Schefter: Has Heard Speculation Colts might have deflated the footballs

[Bruins29]

Pats just win the superbowl, and we fighting about Chris carter and Jerry rice. Oh lord have mercy and give me some popcorn.

Maybe if we can work hard enough we can actually get Cris and Jerry to fight each other. Maybe some Thunderdome type event or something. Cris can do his bounty thing and jerry can spray Stickum in his eyes. Cris's manger can be Gregg Williams and Jerry would have Lester Hayes.

Again, I have good ideas.

 

[Ring 6]

Got to say, I wonder at the motivations of the people wanting to scold and self-righteously correct what any one with the tiniest bit of empathy would see as a very human and natural over-reaction to two solid weeks of non-stop vitriol and character assassination by every major news outlet in the world.

Rice's comments about us being cheaters and our legacy being tainted was heard by millions of viewers.

So someone called Jim Rice, deservedly or not, a weasel on a forum that maybe a couple hundred people will read.

After everything we've endured as a fan base, this is the good fight you want to fight? Defending our critics?

Honestly, you guys really feel the need scold and chide fellow Patriot fans for using a bit of rhetoric when referring to some of our harshest and most vocal critics?

What are we Vulcans?

Pick your battles, I say. Fight the fights worth fighting.

This ain't one of them.

No one is defending Jerry Rice. I have said many times his comments were wrong, and I find them funny.

The point that I am trying to make is that Rice (as well as many others) simply made a comment based upon the disinformation campaign being waged against the Patriots.
He is not the correct target. Ripping him just makes the fan base look like we hate anyone who has an anti-Patriot opinion, at a time when we don't even have facts. I am very confident what the facts will show, but we do not have them.

The outrage should be directed at idiots like Brunnell and Faulk and others who are commenting that they know that Tom Brady deflated the balls, and are casting aspersions on his character. And even more on the league and its leaking employees who created this mess and still have done nothing about it.

Rice is responding to what people have reported. He is not claiming knowledge or insight, he is saying if 11 of 12 balls were deflated and all of the Colts were dead on, then something was done to the balls, and the Patriots are tainted. Is that wrong? The assumption he based his conclusion on is, but that was given to him.

Why don't we focus on who yelled fire in the theatre, not who shoved past you going out after that.

 

[Ivan]

Granted, a few asshats probably made some unbacked claims, though the majority of the reports I saw the person/entity at least made an effort to say 'if the Patriots did this' before they went ahead with their speculation.

Honestly, I didn't read Kravitz's article. Did he actually claim, unequivocally, that the Patriots deflated the balls, or did the say IF they did, then go ahead and call for their head anyway. Classic reporter trick, say "if this is true", then write the story as if it is true.

Yes, he did. He said if Kraft had any integrity he would fire Belichick immediately. He just apologized for it.

 

[Ring 6]

No, I wouldn't have felt the same way, because I'm not an idiot. It takes more than Jerome Bettis grasping for water, and a crying Mark Brunnel, to fool me, because I'm about a million times more intelligent than either of them. You should visit an article I posted in the DeflateGate forum about the softness of the American mind. Absurd stories are absurd, regardless of who they're aimed at.

Logic and reason are always a strong shield against God awful moron propaganda.

If you say so, but I think if it were not the Patriots you wouldn't have put any effort into finding out the facts. Why would you?

Its really not an absurd story to report that a team suspected the other one of using under inflated balls, and according to a source 11 of the 12 Patriot balls were 2 psi under. It is something that is possible, and a motive would exist given the conditions. You dismiss it because you have faith in the integrity of the players involved.
What if it were Jerry Rice and Joe Montana being accused?

 

[Bobsyouruncle]

As far as I know, the only facts that have been publicly acknowledged by the NFL are the following:
The Colts filed a complaint about the air pressure in the balls
Several of the balls were found to have air pressure levels beneath the minimum standard.
The balls were measured at half time as to their air pressure and inflated to the proper range
There is an ongoing investigation which, according to Goodell at his press conference in Phoenix, has not yet even concluded that any infraction occurred.

