Patriots being investigated after Colts game (3 Viewers)

[BroadwayG]

*appendix. Its in the breakdown of the haltime measurement explanation. Can get you the page when im back at work stealing time.

So all the balls were late because they were busy testing a handful of Colts balls right before kickoff? What does that have to do with the pressure difference again?

 

[12punch]

I can't blame ted wells at all for this, although of course he was paid.

like they say, there's a sucker born every minute, and some people will just lap up whatever's put in front of them without question.

it's just nice to know that there are still a few rational, thinking adults out there able to question without believing everything they get fed.

The evidence is thoroughly equivocal and the competitive advantage is nowhere to be found, yet the NFL is punishing Tom Brady and the New England Patriots as if they belong in Sing Sing. This case, perhaps more than all the others in the past year, sums up the NFL approach to justice: If you crack down hard enough on the little things, no one will notice the real scoundreling.

The NFL chose the wrong case to throw a book at, but then, the league is always far more worried about appearances than reality. So Brady gets a four-game suspension for undermining “the public confidence” in the NFL over an esoteric and unproven matter of air, and his team is stripped of draft choices and $1 million. I see. And what is Roger Goodell’s punishment for turning the entire moral underpinning of the league into sand? The NFL is so desperate to look like a rock of integrity after a year of truly damaging scandals that it has ginned up a case out of literally . . . nothing. A few whiffs of PSI.

DeflateGate would be more of a ‘Gate’ if the league had proven that the balls were in fact deflated. But it hasn’t.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/redskins/deflategate-punishments-are-nfls-lame-attempts-to-right-its-own-wrongs/2015/05/12/c1b2d2be-f8b1-11e4-9ef4-1bb7ce3b3fb7_story.html

Some believe that the testing of the Colts footballs ended not because time was running short, but because the air pressure readings from one of the two gauges showed that three of the four Colts balls tested under 12.5 PSI. As the theory/hypothesis goes, one or more people supervising the process at that point didn’t want to know the results for all 12 Colts footballs, once it appeared that 75 percent of those tested had moved from at or above 13 PSI before the game to less than 12.5 PSI at halftime.

To understand the potential reaction of those involved in testing the footballs at halftime, it’s important to consider that, as former NFL official and supervisor of officials Jim Daopoulos said on Tuesday’s PFT Live on NBC Sports Radio, game officials previously didn’t understand that air pressure drops when footballs are exposed to the elements. So when the readings for the 11 Patriots footballs were coming in below 12.5, the automatic assumption would have been tampering. Then, when the readings for the Colts footballs began coming in consistently below 12.5 on one of the two gauges, the reaction may have been confusion — and, if anyone in the room had a specific agenda against the Patriots, frustration.

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2015/05/14/questions-remain-about-colts-footballs-at-halftime/

Start with this: the story didn't go big until ESPN reported about 24 hours after the game that the NFL had discovered that 11 of the 12 footballs were measured to be more than 2 pounds per square inch below the league minimum of 12.5.

That gave a subject that almost no one knew much about context, significance and potentially sinister intent. ESPN cited a nebulous "league source" at a time when it's believed no one outside the NFL office knew the actual measurements.

Of course, that story wasn't true. It wasn't even close to true. Wells' report showed that none of the footballs, each measured twice, were that underinflated.

At that very moment, the NFL had to know the story wasn't true. Yet it did nothing.

So the league either created a fake story that was extremely prejudicial to the Patriots by leaking inaccurate information or someone else did it and the league office let it run wild rather than correct it with the actual air pressure measurements. It's tough to figure out which scenario is worse for Goodell.

Once it appeared the Patriots were up to something big then the public and media rightfully demanded a serious investigation into what wasn't that serious of a story. Goodell didn't steer this to the truth and away from the heated condemnation of a signature player and the validity of a Super Bowl participant (and soon champion).

......

Even more bizarre, an NFL senior vice president emailed a letter to the Patriots stating that "one of the game balls was inflated to 10.1 psi … [and] in contrast each of the Colts game balls that was inspected met the requirements."

Those assertions were untrue.

No gameball was measured below 10.5 and most were in the 11s, which is within an acceptable range of natural deflation. Three of the four Colts footballs as measured by one gauge were below 12.5, although also within the weather realm (it's uncertain the NFL knew anything about Ideal Gas Law at the time).

Wells' report brushed this off as "miscommunication" but it's quite a miscommunication.

The NFL either had no idea what it was doing and was just making up facts without checking or, in a more draconian reading of it, it was trying to scare and/or silence the franchise into compliance by trumping up evidence.

~ Dan Wetzel

 

[IvanKaramazov]

Who's starting to think that 12punch is actually a Jets fan trying to make New England fans look bad?

 

[Pots]

Who's starting to think that 12punch is actually a Jets fan trying to make New England fans look bad?

And Run it Up?

 

[12punch]

I was dying reading the {omitted out of respect to Mrs Jastremski}

12:21:46: JM “Whats up dorito dink”

12:22:53: JJ “Nada”

12:22:53: JM “Whens the pong party….im on fire”

12:23:10: JJ “Omg”

12:23:34: JM “Bring it”

16:29:48: JM “You still with your women”

16:29:59: JJ “Yup”

16:33:21: JM “You must have her [omitted out of respect to Mrs. Jastremski]”

16:34:39: JM “You must have a picture of her [omitted out of respect to Mrs. Jastremski]”

16:36:31: JJ “Omg”

16:37:16: JM “You working”

16:37:53 JJ “Yup”

16:39:40 JM “Nice dude…jimmy needs some kicks….lets

make a deal…come on help the deflator”

[After Mr. Jastremski does not respond for several minutes, Mr. McNally sends a follow-up text.]

