Deflate-Gate: Here We Go Again

MassPats38 said:

Think before you speak. Officials examine and test all balls 2 hours before the game. Balls go to ball attendant (under the supervision of the NFL again). Officials handle footballs when in play under scrutiny of 70,000 fans and national television audience (as career officials, they cannot feel a ball is underinflated after handling thousands of footballs? That is like saying a master chef wouldn't know when a dish is overcooked.).

Is it more reasonable to believe a 12.5 pound inflation may have lost 0.5 pounds of pressure, or that the nefarious BB directed that result? If you say the latter, I would have to assume (1) you are a fan of another team trying to get Pats fans to agree with you (from the response, big fail on that) or (2) you believe man never landed on the moon and all the other ridiculous conspiracy theories offered. The NFL itself stated in the video posted by Galeb this action is not out of the ordinary. Get a grip.

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Ok, I was at the game, I've replied in a dozen threads about getting tickets, and this is the first post I've ever gotten negative feedback on, so pretty sure I am a Pats fan. You guys are really really riled up about this. My opinion is that there is a good chance the thing for which they are being investigated for, they did. It's my opinion, I don't know if they did, and you don't know they didn't. We have the same set of facts, and we are drawing different conclusions, THAT'S OK. One of us will be right, and the other will be wrong, and we'll probably find out in a week or so. No need to get all upset about it.

PatsSox363804 said:

We live in a world where the Jets owner can tamper with a player on live TV and no one cares yet this idiotic story blows up like the worst thing to ever happen. These are the times where you wish Belichick was at least cordial with the media because make no mistake, they do this because of the way he treats them.

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And what's this business about cracking pisscups??

This just in: Belichick being investigated for making it rain harder when the Colts offense were on the field. NFL looking into the matter.

Zo (98.5) said that a QB wants the football to be properly inflated, not underinflated. He said an underinflated ball is harder to throw. He was a QB in the league, so I figure he knows what he's talking about.

It's funny that every cheater in sports had had a whistleblower who outed them as cheaters. The whistleblower always being an employee or someone very close to the cheater in question.

And yet...despite the many former Patriots employees...some leaving the team on less than good terms....to date not one has come forward and said that BB had either asked them to cheat, has actually witnessed cheating or has participated in it.

Not one.

#hmm #gofigure

gardener123 said:

The ball air pressure should be 12.5 to 13.5 PSI.

If the pressure was measured in a 72 F room, then the balls were brought to a cold football field at approximately 32 F, the pressure of the balls all fall by approximately 1 PSI due to the temperature change. So, all the balls should be under pressure unless the refs were doing their job and inflating the balls back to the appropriate pressure range.

The math:

Air pressure is proportional to temperature in Kelvin.
72 F = 295.4 K
32 F = 273.2 K
percent change in pressure = (295.4-273.2)/295.4 x 100= 7.5%

A ball at pressure 13.5 PSI will drop 13.5 x .075= 1.01 PSI; the pressure will be less than 12.5.
Likewise, a ball at 12.5 PSI will drop 12.5 x .075=0.94; the pressure will be less than 12.5.

I hope the commissioner knows how to read and do math. I also hope he doesn't destroy evidence like he did the last time.

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As a not-so-minor point, those are gauge pressures. Temperature is proportional to absolute pressures—which are gauge pressures + atmospheric pressure (another ~14.7 PSI).

So, a ball at 13.5 PSI gauge is actually at about 28.2 PSI absolute; 28.2 PSI × 7.5% = 2.1 PSI (compared to an allowable range of just 1 PSI). So if the temperature of the ball falls that much, it will definitely be out of range. Even a drop of 6°C (11°F) would pull a ball at 13 PSI gauge out of range.

OTOH, the temperature inside the ball most likely is not as low as the temperature outside, since the leather provides at least some insulation.

Some suspects:

Darrone said:

Ok, I was at the game, I've replied in a dozen threads about getting tickets, and this is the first post I've ever gotten negative feedback on, so pretty sure I am a Pats fan. You guys are really really riled up about this. My opinion is that there is a good chance the thing for which they are being investigated for, they did. It's my opinion, I don't know if they did, and you don't know they didn't. We have the same set of facts, and we are drawing different conclusions, THAT'S OK. One of us will be right, and the other will be wrong, and we'll probably find out in a week or so. No need to get all upset about it.

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Once again: How? Did they hire Jason Bourne?

The facts say that there's no way. You're taking the accusation itself as a fact. Big difference.

