Deflate-Gate: Here We Go Again

FrodoBagginz said:

The statistics for both halves where the Pats used under inflated balls in the first and ref approved balls in the second will support that the Colts lost legitimately. Brady played better with the proper footballs so why would the Pats intentionally mess with Brady's balls? It is well known that QBs prefer specially handled/inflated balls between the PSI min/max limits.

Changing the PSI of a ball would throw off Brady's mechanics and make him play worse. And this is proof as his 2nd half statistics, with the proper footballs, were better than his first half which had the under inflated balls.

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just a thought, but maybe the pats wanted to run a lot in the first half with blount and go to a more passing attack in the second half? It is much harder to fumble the football with a deflated football.

The Brandon Five said:

Why?

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Because the only thing that matters is the actual temperature inside the football. The wind chill is the apparent temperature as a result of wind speed (if X°F at Y mph has a wind chill of Z°F, that means that Z°F at 0 mph would feel the same as X°F at Y mph).

FrodoBagginz said:

The statistics for both halves where the Pats used under inflated balls in the first and ref approved balls in the second will support that the Colts lost legitimately. Brady played better with the proper footballs so why would the Pats intentionally mess with Brady's balls? It is well known that QBs prefer specially handled/inflated balls between the PSI min/max limits.

Changing the PSI of a ball would throw off Brady's mechanics and make him play worse. And this is proof as his 2nd half statistics, with the proper footballs, were better than his first half which had the under inflated balls.

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While I agree that it lends support to the fact that the Patriots won legitimately, I don't necessarily think that because Brady performed better with the unaltered balls means the Pats did not deflate the original balls. There are so many variables that go into a QB's performance along with the fact that the Patriots may have thought that the deflated balls gave them a better chance (for whatever reason).

2000army said:

Where did you hear #2?

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Feldger and Mazz were quoting some report. I didn't catch who. ... again, not necessarily true, just not trending the right way.

The media are the ones behind this. Every team does this, and the Colts turned us in out of bitterness. Plain and simple. Just like the Jest did with the camera BS. And every hater will push the agenda to the ends of the earth

PatsWickedPissah said:

• One more time. Why do you folks to listen & watch people whose agenda is to trash your team?

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I'm a union electrician. I Watch the NFL, BSPN..ETC every morning with coffee. I drive sometimes 100 miles, each way, a day and listen to sports radio the whole way. . I stop at the local pub for a few on the way home, 10 TVs with sports on. I finally go home, take a shower and sit down and watch, you guessed it.

ctpatsfan77 said:

Because the only thing that matters is the actual temperature inside the football. The wind chill is the apparent temperature as a result of wind speed (if X°F at Y mph has a wind chill of Z°F, that means that Z°F at 0 mph would feel the same as X°F at Y mph).

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And the inside of the football is a closed system? Incorrect. There is heat transfer as long as the temperature inside is higher than outside. That heat transfer is accelerated by wind.

BelichickFan said:

I know this will sound crazy but I wonder if we had a bad pressure gauge. In one of the Rules sections it said the team provides the balls and a pressure gauge. If we pumped the ball with a bad gauge and gave that to the refs that could explain why they measured OK. Question at halftime, use a different gauge and, voila. Also Brady played better in the second half, no ducks like the one to Vereen that looked like it was, um, under inflated.

OK, far fetched, but even if we did it I don't see how we would logistically unless the balls aren't kept very securely after the first weigh in.

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Honestly, at this point anything's in play. Mort's report did mention using two gauges used by the refs at halftime.

It's impossible to stay away from this story but I wish I could just avoid all internet and television until the NFL releases their report. I'm cautiously optimistic, when I went to bed last night the last thing I heard was Mort's report about 11 of 12 being underinflated; when I woke up today it was a firestorm of accusations and calling for Belichick's head. As the day's worn on I've seen more and more current and ex-NFL players, coaches and QB's--even Indy players!--saying this is completely overblown. On various message boards I frequent and in threads with friends who root for other teams I've seen some level of sanity take hold.

I think the Pats will be sanctioned by the NFL, but I don't think it'll be that bad, I think public perception will flip to a more level-headed stance as more and more people defend the Pats, and I think in five years people will talk about this as just another in a long, long line of gamesmanship in the NFL.

Double TE said:

Finally a rational post

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Don't get too excited about a rational post.......it's only one of distinct minority so far. But to kill the suspense, I have looked into my magic 8 Ball and it says the chances for ever increasing rational posts are good (I don't know, maybe it's due to emotion wearing off and an actual thinking process taking hold within the masses?? Nah, that couldn't be it...).

Since the 2nd half balls were legal this is a non story. Honestly.