16:47:15 JM “Chill buddy im just f****n with you….im not going

to espn….yet”

that gets 5x funnier in the context of the report

One can specifically see this use of the term in a Nov. 30, 2014 text from Mr. McNally to Mr. Jastremski: “deflate and give somebody that jacket.” (p. 87). This banter, and Mr. McNally’s goal of losing weight, meant Mr. McNally was the “deflator.” There was nothing complicated or sinister about it. If there was any doubt about the jocular nature of the May 9, 2014 texts, a review of all the texts between these two men that day would dispel it:

12:21:46: JM “Whats up dorito dink”

just picture the people producing this thing

 

[davearm]

*appendix. Its in the breakdown of the haltime measurement explanation. Can get you the page when im back at work stealing time.

So all the balls were late because they were busy testing a handful of Colts balls right before kickoff? What does that have to do with the pressure difference again?

It supports the notion that all balls were tested late in the halftime break, and at roughly the same time (Colts balls right after Pats balls, it sounds like).

 

[BroadwayG]

*appendix. Its in the breakdown of the haltime measurement explanation. Can get you the page when im back at work stealing time.

So all the balls were late because they were busy testing a handful of Colts balls right before kickoff? What does that have to do with the pressure difference again?

It supports the notion that all balls were tested late in the halftime break, and at roughly the same time (Colts balls right after Pats balls, it sounds like).

The problem is 'roughly the same time' could mean up to .8 PSI

 

[12punch]

Goodell left open the possibility that some NFL employees may have acted improperly throughout the “DeflateGate” saga.

“Ted Wells will be going through the report. If there is anything that we as a league did incorrectly, we will know about it in that report,” Goodell said.

From Patriots counsel letter to Pash:

We learned last night from Ted that the issue of how League personnel handled the pursuit of the low psi issues, including whether there were inappropriate prejudgments and unfounded presumptions of wrongdoing, selective leaks of information and misinformation, failure to correct obviously misreported information, and the like, are not part of what the Paul Weiss firm has been asked to investigate.

dat integrity, tho!

 

[Bucky86]

Wow. Check out this tidbit from the wellsreportcontext.com. I clicked the following link: Click here for Nobel Laureate Roderick MacKinnons scientific conclusion

Reading the intro, there is this disclaimer: Professor MacKinnon has no business or personal relationship with the Patriots. When news of the investigation became public, he offered his scientific expertise to the team.

Roderick MacKinnion is co-founder of Flex Pharma, where he serves on the Scientific Advisors Board and the Board of Directors.

One member of their "team of investors" is none other than The Kraft Group.

From October 23, 2014 issue of the Boston Globe: Flex Pharma developing treatments for muscle cramps:

...

Flex Pharma is developing not only a prescription medicine that would take a minimum of five years to win Food and Drug Administration approval but also a sports beverage that could be sold in stores as early as 2016.

Unlike Gatorade, which some athletes drink to help with cramps, Flex Pharma will seek to meet the Federal Trade Commissions standards for advertising clinically proven benefits. The company will also draw on the consumer goods expertise of board member John Sculley, the former chief executive of Apple Inc. and former president of PepsiCo Inc.

Cramping has long been a high-profile employment hazard for professional athletes, dramatized this year when the Miami Heats LeBron James was forced to leave the opening game of the NBA finals because of severe leg cramping.

So it may be no coincidence that several owners of professional sports teams, including Wyc Grousbeck and Steve Pagliuca of the Boston Celtics, and the Kraft Group of the New England Patriots, were among the outside investors joining in a $40 million funding round that Flex Pharma disclosed last month.

...

Yep, no business or personal relationships there.

Rofl. Kinda like Hillary claiming she has nothing to do with the Clinton Foundation. Nice endowment professor, be a shame if something happened to it

At first I was wondering how they could be so stupid, but then I realized they're not really trying to convince anyone they're innocent anymore.

All they really want to do is rally together their current fan base, ie. the 12punch's and Run It Up's of the world. Those people don't really care that their expert is pretty much on Kraft's payroll already. They just want to give them something to further cloud up the debate.

It's exactly what FOX News does. They know what they're spouting is lies, but the customers(fans) don't care as long it fits what they want to hear. And all the Pat's really care about is that they continue selling seats and merchandise.

 

[Flying Elvis]

Wow. Check out this tidbit from the wellsreportcontext.com. I clicked the following link: Click here for Nobel Laureate Roderick MacKinnon’s scientific conclusion

Reading the intro, there is this disclaimer: Professor MacKinnon has no business or personal relationship with the Patriots. When news of the investigation became public, he offered his scientific expertise to the team.

Roderick MacKinnion is co-founder of Flex Pharma, where he serves on the Scientific Advisors Board and the Board of Directors.

One member of their "team of investors" is none other than The Kraft Group.

From October 23, 2014 issue of the Boston Globe: Flex Pharma developing treatments for muscle cramps:

...

Flex Pharma is developing not only a prescription medicine that would take a minimum of five years to win Food and Drug Administration approval but also a sports beverage that could be sold in stores as early as 2016.

Unlike Gatorade, which some athletes drink to help with cramps, Flex Pharma will seek to meet the Federal Trade Commission’s standards for advertising clinically proven benefits. The company will also draw on the consumer goods expertise of board member John Sculley, the former chief executive of Apple Inc. and former president of PepsiCo Inc.