(If anyone can add anything to or correct any errors in what is immediately above, I would appreciate it. If you do, please cite a source.)

Many other things have been alleged or circulated by the media, citing various and usually vague "sources."
11 of the 12 balls had air pressure 2 psi below the standard
11 of the 12 ball had air pressure a "few ticks" below the standard and one was 2 psi below the standard
The one that was 2 psi below the standard had been in the possession of the Colts equipment staff
The officials used a meter to test the air pressure in the balls before the game
The officials did not use a meter to test the air pressure in the balls before the game
A Patriots lockerroom attendant took the balls into a bathroom that is in the area between the field and the lockerroom.
The attendant was there for 90 seconds
D'Qwell Jackson said he thought a ball he intercepted had low air pressure
D'Qwell Jackson said he never said he thought the ball had low air pressure

Good post, but let me add this. Something being a fact, and something being acknowledged by the NFL are not the same. I would say there are sourced rumors, and unsourced ones. We obviously put more faith in a source like the NFL who has some knowledge in what happenned over something unsourced which may not have any knowledge.

The NFL stated the balls were properly inflated, then at halftime underinflated. Maybe they meant to say underpressure, maybe they should have said underpressure but they didn't, and that's a different thing. Now some things they said like like that they are investigating, and what they did for measurements and whatnot are basically primary source statements. The NFL would be the people who know what they did.

But some are not, saying balls were at the proper inflation prior to the game, but not during requires some facts about the inflation changing. Inflation is defined as "expand with air." And that's how people usually understand it. So the NFL is saying the amount of air in the ball changed. To make such a statement you would either have to know somebody physically changed the air in it, or the ball had some flaw allowing the amount of air to change.

I'm highly skeptical the NFL knows either, and am not comfortable calling their statement a fact.

 

[Ring 6]

And he tweeted his admission at 3am on a Saturday.

And he claimed in that tweet that he did NEW RESEARCH to find out that what he did was illegal.

Andy still somehow believes the argument was about what he said regarding Deflategate, when it has been clearly pointed out to him on many occasions now that the tweet's TIMING and the LIE (about it just dawining on him due to his 'new research') is what makes Jerry Rice a 1st Class Weasel.

I have no idea whether or not the Patriots are innocent or guilty. If someone wants to come down on them based on innuendo at this point, I think it's wrong, but NOT weaselish.

The Rice tweet, however, was weaselish.

Andy does not have the ability to comprehend that difference.

And you have every right to that opinion.
Please refrain from saying what I think. I am quite capable of expressing my opinions. It doesn't help your argument to make one up for me that you can pretend to argue against.

I disagree that Jerry Rice is a weasel, or at least I lack the appropriate information to make that judgment and I won't conclude that based on my idea of what is a good time to write a tweet.

 

[Clonamery]

I'm disappointed in Jerry Rice's ignorance not his use of stick-um .

 

[Ring 6]

Yes, he did. He said if Kraft had any integrity he would fire Belichick immediately. He just apologized for it.

He is one that belongs on the list of who Patriots fans should be ripping heavily.

 

[PATS16N0]

If you say so, but I think if it were not the Patriots you wouldn't have put any effort into finding out the facts. Why would you?

Its really not an absurd story to report that a team suspected the other one of using under inflated balls, and according to a source 11 of the 12 Patriot balls were 2 psi under. It is something that is possible, and a motive would exist given the conditions. You dismiss it because you have faith in the integrity of the players involved.
What if it were Jerry Rice and Joe Montana being accused?

You're moving the goal posts with revisionist history regarding the `reporting.`
If ESPN, the NFL Network, and sports `journalists` around the country were reporting "The NFL is investigating the PSI of footballs used during the AFC Championship game," that would have been one thing, but they weren't. They were going full North Korea against New England, unicorn riding and all.

If you didn't know what it is you were watching, that says much more about you and the laughable pedestal you put television personalities on, than it does about the validity of their "reporting."

 

[Ring 6]

Shouldn't people that get paid for their opinions (making them professionals?) be held to a higher standard than those of us keyboard klowns that are not paid for those same opinions?

In terms of integrity and calling out someone elses integrity, I would say no.