We potentially now know what the stoppage in play was at the start of the 3rd quarter:

WEEI said:

The Patriots used 12 backup footballs for the second half of Sunday’s AFC championship game after issues were found with most of the original 12 balls used by the offense in the first half, an organizational source told WEEI’s Joe Zarbano. Team spokesman Stacey James confirmed to WEEI.com that the team had 24 footballs available, 12 of which were tested by the officials pregame and another dozen stored inside as backups. After the officials found that the majority of the balls used in the first half were below the acceptable PSI as mandated by the NFL, the backup balls were brought in. According to the source, the backup balls were tested and found to be at the correct levels, and subsequently put into play — just barely in time, as the second half already had started by the time the testing was completed. This is why the officials stopped play and swapped out the kicking ball on the first play from scrimmage of the second half.

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To me this can support both theories:

The balls were stored inside, so they hadn't cooled down -- supporting the weather hypothesis.

The balls were stored inside and hadn't been used yet, so ballboys hadn't had a chance to muck with them -- supporting the cheating hypothesis.

karguy85 said:

While I agree that it lends support to the fact that the Patriots won legitimately, I don't necessarily think that because Brady performed better with the unaltered balls means the Pats did not deflate the original balls. There are so many variables that go into a QB's performance along with the fact that the Patriots may have thought that the deflated balls gave them a better chance (for whatever reason).

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Also, let's be clear, this whole situation hinges on deflating vs. under-inflating.

If the Pats simply produced under-inflated balls and they were approved, then the Pats are in the clear and the refs are screwed.

If the Pats are proved to have deflated footballs in-game, it's a huge problem.

But given Indy complained about low pressure balls back in the Indy game, this leads me to believe the Pats are always submitting slight underinflated balls and the refs approve them BECAUSE IT MAKES NO ****ING DIFFERENCE AND IS A MATTER OF PERSONAL PREFERENCE TO THE GUY TOUCHING THE BALL EVERY SINGLE PLAY.

TommyBrady12 said:

just a thought, but maybe the pats wanted to run a lot in the first half with blount and go to a more passing attack in the second half? It is much harder to fumble the football with a deflated football.

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I have to re-watch the game as my memory isn't that good. But I believe Blount had his best stats in the second half. Also, Brady passed less in the second half.

Brady was like 11 of 27 or something like that in the first half. So they were passing more in the first half. I need to re-watch the game to refresh my memory but it doesn't look like running a lot in the first half were the Pats main goal.

http://mmqb.si.com/2015/01/21/patriots-tom-brady-bill-belichick-deflategate-ball-controversy/

The belichick part is so personal ...

I disagree that this is an non-story because of the balls being legit in second half.

The issue is whether the Pats violated the rules by modifying the balls after the refs measured them and that's how this seems to be trending but again, nothing official... I disagree that this is a non-issue even if the legal balls were used for the entire game ...it's about the rule violation if true.

Danger Zone said:

That would be the case if the balls were filled and tested with 51 degree air.

But even the critics of the Weather Could Play a Part theory all agree that it is perfectly reasonable to expect that the footballs were tested with normal room temperature air of 70 degrees.

The difference between 70 and 45 is enough to account for significant psi loss.

The psi loss is even more if the footballs were initially filled with air warmer than 70 degrees.

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I can't comment that much due to not having much of a scientific brain, but I certainly believe that the weather may have played a part.

I'm not sure that it may have been quite as much as some may suggest, and it also doesn't really help to explain why Indy's were fine, but yes--I do believe that it may have helped to reduce the pressure.

Unfortunately, we don't get a say in this though, so it's all going to be what Goodell thinks, and that is worrisome.

BelichickFan said:

I know this will sound crazy but I wonder if we had a bad pressure gauge. In one of the Rules sections it said the team provides the balls and a pressure gauge. If we pumped the ball with a bad gauge and gave that to the refs that could explain why they measured OK. Question at halftime, use a different gauge and, voila. Also Brady played better in the second half, no ducks like the one to Vereen that looked like it was, um, under inflated.

OK, far fetched, but even if we did it I don't see how we would logistically unless the balls aren't kept very securely after the first weigh in.

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It may be far fetched but it explains all of the balls being of by the same amount if that is the case.

We got Ivan back!

Man, you guys clinging to the weather excuse have to let it go.

patriot1136 said:

Wait, what did the colts say about using deflated balls in Indy?

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They initially suspected a problem back in November, during the regular season game. Mike Adams picked off two Brady passes and gave them to the equipment mngr, who thought they were definitely light.

they used 2 pressure gauges according to reports (at least at half time). I think that's grasping.

If they were smart enough to store the balls (Pats and Colts), I'm sure they were smart enough to check the gauges.