Cramping has long been a high-profile employment hazard for professional athletes, dramatized this year when the Miami Heat’s LeBron James was forced to leave the opening game of the NBA finals because of severe leg cramping.

So it may be no coincidence that several owners of professional sports teams, including Wyc Grousbeck and Steve Pagliuca of the Boston Celtics, and the Kraft Group of the New England Patriots, were among the outside investors joining in a $40 million funding round that Flex Pharma disclosed last month.

...

Yep, no business or personal relationships there.

Probably not a pats fan, either. What with his birth place being Burlington, MA. Attended UMass Boston (Boston MA), Brandeis University (Waltham MA), and Tufts University (Worcester, MA)

It's pretty clear both sides want to be sure they tell us how independent the people on their respective sides are. :eyeroll:

 

[davearm]

*appendix. Its in the breakdown of the haltime measurement explanation. Can get you the page when im back at work stealing time.

So all the balls were late because they were busy testing a handful of Colts balls right before kickoff? What does that have to do with the pressure difference again?

It supports the notion that all balls were tested late in the halftime break, and at roughly the same time (Colts balls right after Pats balls, it sounds like).

The problem is 'roughly the same time' could mean up to .8 PSI

Don't be ridiculous. Two dudes sat down in chairs, started gauging balls and calling out psi readings, and stopped when they ran out of time. It all happened inside of a few minutes.

 

[12punch]

http://www.deflatethemate.com/

 

[12punch]

*appendix. Its in the breakdown of the haltime measurement explanation. Can get you the page when im back at work stealing time.

So all the balls were late because they were busy testing a handful of Colts balls right before kickoff? What does that have to do with the pressure difference again?

It supports the notion that all balls were tested late in the halftime break, and at roughly the same time (Colts balls right after Pats balls, it sounds like).

 

[BroadwayG]

So the question is...do you believe the balls were altered by the Patriots?

To be honest, I don't think they did anything during the AFCCG, but I think they did it at some point. I also believe that the two texts about deflator and espn do not constitute a preponderence of evidence.

 

[12punch]

*appendix. Its in the breakdown of the haltime measurement explanation. Can get you the page when im back at work stealing time.

So all the balls were late because they were busy testing a handful of Colts balls right before kickoff? What does that have to do with the pressure difference again?

It supports the notion that all balls were tested late in the halftime break, and at roughly the same time (Colts balls right after Pats balls, it sounds like).

The problem is 'roughly the same time' could mean up to .8 PSI

Don't be ridiculous. Two dudes sat down in chairs, started gauging balls and calling out psi readings, and stopped when they ran out of time. It all happened inside of a few minutes.

were you in the room, or imaginationland at the time?

 

[BroadwayG]

*appendix. Its in the breakdown of the haltime measurement explanation. Can get you the page when im back at work stealing time.

So all the balls were late because they were busy testing a handful of Colts balls right before kickoff? What does that have to do with the pressure difference again?

It supports the notion that all balls were tested late in the halftime break, and at roughly the same time (Colts balls right after Pats balls, it sounds like).

The problem is 'roughly the same time' could mean up to .8 PSI

Don't be ridiculous. Two dudes sat down in chairs, started gauging balls and calling out psi readings, and stopped when they ran out of time. It all happened inside of a few minutes.

Did you look at the chart and see how much 'a few minutes' can inflate a ball?

 

[MG345]

http://www.deflatethemate.com/

How can math lose weight?

 

[bostonfred]

I actually think the response is pretty powerful. People are obviously latching on to the dorito dink deflater texts, and that's how the media cycle works. But a day or two from now, the narrative will turn to the good job they did showing that the psi stuff was poorly collected and that the Colts balls were also delayed, which is a critical point when the Patriots are getting harshly penalized as a result of the same report.

I don't think any response to the deflater texts was going to satisfy people but the pats may have a plausible enough explanation to satisfy a federal court - and that is the leverage they need to fight Goodell on this. Yeah, I get that nobody actually calls themselves the deflater when they're losing weight. But a guy in charge of inflating and deflating footballs probably uses the word inflate and deflate more than you or I do, too. So while I don't expect this to hold up in the court of public opinion, it may be enough to get private texts from people who call each other dorito dink and make inappropriate comments about reach others wives thrown out as evidence. And that's pretty much the main piece of evidence in thus while thing for a lot of people - some random dips hit saying stupid stuff on a text message.

 

[BoltNlava]

Slimfast: The shake that deflates!

 

[Ojaays]

Federal court?

You really think Brady is going to federal court with this?

I would guess, if Brady pushes the ball far enough, everything on his phone will come into evidence.

Wonder what kind of convos are on there with Hoodie?

 

[Bayhawks]

Kinda dumb way for the Pats to take this honestly. There are always people willing to ignore the truth if they're invested, but there's a limit -- if you make them feel stupid for believing what you say it can fall apart in a hurry.

So McNally wasn't really trying to lose weight?

I don't know about you, but everyone I know who tries to lose weight says they are trying to deflate. Isn't that normal?

 

[IvanKaramazov]

If you read New England's rebuttal carefully, you'll notice that much of it was written specifically to appeal to Anthony Kennedy, who figures to be the swing vote when this inevitably reaches the Supreme Court. The Patriots are three steps ahead of the league on this one. It's chess vs. checkers, really.

 

[davearm]

I actually think the response is pretty powerful. People are obviously latching on to the dorito dink deflater texts, and that's how the media cycle works. But a day or two from now, the narrative will turn to the good job they did showing that the psi stuff was poorly collected and that the Colts balls were also delayed, which is a critical point when the Patriots are getting harshly penalized as a result of the same report.