It's funny that most active players seemed to be of the opinion that deflated/over inflated balls made no difference to them (aside from Jets players)

Not sure of the breakdown. However, its a moot point until someone explains if and by how much the balls were underinflated.
That's part of the point here. We are ripping Rice for commenting on a leaked report that probably is wrong, yet ignoring that the real problem is the leak.
If the league leaked that the Colts filed a complaint and nothing looks out of the ordinary but the league will do an investigation because the Colts asked for one, would Rice have ever made these comments?

I'm disappointed in Jerry Rice's ignorance not his use of stick-um .

I think you should be disappointed at the media for leading him to ignorance.
I have zero doubt that when Rice made the comments he was certain based upon what had been reported that the Patriots intentionally deflated the balls with the intent to cheat.
He didn't make that up.

 

[Ring 6]

You're moving the goal posts with revisionist history regarding the `reporting.`
If ESPN, the NFL Network, and sports `journalists` around the country were reporting "The NFL is investigating the PSI of footballs used during the AFC Championship game," that would have been one thing, but they weren't. They were going full North Korea against New England, unicorn riding and all.

Well that is exactly the point.
Average Joe isn't going to study and investigate whether what is on his TV is correct or not.
They are, mostly, going to accept it as fact. The reporting is the problem, not the comments that were based upon accepting the reporting at face value.
As a Patriot fan, yuo had an interest in refuting it. Non Pat fans did not.

If you didn't know what it is you were watching, that says much more about you and the laughable pedestal you put television personalities on, than it does about the validity of their "reporting."

I am the last person who would put a TV personality on any kind of pedestal, so you have me confused there.
What you need to accept is that the vast majority of people believe what is reported on TV.
In this case it was anti-Patriot so 95% of Patriot fans looked deeper and 95% of everyone else did not.

 

[Ring 6]

Sorry to hijack the thread. I made a comment and got an enormous amount of responses, and, as I always do, I treated each response with the respect of a reply.
I think we've reached the point where everything that can be said has been said and everyone can draw their own conclusion.

 

[PATS16N0]

@AndyJohnson
So you were bamboozled by the likes of Cris Carter and Mark Brunnel and taken it by this idiotic nonsense? All they were doing was spewing WEAK emotionally-driven garbage with a narrative that didn't even make sense.

THIS fooled you? Seriously?

Why should I have any sympathy for Jerry Rice? The ESPN propagandists AREN'T THAT CLEVER. Their talking points and slanders were WEAK at best. It was pathetic. Anyone who bought into their garbage has Play-Doh for brains.

 

[PATS16N0]

Well that is exactly the point.
Average Joe isn't going to study and investigate whether what is on his TV is correct or not.
They are, mostly, going to accept it as fact. The reporting is the problem, not the comments that were based upon accepting the reporting at face value.
As a Patriot fan, yuo had an interest in refuting it. Non Pat fans did not.


I am the last person who would put a TV personality on any kind of pedestal, so you have me confused there.
What you need to accept is that the vast majority of people believe what is reported on TV.
In this case it was anti-Patriot so 95% of Patriot fans looked deeper and 95% of everyone else did not.

I don't give people a pass for being stupid. It didn't take a study or an investigation to see through their garbage. We're not dealing with a Washington think-tank backed by billions of dollars here. We're talking about bobble-heads on ESPN. They aren't that clever.

 

[Ring 6]

@AndyJohnson
So you were bamboozled by the likes of Cris Carter and Mark Brunnel and taken it by this idiotic nonsense? All they were doing was spewing WEAK emotionally-driven garbage with a narrative that didn't even make sense.

THIS fooled you? Seriously?

Why should I have any sympathy for Jerry Rice? The ESPN propagandists AREN'T THAT CLEVER. Their talking points and slanders were WEAK at best. It was pathetic. Anyone who bought into their garbage has Play-Doh for brains.

I investigated it. I listened to Belichick and considered the reasoning.
If this were the Chiefs, I probably would not have cared, and not put much effort into dissecting the argument.

Carter and Brunnell said they could tell the difference in a 2 psi deflated ball. I'm sure I could too. With no horse in the race why would I doubt them.

