN already. It's becoming more and more obvious the Pats had nothing to do with this, and it's quite the non story that the media has blown into a million pieces. Even Tony Romo and Rich Eisen are in the Pats corner.

The good thing is, we'll all get to see.