I don't think any response to the deflater texts was going to satisfy people but the pats may have a plausible enough explanation to satisfy a federal court - and that is the leverage they need to fight Goodell on this. Yeah, I get that nobody actually calls themselves the deflater when they're losing weight. But a guy in charge of inflating and deflating footballs probably uses the word inflate and deflate more than you or I do, too. So while I don't expect this to hold up in the court of public opinion, it may be enough to get private texts from people who call each other dorito dink and make inappropriate comments about reach others wives thrown out as evidence. And that's pretty much the main piece of evidence in thus while thing for a lot of people - some random dips hit saying stupid stuff on a text message.

Except McNally isn't in charge of inflating and deflating footballs. Unless he is, of course.

 

[mbuehner]

*appendix. Its in the breakdown of the haltime measurement explanation. Can get you the page when im back at work stealing time.

So all the balls were late because they were busy testing a handful of Colts balls right before kickoff? What does that have to do with the pressure difference again?

The longer the time difference between the Pats balls and the Colts balls being tested, the greater you would expect the disparity to be. Wells dutifully noted all the details involved, but somehow didnt string them together to account for the time lapse between the two sets of balls being tested. More or less every minute added another .1psi, so 5 minutes (time the refs estimated to test the Pats balls) you would have a half pound psi difference just from being in the warm locker room. The measurement conclusions rest on showing the Colts balls lost between ".45 to 1.05 psi" less pressure than the Pats balls. But we know for a fact, at a minimum you would expect to lose .5 psi just from testing the Colts balls 5 minutes later.

The interesting question is was it really 5 minutes? A more likely scenario in my mind is that the stopped after the Pats balls and inflated them (as this would have been the highest priority for the game actually underway), came back and measured the Colts balls but only had time for 4 (and after the first few came back mostly in the legal range, not a high priority). This would also explain how the two refs switched gauges between Pats and Colts balls. The alternative being- they sat there, finished the Pats balls, intentionally handed each other their gauges, and then started on the Colts balls. But they never mentioned doing that to the point where the report only assumes the gauges got switched and leaves it at that. The report never specifically says the Colts balls were checked directly after the Pats balls and before their re-inflation. In such a detailed report, thats a very unusual omission.

Bottom line- if they reinflated the Pats balls before the Colts balls were measured, you can tack on an additional .2 to .5 psi to what you expect the Colts balls to be (based on the refs recollection of how long it took). Thats between .7psi and 1.0 psi of total difference you would expect the Colts ball to be higher than the Patriots compared to their pre-game levels. And again, the report hinges on the .45 to 1.05 difference being proof of wrong doing. If it took 10 minutes between measurements there is absolutely no difference between the drop in pressure of the two sets of balls.

Usual disclaimer- I think the Pats did tamper with the balls, and I also think the NFL botched the investigation and the Wells Report intentionally white-washes that.

 

[Tango]

he narrative will turn to the good job they did showing that the psi stuff was poorly collected and that the Colts balls were also delayed, which is a critical point when the Patriots are getting harshly penalized as a result of the same report.

Yes, but most of us have already taken this into account. It's not new-news to me. Add it all up: guilty.

 

[bostonfred]

I am just amazed that anyone out there thinks nothing happened.

Why are the two ball boys suspended? because of the NFLs determination that the Patriots broke the rules

Why did Tom's agent scream that this was a sting operation? because the NFL didn't handle it the same way they did other investigations. They apparently allowed half of a championship game to be played with underinflated footballs, which implies that they either didn't think it was that big a deal - or that they prioritized penalizing the Patriots higher than having a fair championship game

(Doesn't that word by itself state that they were caught doing something)no, but it implies that the league knew the outcome of their investigation before starting it. That could imply guilt, or that they never intended to give the Patriots a fair investigation

Why were the Patriots balls much more deflated than the Colts balls? because the Colts balls started at a higher psi, they knew they had submitted a complaint, and not all of their balls were tested

Why would Goodell intentionally go after his friend? The one who likely got him the job and a big raise.because the league knew that this was his friend who likely got him the job and the big raise. but more importantly, because the league bows to the court of public opinion on these matters. ray rice knocks out his girlfriend. He gets two games. The public sees the tapes, the suspension changes. the same thing happened with spygate, bountygate, the Peterson scandal, and more.

Why would Tom call the ball boys for an hour when the story broke nation-wide?i would imagine that if a national news story broke, implicating you as a cheater due to an equipment violation, you'd talk to the equipment manager too. A long phone call isn't evidence of wrong doing.

How would the Colts have known to alert the league office of this situation before the game was played?several reasons, but one simple one is that it was a cold wet day and they understood how weather works

What does the NFL gain by exposing their winningest team of cheating?

The world is talking about the nfl during the NHL and NBA postseason, thanks in part to the timing of this report. the nfl benefits from drama, and from having heroes and villains. The Patriots make good villains, and several major media markets already hate them.

Why is one of the ball boys nick-named the deflator? this is one of the big questions, but it still doesn't mean that he deflated anything below the legal limits on game day. him not being made available makes this look much worse

What were the texts about if not deflating the footballs?could be lots of things. I know a guy who sent a work email referring to his friend Carlos as an offensive term related to the humidity of his posterior torso. People say stupid things in emails and texts. But this is certainly worth further investigation.

one possible explanation that fits all the rumors and the nickname, though, is that the pats did exactly what was discussed at the start of this thread - they deflated balls to 12.5 psi for cold weather games to pass the referee inspection, knowing that the psi would drop mid game. It would explain why people think they have done this in the past, why he got a nickname, why their balls dropped a much as they did, and lots of other stuff, and it was widely suspected earlier in the thread - but they may have felt it was technically legal. And they may have felt that sending the ball boy back to wells would only hurt their cause.