Once the NFL comes out after the investigation that there was no wrongdoing, the Patriots should sue Kravitz for defamation. That might shut the media up!

Va_Pats_Fan said:

The math is simple. The problem (and just trying to help here, not being critical) with this math, is the game time temp was 50F.

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Thanks, I didn't know the game temp.

If the temp was 50 F, then that's 283.2 K
12.2/295.4 x100 = 4.1% change in ball pressure with change in temp.

12.5 PSI will fall to 11.98 PSI
13.5 PSI falls to 12.95

KDPPatsfan85 said:

Once the NFL comes out after the investigation that there was no wrongdoing, the Patriots should sue Kravitz for defamation. That might shut the media up!

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As a reminder, in order to win a defamation suit, the Patriots would have to prove that Kravitz knew what he was writing was BS. They had a better shot with Tomase than they would here.

Someone get this math out of here! I was an English major, for God's sake!!!

Apologies if this has been pointed out, but...

A team playing with a lead, with a serious running attack that is not being stopped, would want overinflated footballs. Hard to pass and catch = favors the team with the run game advantage. That was unmistakably the Pats. Additionally, the Pats had adjusted from a nearly pass-exclusive attack to a running attack this very week - the worst possible time to under-inflate balls in use by both sides.

So the "proof" has to be that somehow the Pats were doing this to only footballs that the Pats had on offense (that is to say, deflating footballs the Colts played with would hurt the Pats, which is obvious; it would also hurt the Pats and help the Colts if footballs were deflated for all sides, since the Pats made much more and much more extensive use of the running game).

I'm onto the super bowl.

ProFootballTalk ✔ @ProFootballTalk
Patriots fans are outraged that people are writing and talking about something the NFL has ADMITTED it is investigating.

Does anyone else find if significant that Brady himself has spoken out against the claims? He is the only person outside the refs to touch every ball, meaning he would have to be In on it.

You might be able to convince me that Belichick could think of this, but no way does he get brady to be part of some ill advised cover up.

This is literally the dumbest scandal I can think of.

KDPPatsfan85 said:

Once the NFL comes out after the investigation that there was no wrongdoing, the Patriots should sue Kravitz for defamation. That might shut the media up!

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Suit would be thrown out. Nothing Kravitz said on record was defamation.

I like the part how the NFL source felt the need to "leak" the news about the investigation to an Indianapolis TV reporter.

PatsFanInVa said:

Apologies if this has been pointed out, but...

A team playing with a lead, with a serious running attack that is not being stopped, would want overinflated footballs. Hard to pass and catch = favors the team with the run game advantage. That was unmistakably the Pats. Additionally, the Pats had adjusted from a nearly pass-exclusive attack to a running attack.

So the "proof" has to be that somehow the Pats were doing this to only footballs that the Pats had on offense (that is to say, deflating footballs the Colts played with would hurt the Pats, which is obvious; it would also hurt the Pats and help the Colts if footballs were deflated for all sides, since the Pats made much more and much more extensive use of the running game).

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Teams supply their OWN footballs.

That has been established many times in this thread.

Darrone said:

Ok, I was at the game, I've replied in a dozen threads about getting tickets, and this is the first post I've ever gotten negative feedback on, so pretty sure I am a Pats fan. You guys are really really riled up about this. My opinion is that there is a good chance the thing for which they are being investigated for, they did. It's my opinion, I don't know if they did, and you don't know they didn't. We have the same set of facts, and we are drawing different conclusions, THAT'S OK. One of us will be right, and the other will be wrong, and we'll probably find out in a week or so. No need to get all upset about it.

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You offered the opinion that the Pats "did it" based on their long history of pushing the rules. I am not upset at all (the issue is moronic - the reference I gave to the video posted by Galeb gives the NFL's position which is not dramatic at all). BB violated the rules once to my knowledge. This would be a blatant violation and stupid cheating in the face of a well established rule in the most important game of the year with huge consequences. This is not a formation issue that was within the rules and qualifies as innovation, not violation.

If you believe he did it (and choose to state it publicly as you did), feel free to explain exactly how that might happen with the constraints of the NFL requirements provided in the thread. If logic and science do not help your reasoning, and you are a fan of the team, then as stated "think before you speak". It is a "grassy knoll" theory with BB having magical powers over the laws of thermodynamics or directing the attendant to covertly lower the pressure of the ball on a field within view of the world. Does that sound logical to you?