PFT's Mike Florio Says There Was Evidence That Showed NE Did Not Deflate Footballs (1 Viewer)

[DropKick]

I remember having a conversation at the time with a Pats homer who put forward the same theory. I chalked it up to him trying to put the best spin possible on what he assumed was a bad fact pattern. But like I said, I don't think the facts were actually against Brady. I can't remember the details now, but there was something about how the refs conducted the measurement of the balls' PSI that made me think that whatever data they were using to draw their conclusions was total garbage.

They weren't practiced at measuring the balls.  There were two gauges (of two different types) at different calibrations.  And, apparently, the people doing the measurements at halftime switched gauges halfway through the process.  Also, there was  time delay between measurement of each team's balls, so the ball pressure was changing as it adjusted to room temperature.   So, yes, there were some technical aspects of the process that could be questioned.  Maybe that is what you remember?

One thing that people never discuss, from the Wells Report,  was the Patriots staff talking about Brady's complaints and actual ball measurements AFTER the Jets game of almost 16 PSI.  What does this tell us about the leagues attention to detail to ball pressure? If Brady did have them adjust the balls, maybe it was warranted.

 

[Dr. Octopus]

This reminds me back to the days the Patriots were relevant.

 

[Pip's Invitation]

I have a son that is both genius and idiot at the same time. He works for a gigantic global company, and they are about to transfer him to Germany at the whopping age of 24 because even at his young age he has done more than people that have worked there for decades. I've written about him in several threads, most notably the kids sports accomplishments thread in the FFA. He was one of the best wrestlers to ever come out of these parts (and was just inducted onto his HS sports HOF).

As an example, he didn't consider winning a match by scoring more points a legitimate win. To him, he only considered pins as a victory. There were times in matches when he was so far ahead, the only way he could lose was if he got pinned. All he had to do was dance around for the last 30 seconds and he would have won going away. Nope, that was never gonna happen. He insisted on pinning every opponent, and he would try and try until the final buzzer sounded. His only losses as a senior were when he tried to pin someone but couldn't, he got flipped with under 5 seconds left, and he lost matches that were already won. His general outlook was no guts, no glory. One of his friends described him as the dumbest smart person he knows.

The same apt description holds true for BB. For all his greatest, he is probably more of a threat to himself and the team than 31 other franchises are. He truly is the definition of his own worst enemy. It seems like he has to be the smartest person in the room, but he often outsmarts himself. In many ways, he outkicks his coverage.

I don't know if he is so paranoid that he needs to have 1,000 tricks up his sleeve to double and triple down to try to win or what his issues are. In no way, shape, or form did they need any video surveillance or extra advantage to beat the Bengals. Absolutely none. They could have skipped practice all week, went to the beach and worked on getting tans, and still gone into Cincy and throttled the Bengals. The team could have gone on an all-night, showed up on game day hungover, and still won. No offense intended for Bengals fans . . . you guys get the last laugh on this one, as your team is still playing while the Patriots are trying to figure how to get back to being true contenders again.

It could be that BB is the coaching equivalent of Michael Jordan. Jordan was insanely driven and was competitive about EVERYTHING, despite having much more talent at what he did than anyone else. BB strikes me as the same way from a coaching perspective.

 

[greenmountaingoat]

This reminds me back to the days the Patriots were relevant.

Fireman Ed, is that you?

 

[Leroy Hoard]

It's not about the weight of the ball, it's about the grip. 

Especially on a cold or rainy day, like they have in NEP. A lot. 

Heck, my friends & I would slightly deflate a regulation football to throw around if the weather wasn't great. There is a definite advantage to being able to grip the ball slightly better. 

Same with backyard hoops. I always seemed to shoot better with a slightly under inflated basketball. And a little drizzle of rain didn't hurt either. 

 

[SeniorVBDStudent]

I'm not discounting that as a possibility. I'm just not sure they'd all conspire against one of their own. Bad for business. fogeddaboudit. 