Why didn't Tom (screened through his agent) release the texts that had to do with this (Wells specifically stated he did not need the phone nor wanted to see personal information)?his agent already answered this, but basically they felt that the nfl demanding to see the personal phone of an nflpa rep set a dangerous precedent, and they felt that printing out some subset of harmless texts would only make it look like he refused to share "the good stuff". if wells and the nfl chose to interpret that as guilt, why would you think they would interpret a bunch of "safe" texts as innocence?

Why was Wells not allowed to interview McNally a second time (you know to ask about the texts where he is called the deflator among other things)?I don't know, and again, this is the troubling part of the investigation to me. I can concoct several reasons, but they're wild speculation. For example, they might have been concerned that the guy who had texted about talking to ESPN might actually have been bought and paid for, and that those texts were bogus. Or they might have felt like the three month investigation into the psi of balls on a wet cold day was a kangaroo court, and that they'd already provided wells with all the McNally time they were going to give. its plausible, but this is clearly the area where I have the most questions, too

You want to convince me. Take a lie detector test. Because everything else sounds like damage control trying to protect the legacies of the Patriots and their star quarterback. When you fight this hard, yet still won't really cooperate to find the truth, you are guilty. I don't think a lie detector would change anything. Too many people have already made up their minds. And there's no chance the Patriots win anything significant on appeal when Goodell appoints the arbiter, so I don't expect anything to change.

And I can live with that. Public opinion is fickle, and while a handful of vocal fans are saying bradys reputation is irreparably damaged, I think he will still be considered the greatest of all time by most of the people who weren't already predisposed not to. I've enjoyed the success and I don't find any of this particularly troubling - if anything, I think docking the Patriots two firsts and a fourth for the location of a perfectly legal cameraman and the cold weather psi reading of the game balls is more penalty than any advantage either of those things would have ever given them, but reasonable people can differ.

But the Patriots sound like they're thinking about fighting this, and I'm intrigued like everyone else. If this really is all bull ####, then im interested to see if they can turn the tables. I doubt it, but I'll be watching.

I'm coming around to this more and more. I understand where people are coming from and I'm skeptical that the party's ate totally innocent here. But i don't think the Patriots would have gone this route if they didn't think they had something. I think the league also feels like they had something.

I think what really was happening is that the Patriots were in fact inflating footballs to the bare minimum to pass inspection, and that they knew the balls would continue to get softer by game time. I think they did this to gain an advantage, but I don't think they considered it cheating. I don't know if this deflater guy thought it was sketchy or what his deal was, but more will come out over time. I think the patriots response bears out that line of thinking. I also think the Wells report was commissioned to get a guilty verdict, and i think that became more important as soon as kraft demanded an apology from the league when they were proven innocent.

kensil put maximum pressure on the patriots, kraft responded by putting maximum pressure on Goodell, Goodell responded by getting a slanted report, and kraft is doubling down on fighting it. Call that a Homer response if you want, but it's hard to make sense of some of these moves when you hold them to any real scrutiny and this is the only scenario I can come up with that makes sense.

 

[Dinsy Ejotuz]

Homer response.

 

[12punch]

*appendix. Its in the breakdown of the haltime measurement explanation. Can get you the page when im back at work stealing time.

So all the balls were late because they were busy testing a handful of Colts balls right before kickoff? What does that have to do with the pressure difference again?

It supports the notion that all balls were tested late in the halftime break, and at roughly the same time (Colts balls right after Pats balls, it sounds like).

The problem is 'roughly the same time' could mean up to .8 PSI

Don't be ridiculous. Two dudes sat down in chairs, started gauging balls and calling out psi readings, and stopped when they ran out of time. It all happened inside of a few minutes.

hey, I didn't read the report --- maybe 2 or 3 pages, but since you saw the whole thing unfold maybe you can answer a question for me, that just kind of got me curious while we were talking, just now.

at what point in this whole process, from front to back, did this comedy troupe realize the gauges they were using were reading a half pound apart?

 

[12punch]

Federal court?

You really think Brady is going to federal court with this?

I would guess, if Brady pushes the ball far enough, everything on his phone will come into evidence.

Wonder what kind of convos are on there with Hoodie?

this is not a dig -- I'll take a lie detector on that

I seriously think some of you people are legit mentally ill

and that's not knocking the mentally ill in any way

 

[Bucky86]

Federal court?

You really think Brady is going to federal court with this?

I would guess, if Brady pushes the ball far enough, everything on his phone will come into evidence.

Wonder what kind of convos are on there with Hoodie?

this is not a dig -- I'll take a lie detector on that

I seriously think some of you people are legit mentally ill

and that's not knocking the mentally ill in any way

 

[bostonfred]

Some believe that the testing of the Colts footballs ended not because time was running short, but because the air pressure readings from one of the two gauges showed that three of the four Colts balls tested under 12.5 PSI. As the theory/hypothesis goes, one or more people supervising the process at that point didnt want to know the results for all 12 Colts footballs, once it appeared that 75 percent of those tested had moved from at or above 13 PSI before the game to less than 12.5 PSI at halftime.