You seem to think that Jerry Rice should feel Mark Brunell and Cris Carter who played about 30 years in the league combined are morons who know nothing, and of course even though it being reported that the balls were 2 psi under its all made up.

At the time, the Patriots were heavily guilty in the public eye.
You make it out as there was no doubt of innocence and only haters tried to lie that there wasn't, when in fact, public opinion was exactly the opposite.

 

[Ring 6]

I don't give people a pass for being stupid. It didn't take a study or an investigation to see through their garbage. We're not dealing with a Washington think-tank backed by billions of dollars here. We're talking about bobble-heads on ESPN. They aren't that clever.

Now you are way off the mark.

Are you seriously telling me that the normal thing to do would have been for people to conclude that Mortensen was lying and everyone going on TV to speak about it was lying and just doing it out of Patriot hate?
I think at the time, a poll showed over 80% believed the Patriots cheated.
Are you saying 80% of America is stupid? Or could it be that the information leaked made the Patriots look guilty as hell and the 'haters' (or a lot of them) were just following the evidence that was given to them?

 

[PATS16N0]

Carter and Brunnell said they could tell the difference in a 2 psi deflated ball. I'm sure I could too. With no horse in the race why would I doubt them.

This is where things like logic and reason come into play. If I hold two balls in each hand, one at 12 PSI, and one at 10 PSI, and get asked if I can tell the difference, could I?

Sure.

If I slip a 10.5 PSI ball into Tony Romo's hands in an undisclosed quarter at one point during the football season, then ask him after the season ends which quarter he played with a 10.5 PSI football, could he tell me?

I doubt it.

Once again, it wasn't difficult to see through the weak propaganda of ESPN idiots.

Not. That. Clever.

 

[Danger Zone]

Pats16no hit this point on the head.

When being asked to play "which football between these two is more deflated" -of course someone with strong hands can probably guess one football from the other if they have a 2 psi difference.

But my understand from watching people experiment with exactly this is, you need to really squeeze the footballs to tell the difference. A 10.5 football is still rock solid and you can't tell the difference in simply picking it up.

See the link in my signature for several videos that do just this very experiment, however casually.

 

[PatsFanSince74]

Good post, but let me add this. Something being a fact, and something being acknowledged by the NFL are not the same. I would say there are sourced rumors, and unsourced ones. We obviously put more faith in a source like the NFL who has some knowledge in what happenned over something unsourced which may not have any knowledge.

The NFL stated the balls were properly inflated, then at halftime underinflated. Maybe they meant to say underpressure, maybe they should have said underpressure but they didn't, and that's a different thing. Now some things they said like like that they are investigating, and what they did for measurements and whatnot are basically primary source statements. The NFL would be the people who know what they did.

But some are not, saying balls were at the proper inflation prior to the game, but not during requires some facts about the inflation changing. Inflation is defined as "expand with air." And that's how people usually understand it. So the NFL is saying the amount of air in the ball changed. To make such a statement you would either have to know somebody physically changed the air in it, or the ball had some flaw allowing the amount of air to change.

I'm highly skeptical the NFL knows either, and am not comfortable calling their statement a fact.

Fair enough. I tried to be careful with my wording, but that's right. I guess I should have said "it is a fact that the NFL openly acknowledged x, y or z" rather than "x, y or z is a fact that was openly acknowledged by the nfl."

 

[Ring 6]

This is where things like logic and reason come into play. If I hold two balls in each hand, one at 12 PSI, and one at 10 PSI, and get asked if I can tell the difference, could I?

Sure.

If I slip a 10.5 PSI ball into Tony Romo's hands in an undisclosed quarter at one point during the football season, then ask him after the season ends which quarter he played with a 10.5 PSI football, could he tell me?

I doubt it.

Once again, it wasn't difficult to see through the weak propaganda of ESPN idiots.

Not. That. Clever.

I think its very reasonable that some people could tell and others could not.
I don't understand how it becomes a paranoid conspiracy theory that everyone is out to get the Patriots.

There have been many people on both sides of the 'feel test'.