The Tuck Rule should probably be included here. There's a lot of smoke. I'm not quite ready to believe 31 owners would conspire to screw one owner. Ok wait, let me rephrase that. I'm not ready to believe they were all willing to go after Kraft, in the midst of the Patriots very profitable rise as a team. If it was against Al / Mark Davis, sure - completely believable. lol    :(  

The tuck rule was a horrible rule that had been enforced on multiple occasions that year prior to the famous raiders game.  It was obviously a fumble....but obviously not a fumble if you read the letter of the law (tuck rule) at the time.  The Raiders got jobbed here, but not by the evil empire or any sort of conspiracy; they got jobbed by a bad rule in effect at the time.

 

[identikit]

Florio's a hack

 

[ignatiusjreilly]

They weren't practiced at measuring the balls.  There were two gauges (of two different types) at different calibrations.  And, apparently, the people doing the measurements at halftime switched gauges halfway through the process.  Also, there was  time delay between measurement of each team's balls, so the ball pressure was changing as it adjusted to room temperature.   So, yes, there were some technical aspects of the process that could be questioned.  Maybe that is what you remember?

Yes, that was exactly what I was thinking of. Thanks. I remember reading that at the time and thinking, “How could they possibly make a definitive ruling on the balls’ PSI if  the measurement date was so shaky?”

 

[ChiefD]

NASCAR crew chiefs look at the Patriots and say:

”Hold my beer sponsored by Coors Light.”

 

[SeniorVBDStudent]

NASCAR crew chiefs look at the Patriots and say:

”Hold my beer sponsored by Coors Light.”

Ever wonder why you only ever see Goodyear tires in Nascar?  Hint: it's not because Goodyear has blocked the other manufacturers from bidding.

 

[bostonfred]

This reminds me back to the days the Patriots were relevant.

2022 is the year

 

[need2know]

No one cares.  Patriots were uber cheaters.  End of story

 

[DropKick]

Fireman Ed, is that you?

Even Fireman Ed abandoned the Jets.

 

[SeniorVBDStudent]

No one cares.  Patriots were uber cheaters.  End of story

< insert roll tide meme here >

oh and btw BB and Saban are best buddies.

 

[Dr. Octopus]

Even Fireman Ed abandoned the Jets.

Not factual. He’s been back for years.

 

[STEADYMOBBIN 22]

What did the league stand to gain by damaging the image of the face of the league, hurting a personal friendship of Goodell's, and casting doubt on the legitimacy of Super Bowls that they make an ungodly amount of money on?

I never really dove THAT far into the evidence.  But what exactly is the theory here.  The league wanted to ruin their own image because....?

I now believe that they invite controversy. It gets people talking, even casual fans get to have an opinion. It's all to blind you to their point shaving and scripted games. 

 

[Anarchy99]

What I think happened is a few teams reported to the league that footballs in NE seemed underinflated in other games. The league decided to start checking up on NE, and they thought they caught the Pats red handed with their hand in the cookie jar in the playoff game against the Colts.

But the science went against the league, so they started clamoring for all sorts of things . . . security videos from inside the stadium, emails, texts, etc. They kept going farther and father back until they found a few things and then pieced together a conspiracy theory. Did NE intentionally deflate footballs in that specific game against the Colts, I would say no. Did they inflate footballs at the lowest possible level and possibly under inflate footballs some in many other games BEFORE they handed them over to the refs? Absolutely (but that in and of itself is not a true rules violation. When refs inspect the footballs before games, it is up to them to adjust the inflation levels to ensure the levels fall within the 12.5-13.5 PSI range.) The $64,000 question is whether NE altered the footballs AFTER the footballs were certified by the refs did NE manually and intentionally let air out in some games? I would tend to say that probably happened. Whether they did that in any other game is a different issues than if they did it in the IND / NE game.

The league went all in, both barrels blazing, on that one game. As things progressed, the league got backed into a corner, and their plan of sticking it to NE over that one individual game would have backfired if they presented all the information along the way. Instead, to save face, they changed the parameters of what they were going to pin on NE.