To understand the potential reaction of those involved in testing the footballs at halftime, its important to consider that, as former NFL official and supervisor of officials Jim Daopoulos said on Tuesdays PFT Live on NBC Sports Radio, game officials previously didnt understand that air pressure drops when footballs are exposed to the elements. So when the readings for the 11 Patriots footballs were coming in below 12.5, the automatic assumption would have been tampering. Then, when the readings for the Colts footballs began coming in consistently below 12.5 on one of the two gauges, the reaction may have been confusion and, if anyone in the room had a specific agenda against the Patriots, frustration.

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2015/05/14/questions-remain-about-colts-footballs-at-halftime/

This is compelling to me. much more so than the idea that the same part time officials who used two gauges with totally different readings stopped because, due to their ideal gas law calculations, the readings could shift by as much as .3 psi soon.

 

[12punch]

Kinda dumb way for the Pats to take this honestly. There are always people willing to ignore the truth if they're invested, but there's a limit -- if you make them feel stupid for believing what you say it can fall apart in a hurry.

So McNally wasn't really trying to lose weight?

I don't know about you, but everyone I know who tries to lose weight says they are trying to deflate. Isn't that normal?

first of all, I doubt anything you do is normal.

secondly..........

Wednesday, September 15, 2010 I Don't Like My Melting BodyNow, my body is more than 90 pounds lighter. The flesh is deflated,

I don't like the skin being wrinkly in places and the deflated feeling of my fat.

Lisa said...My boobs are deflated and wrinkled

Deb Willbefree said...Lots of swinging, jiggling, deflated balloon-skin crinkles.

icannotweight said...my boobs because they went from being something nice (though saggy since the day they arrived) and round to being deflated and I could pinch SKIN

Pubsgal said...it was encouraging to see the muscle developing in my arms and legs even when other parts (inner thighs, breasts, neck) were looking deflated

Sarah (Fat Little Legs) said...This really really describes exactly how I am feeling right now. I've lost 107 pounds and I feel deflated...

Quick tips to deflate a fat belly and eliminate indigestion

04 Oct 2012

Posted by Susan Bowerman, MS, RD, CSSD, FAND

7 Comments

8 Simple Ways to Get Rid of Belly Bloatfive surprising reasons your belly can balloon — plus advice on how to deflate it fast.

Deflate Your Belly Bulge


Super-sizing, "cleaning" your kids' plates and sitting at a desk all add up to middle-age spread. Here's how to suck it up for good.

Lose Weight Fast- Deflate the Inflating Weight

BY HEALTH RELATE · NOVEMBER 3, 2014

thx for making me read that first one, btw

don't ever doubt my dedication to the cause

 

[12punch]

Usual disclaimer- I think the Pats did tamper with the balls, and I also think the NFL botched the investigation and the Wells Report intentionally white-washes that.

that's fair enough --- how much air did they let out?

 

[Ojaays]

This doesn't even have anything to do with deflating footballs anymore.

This is about Brady not cooperating and outright lying to investigators.

Saying you don't know the dude, yet you are blowing up his phone the day the gig is up, is never a good look.

 

[Flying Elvis]

Your dedication to the cause will never, ever be doubted.

 

[Jercules]

I can't blame ted wells at all for this, although of course he was paid.

like they say, there's a sucker born every minute, and some people will just lap up whatever's put in front of them without question.

it's just nice to know that there are still a few rational, thinking adults out there able to question without believing everything they get fed.

The evidence is thoroughly equivocal and the competitive advantage is nowhere to be found, yet the NFL is punishing Tom Brady and the New England Patriots as if they belong in Sing Sing. This case, perhaps more than all the others in the past year, sums up the NFL approach to justice: If you crack down hard enough on the little things, no one will notice the real scoundreling.

The NFL chose the wrong case to throw a book at, but then, the league is always far more worried about appearances than reality. So Brady gets a four-game suspension for undermining “the public confidence” in the NFL over an esoteric and unproven matter of air, and his team is stripped of draft choices and $1 million. I see. And what is Roger Goodell’s punishment for turning the entire moral underpinning of the league into sand? The NFL is so desperate to look like a rock of integrity after a year of truly damaging scandals that it has ginned up a case out of literally . . . nothing. A few whiffs of PSI.

DeflateGate would be more of a ‘Gate’ if the league had proven that the balls were in fact deflated. But it hasn’t.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/redskins/deflategate-punishments-are-nfls-lame-attempts-to-right-its-own-wrongs/2015/05/12/c1b2d2be-f8b1-11e4-9ef4-1bb7ce3b3fb7_story.html

Some believe that the testing of the Colts footballs ended not because time was running short, but because the air pressure readings from one of the two gauges showed that three of the four Colts balls tested under 12.5 PSI. As the theory/hypothesis goes, one or more people supervising the process at that point didn’t want to know the results for all 12 Colts footballs, once it appeared that 75 percent of those tested had moved from at or above 13 PSI before the game to less than 12.5 PSI at halftime.

To understand the potential reaction of those involved in testing the footballs at halftime, it’s important to consider that, as former NFL official and supervisor of officials Jim Daopoulos said on Tuesday’s PFT Live on NBC Sports Radio, game officials previously didn’t understand that air pressure drops when footballs are exposed to the elements. So when the readings for the 11 Patriots footballs were coming in below 12.5, the automatic assumption would have been tampering. Then, when the readings for the Colts footballs began coming in consistently below 12.5 on one of the two gauges, the reaction may have been confusion — and, if anyone in the room had a specific agenda against the Patriots, frustration.

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2015/05/14/questions-remain-about-colts-footballs-at-halftime/

Start with this: the story didn't go big until ESPN reported about 24 hours after the game that the NFL had discovered that 11 of the 12 footballs were measured to be more than 2 pounds per square inch below the league minimum of 12.5.