To clarify, in no way, shape, or form am I suggesting the Patriots should have skated on everything over the years, and I truly believe there are many other things that they have done that likely merit more punishment. But in THIS CASE, I really think the league botched the whole Deflategate situation.

I also whole-heartily believe that all 32 teams would have plenty of infractions uncovered if the NFL were to search across an entire team's security footage, electronic communications (cell phones, texts, emails, locked social media, etc.), and interviewed all game day football operations personnel at each stadium.

New England likely deserved to be punished for SOMETHING (ok, probably several things). Under inflated footballs was probably not the thing to go after them for. IMO, the league kept searching and searching through things until they got to a point where they could attempt to tie things together and report on an investigation with the intent of penalizing NE (which was their intention from the start). Lost in all of this are several things. IIRC, even with Brady's phone having been destroyed, his attorney got printouts of all the emails that were on his phone and handed them over to the league. There were hundreds of hours of security footage from a ton of home games, thousands upon thousands of texts and emails . . . and they came up with a handful of texts from Heckyl and Jeckyl the ball boys.

Imagine if that process went down for other franchises? How many people would have come out looking like racists, misogynists, steroid users, substance users, rule breakers, etc. That's why people should be up in arms over the most recent reporting on this story. Yes, the Patriots had it coming to them, but other teams should be concerned over what the league has authority to do. Look at the Redskins . . . Football Team . . . Commanders investigation. The takeaway from an investigation into sexual harassment claims against WAS resulted in the LAS VEGAS coach Jon Gruden getting in hot water. The league went through 650,000 emails . . . and THAT was the information that somehow leaked out.

I get it, this issue is over, it's done. NE cheated and they got punished for it. All that may be true, but there is probably a lot more to the story (whether people are sick ofit by now or not).

 

[BoltNlava]

< insert roll tide meme here >

oh and btw BB and Satan are best buddies.

Spelled it wrong. Fixed it for you. 

 

[ekbeats]

How does the guy who handles the footballs get the name, “The Deflator?”

Oh right, it’s because he was on a diet.

 

[SeniorVBDStudent]

Spelled it wrong. Fixed it for you. 

Lol; good one.

Old Charlie is afraid of Bill.

 

[Anarchy99]

How does the guy who handles the footballs get the name, “The Deflator?”

Oh right, it’s because he was on a diet.

I get it, people want the Patriots to fry. So be it. But the league set out to crucify the Patriots, and nothing was going to stop them.

- The night of the Colts / Pats playoff game, as soon as the game was over the league leaked the ball inflation information to ESPN (who ran with it).
- The league quickly knew the information they had leaked was inaccurate and did nothing to correct it.
- The league claimed the Patriots illegally altered the PSI levels of the football in the game against the Colts. You make an allegation, you need to prove it.
- The problem for the league was, science explained away why the balls were underinflated, and 11 of the Patriots footballs were within the expected PSI levels based on the weather conditions. The league that night had started testing the Colts footballs. Three of the four Colts footballs were also under the legal inflation level, so they stopped testing.
- The league was backed into a corner because they couldn't prove anything and in fact the opposite was true. They already had reason to believe the Patriots had not done anything against the rules on THE NIGHT OF THE COLTS GAME (which is what they alleged).
- In their quest to find something that could in any way, shape, or form could resemble evidence, the league demanded a boatload of stuff. First on the hit list was all security video from the game. Apparently there was a video of a ball attendant stopping in the bathroom on the way to the field. He was hardly in there at all, and there would not have been time for him to remove all the footballs from a bag, leak air out of them, and put them all back in the bag in the short time the guy was in the men's room.
- The league then demanded ALL the video FOR EVERY Patriots game that season. They interviewed EVERY SINGLE PATRIOTS GAME DAY staff member, many of them multiple times. They demanded all cell phones and emails for the entire season from every employee.
- When they interviewed Brady, he had destroyed his phone . . . but Brady was able to retrieve and provide printouts of every text he had sent and received that were on that phone.
- Between all the interviews, all the security footage, all the texts, and all the emails, they FOUND NOTHING about anyone actually deflating footballs in the Patriots 2014 games from the preseason, regular season, or post season. The league had to come up with something, so they went further back.

This gets us to the infamous "Deflator" texts between the two Patriots equipment guys. Since no one will remember (or care), those texts were sent in May of 2014. That's four months AFTER the Patriots last played a game  and four months BEFORE they played their next game. Congratulations. You're big piece of evidence and smoking gun was smack dab in the middle of eight straight months when no football was played. Why on earth would they be talking about any of this in the middle of May, and how was that proof of anything? There were a few other texts, but those were mostly about a game where the balls were 2.5 PSI over the high range of inflation. 

In open court, the league's top attorney was asked directly by the judge if the league had even one piece of evidence to tie Brady to anything involving the deflation of any footballs on the night of the Colts playoff game. The attorney admitted they had nothing. That same attorney is the one that directed the NFL to delete all the PSI readings from a ball inflation study they conducted FOR AN ENTIRE SEASON that would have showed the Patriots had not done anything wrong the night of the Colts game.

In real world terms, this is the same as the police coming to your house and arresting you for drug possession, not finding any drugs, and then charging you with conspiracy to distribute narcotics. Then the police would gather all your phones, your laptops, your work phones and laptops, search your home, your summer cottage, your workplace, all your cars, your kids classrooms, and all your medical records . . . only to uncover that you had a legal prescription five years ago so therefor the only conclusion to make was you sold your pills illegally.

Like I said, the league wanted to fry the Patriots. Who that was and why is a good question. And for the 1,000th time, I fully believe the Patriots were doing all sorts of shady things for years. But Deflategate was the weakest of weak sauce.

 

 

[SeniorVBDStudent]

Who that was and why is a good question. 

Goodell has to keep an oligopoly happy, which is no small task.  You know there were a handful of owners pushing for additional action against NE due to perceived insufficient punishment for spygate / irritation for the fact that the Patriots kept winning.  Kraft alluded to this when he came out with comments about "feeling betrayed" etc...clearly he lost a temporal battle involving warring factions within ownership.  There's not a snowball's chance in hell that Goodell and Vincent were not operating at the behest of a handful of owners who were demanding an additional pound of flesh for spygate. 

Ironically, they made themselves look like idiots in the process, and Goodell their clown puppet.

Not just in the minds of NE fans

 

[ekbeats]

I get it, people want the Patriots to fry. So be it. But the league set out to crucify the Patriots, and nothing was going to stop them.

- The night of the Colts / Pats playoff game, as soon as the game was over the league leaked the ball inflation information to ESPN (who ran with it).
- The league quickly knew the information they had leaked was inaccurate and did nothing to correct it.
- The league claimed the Patriots illegally altered the PSI levels of the football in the game against the Colts. You make an allegation, you need to prove it.
- The problem for the league was, science explained away why the balls were underinflated, and 11 of the Patriots footballs were within the expected PSI levels based on the weather conditions. The league that night had started testing the Colts footballs. Three of the four Colts footballs were also under the legal inflation level, so they stopped testing.
- The league was backed into a corner because they couldn't prove anything and in fact the opposite was true. They already had reason to believe the Patriots had not done anything against the rules on THE NIGHT OF THE COLTS GAME (which is what they alleged).
- In their quest to find something that could in any way, shape, or form could resemble evidence, the league demanded a boatload of stuff. First on the hit list was all security video from the game. Apparently there was a video of a ball attendant stopping in the bathroom on the way to the field. He was hardly in there at all, and there would not have been time for him to remove all the footballs from a bag, leak air out of them, and put them all back in the bag in the short time the guy was in the men's room.
- The league then demanded ALL the video FOR EVERY Patriots game that season. They interviewed EVERY SINGLE PATRIOTS GAME DAY staff member, many of them multiple times. They demanded all cell phones and emails for the entire season from every employee.
- When they interviewed Brady, he had destroyed his phone . . . but Brady was able to retrieve and provide printouts of every text he had sent and received that were on that phone.
- Between all the interviews, all the security footage, all the texts, and all the emails, they FOUND NOTHING about anyone deflating footballs in the entirety of the Patriots 2014 games from the preseason, regular season, or post season. The league had to come up with something, so they went further back.