That gave a subject that almost no one knew much about context, significance and potentially sinister intent. ESPN cited a nebulous "league source" at a time when it's believed no one outside the NFL office knew the actual measurements.

Of course, that story wasn't true. It wasn't even close to true. Wells' report showed that none of the footballs, each measured twice, were that underinflated.

At that very moment, the NFL had to know the story wasn't true. Yet it did nothing.

So the league either created a fake story that was extremely prejudicial to the Patriots by leaking inaccurate information or someone else did it and the league office let it run wild rather than correct it with the actual air pressure measurements. It's tough to figure out which scenario is worse for Goodell.

Once it appeared the Patriots were up to something big then the public and media rightfully demanded a serious investigation into what wasn't that serious of a story. Goodell didn't steer this to the truth and away from the heated condemnation of a signature player and the validity of a Super Bowl participant (and soon champion).

......

Even more bizarre, an NFL senior vice president emailed a letter to the Patriots stating that "one of the game balls was inflated to 10.1 psi … [and] in contrast each of the Colts game balls that was inspected met the requirements."

Those assertions were untrue.

No gameball was measured below 10.5 and most were in the 11s, which is within an acceptable range of natural deflation. Three of the four Colts footballs as measured by one gauge were below 12.5, although also within the weather realm (it's uncertain the NFL knew anything about Ideal Gas Law at the time).

Wells' report brushed this off as "miscommunication" but it's quite a miscommunication.

The NFL either had no idea what it was doing and was just making up facts without checking or, in a more draconian reading of it, it was trying to scare and/or silence the franchise into compliance by trumping up evidence.

~ Dan Wetzel

Some great quotes there, thanks.

There's no question the punishment is so brutal because of public opinion, and there's no question public opinion is so negative because of how this thing was reported. If the NFL had anything to do with greasing the skids for this virulent anti-Patriots sentiment before any facts at all were released, that's definitely pertinent to an appeal (or a lawsuit, or whatever the Brady camp is up to now).

 

[davearm]

This doesn't even have anything to do with deflating footballs anymore.

This is about Brady not cooperating and outright lying to investigators.

Saying you don't know the dude, yet you are blowing up his phone the day the gig is up, is never a good look.

There are no records of any calls or texts between Brady and McNally.

The calls and texts you're referencing were to Jastremski.

 

[Ojaays]

Kraft stating he was ready to accept a penalty, but didn't see this coming?

What happened to his demand for an apology?

 

[Baloney Sandwich]

This doesn't even have anything to do with deflating footballs anymore.

This is about Brady not cooperating and outright lying to investigators.

Saying you don't know the dude, yet you are blowing up his phone the day the gig is up, is never a good look.

um yeah, I think you are confused to the facts

 

[Ojaays]

This doesn't even have anything to do with deflating footballs anymore.

This is about Brady not cooperating and outright lying to investigators.

Saying you don't know the dude, yet you are blowing up his phone the day the gig is up, is never a good look.

There are no records of any calls or texts between Brady and McNally.

The calls and texts you're referencing were to Jastremski.

OkIf Brady doesn't know anything about it( his words)

Why is he blowing up that guys phone?

Remember, he did nothing wrong, so why bother with anything at all?

 

[David Dodds]

We DEFINITELY weren’t cheating. But if we WERE, then everyone else is doing it too.

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2015/05/14/patriots-told-wells-that-colts-and-other-teams-tampered-with-footballs/#comments

 

[12punch]

I think what really was happening is that the Patriots were in fact inflating footballs to the bare minimum to pass inspection, and that they knew the balls would continue to get softer by game time. I think they did this to gain an advantage, but I don't think they considered it cheating.

that's really nonsensical, though --- it's an unnecessary layer of conspiracy theorist spin reverse engineered from a conclusion.

by that same logic, andrew luck sets his balls at 13 because he knows they'll drop down a pound to an illegal 12 range.

these guys have all thrown thousands of balls in all different environments throughout their lives, so they may very well have some implicit, if not explicit, understanding of temperature on the ball's pressure or feel, but to paint the picture that he calculates out the pressures, picks out a couple dozen balls that they've been working for however long, and submits a 12.5 expecting an 11.5 is really very nutty.

these balls have all been measured at varying psi, including the single ball the colts intercepted that has 3 different readings, but I'm supposed to believe that 11.5 is the magic number that he targets and he submits balls at varying pressures according to the temp for the game, instead of just trying to slide 11.5s through like rodgers would, knowing te refs are very lax in checking that stuff.

people really need to think these things through and see how crazy paranoid they sound.

 

[mbuehner]

Here's my take on the whole thing, lemme know what you guys think.

The Pats were deflating their balls post inspection. The NFL, per the Colt and Ravens complaints, intended to run a spot check, particularly if they got ahold of one of the Pats balls on the sideline to provide a 'probable cause' for the half-time check (hence NFL Executive VP Troy Vincent just 'by chance' walking the Colts sideline).

Referee Walter Anderson was given a minor heads up to watch the balls. He demonstrably didnt take this very seriously, as he lost track of the balls before kickoff and had a minor freakout. That being the case, its entirely likely Anderson either didnt pay careful attention to the pressure of the balls (he later improbably claimed all of them were delivered within .1psi of perfect, which is hard to fathom), or he didnt measure them at all (we discussed to death in this thread how uncomfortable the refs seemed with the gauges in the Bears video.