This gets us to the infamous "Deflator" texts between the two Patriots equipment guys. Since no one will remember (or care), those texts were sent in May of 2014. That's four months AFTER the Patriots last played a game  and four months BEFORE they played their next game. Congratulations. You're big piece of evidence and smoking gun was smack dab in the middle of eight straight months when no football was played. Why on earth would they be talking about any of this in the middle of May, and how was that proof of anything?

In open court, the league's top attorney was asked directly by the judge if the league had even one piece of evidence to tie Brady to anything involving the deflation of any footballs on the night of the Colts playoff game. The attorney admitted they had nothing. That same attorney is the one that directed the NFL to delete all the PSI readings from a ball inflation study they conducted FOR AN ENTIRE SEASON that would have showed the Patriots had not done anything wrong the night of the Colts game.

In real world terms, this is the same as the police coming to your house and arresting you for drug possession, not finding any drugs, and then charging you with conspiracy to distribute narcotics. Then the police would gather all your phones, your laptops, your work phones and laptops, search your home, your summer cottage, your workplace, all your cars, your kids classrooms, and all your medical records . . . only to uncover that you had a legal prescription five years ago so therefor the only conclusion to make was you sold your pills illegally.

Like I said, the league wanted to fry the Patriots. Who that was and why is a good question. And for the 1,000th time, I fully believe the Patriots were doing all sorts of shady things for years. But Deflategate was the weakest of weak sauce.

Well, for the record I live in New England and have been a die-hard Patriots fan my whole life.  I studied Deflate-Gate quite a bit - read every word in the Wells Report along with all the Court rulings.  My nephew was a Clerk in the US Southern District New York Court the time and helped out with some of the legal research.  So I was all over it.  I could talk for hours about my opinions.  You've laid a lot of it out nicely and I know very well how informed you were on it.  In a weird way I felt the same way about Deflate-Gate as I did the OJ trial.  I think the NFL framed a guilty man.  They botched the investigation in a number of areas, and they undoubtedly had their minds made up early on that the Pats were guilty.  The scientific evidence is compelling, and who knows - maybe on that day the Deflator didn't do a very good job in that bathroom.  But I simply can't get past the text messages and the Deflator nickname.

 

[Anarchy99]

But I simply can't get past the text messages and the Deflator nickname.

I can understand that . . . but at what point is conducting a blanket search excessive? The NFL looked at everything there was to look at about the Patriots. The only thing they didn't do was daily cavity searches. They went through an entire season's worth of footage, all communications, and interviewed every staffer. Put another way, what do you think would be uncovered if they went through a full year's worth of information across football operations of 31 other teams? If the NFL demanded it, should the Patriots have had to give the league access to absolutely everything they ever did going back to 2001?

 

[DropKick]

Well, for the record I live in New England and have been a die-hard Patriots fan my whole life.  I studied Deflate-Gate quite a bit - read every word in the Wells Report along with all the Court rulings.  My nephew was a Clerk in the US Southern District New York Court the time and helped out with some of the legal research.  So I was all over it.  I could talk for hours about my opinions.  You've laid a lot of it out nicely and I know very well how informed you were on it.  In a weird way I felt the same way about Deflate-Gate as I did the OJ trial.  I think the NFL framed a guilty man.  They botched the investigation in a number of areas, and they undoubtedly had their minds made up early on that the Pats were guilty.  The scientific evidence is compelling, and who knows - maybe on that day the Deflator didn't do a very good job in that bathroom.  But I simply can't get past the text messages and the Deflator nickname.

One of the things in the Wells Report, and from the text messages specifically, that no one ever wants to talk about, is that after Brady's complaints about hard footballs they found the balls to be 16 PSI after the Jets game.  What is your opinion on that?