The NFL also had no idea that footballs lost pressure in cold or wet conditions. So when the tested the Patriots ball (three times!) allegedly on a complaint from a Colts player, once it showed under 12.5psi they figure, smoking gun. Therefore, as far as the NFL was concerned, if they get balls reading under 12.5psi at halftime, game set match. From that point of view, everything else makes a lot more sense.

Halftime comes and they bring all the balls in. Two different refs are assigned to measure, with 2 different gauges. The gauges (hilariously) dont match each other by about .3psi. The refs measure and all the Pats balls are under to some degree. As far as the sting goes, thats all they need to know. Again, they have no idea about the ideal gas law issues.

So either they fill up the Pats balls at that point, or they proceed to testing Colts balls. Either way, the gauges were switched between refs somehow.

The game finishes in a second half blowout. The report leaks with massively incorrect details, which doesnt really bother the NFL because from their point of view they have the Pats dead to rights, their balls were under inflated- they dont need any more evidence or a mechanism for who did it. In fact they might not want to know how it happened. Slap a fine on the Patriots organization after the season when all this is forgotten and move on, no need to bring the leagues most popular player into this. Simple story line- balls were underinflated at half time, Pats are guilty.

Then some wiseacre on the internet brings up the Ideal Gas Law, and the league suddenly has a much bigger problem. They havent done anything like the investigation needed to definitively prove anything from the measurements difference between pre-game and halftime. In fact they didnt even record the pregame pressures! This went from cut and dried to making the league look like the chumps.

First priority- kick the can past the season. Second priority- protect the leagues reputation. Its a GODSEND that they had the video tape of the ball boy, which introduces some new circumstancial evidence, but theyre going to need more and the pressure data is a joke. Enter Mr. Wells. Another godsend- Larry and Curly cant stop yapping on their phones. Now theyve got a pretty good circumstancial case, but it creates a new problem- Moe, AKA Tom Brady. This has now turned from a simple sweep and clear into a total cluster####. The more definitive the details, the bigger this story must get, so the simple slap on the wrist of the Pats is no longer viable. Now you have to go after the leagues golden boy, and you need as much proof or quasi-proof as you can pile up.

So the Wells report is a billion pages long with all kinds of scientific tests, but it glosses over some serious issues with the actual measurements. In fact it sugar coats the whole process, and roundly ignores the elephant in the room- that they had no reliable pre-game data to compare anything to. They also obfuscate a few details about the half time test to hide the fact that, unbeknown to the refs, the time differential between when each teams balls were tested would be a critical part of the testing, and that data was never recorded. And since you have no sound pre-game data, the only actual physical proof you can present is that the Colts balls lost less pressure than the Patriots balls. Wells papered that little detail over.

Finally- report comes out and the NFL, in typical cynical form, waits to see what the reaction will be before announcing the penalties.

The end?

Pick it apart boys, im curious to see what holes there are.

 

[mbuehner]

Usual disclaimer- I think the Pats did tamper with the balls, and I also think the NFL botched the investigation and the Wells Report intentionally white-washes that.

that's fair enough --- how much air did they let out?

I dont think we'll ever know because I dont think the balls were measured before the game to begin with. Or at least not more than a cursory check.

 

[Ojaays]

http://www.sharpfootballanalysis.com/blog/

Interesting, the "deflator" was hired the year their fumble numbers started to dramatically get better, nothing to see here, move along...

 

[12punch]

This doesn't even have anything to do with deflating footballs anymore.

This is about Brady not cooperating and outright lying to investigators.

Saying you don't know the dude, yet you are blowing up his phone the day the gig is up, is never a good look.

There are no records of any calls or texts between Brady and McNally.

The calls and texts you're referencing were to Jastremski.

stop trying to confuse the issue with facts

if imagination is good enough for mr rogers, it's good enough for us --- that dude was on the air 30 yrs

 

[GroveDiesel]

The idea that Goodell and the NFL went after the Patriots and one of their most popular players is preposterous.

Which seems more likely:

A. Goodell decided he disliked the Patriots and Brady and wanted to take them down. So he setup a sting operation to catch them cheating so that they could tarnish the Super Bowl with the whole thing, make the NFL look bad, piss off his biggest supporter of any owner, and tarnish the reputation of one of its biggest stars

Or

B. The Patriots cheated, the league reluctantly looked into it, the media found out, Kraft immediately ratcheted things up to 1,000,000 by blasting the NFL and Goodell, and Goodell had no choice but to follow through with a full investigation that showed one of their teams was most likely cheating for quite some time.

 

[12punch]

This doesn't even have anything to do with deflating footballs anymore.

This is about Brady not cooperating and outright lying to investigators.

Saying you don't know the dude, yet you are blowing up his phone the day the gig is up, is never a good look.

There are no records of any calls or texts between Brady and McNally.

The calls and texts you're referencing were to Jastremski.

OkIf Brady doesn't know anything about it( his words)

Why is he blowing up that guys phone?

Remember, he did nothing wrong, so why bother with anything at all?

yeah, that's a great point

a story breaks nationally, all over the internet, saturating every media outlet, dominating sportstalk about brady's equipment mgr in on a plot with dorito dink, shooting texts back and forth to 'the deflator', about supposedly sneaking off to a bathroom to doctor brady's balls on a regular basis, and when brady hears about this stuff he calls the guy up.

that is nothing if not suspicious and unusual behavior, and you, sir, are a genius for picking up on that.

 

[Gatorman]

It will be interesting to see if the patriot fumble numbers change as a result of more scrutiny being placed on ball inflation...

 

[BroadwayG]

It's more likely that Wells wanted revenge for losing 500K gambling on the Seahawks in the Super Bowl than this was an NFL sting/setup.