Peter King: Footballs were tampered with by human

BradyManny · Jan 23, 2015

Bobsyouruncle said:
Holy cow, look how flat that ball is! Any team playing with it would win 100-0!

Tom Brady would kill to play with that ball.

Tunescribe · Jan 23, 2015

Breaking news! Investigators have identified another suspect. This one appears to have been caught in the act!

Seacoast Fan · Jan 23, 2015

I love how Peter King says his information was based on a "reliable source". We've already seen how an anonymous "reliable source" can be wrong, viz, the the D'Qwell Jackson (sp?) angle. And his reliable source apparently differs from what Mortensen or others were reporting regarding the number of balls, and the amount of air let out of each one.
This is why they do not let hearsay into the court room. It is just so irresponsible to keep repeating this stuff as if it were fact and then drawing damning and indeed defamatory conclusions.

Tunescribe · Jan 23, 2015

Still more evidence of Peter King/media lies! It's a genuine conspiracy!

chasa · Jan 23, 2015

"I find it deflating that my colleague, Peter King, actually called for the league to institute background checks on ball boys and make them pass through metal detectors before reaching the sidelines, an idea that sounds somewhat reasonable in today’s everything-is-absolutely-critically-important-and-we-must-get-it-right climate that pervades the NFL." -Don banks.

winner winner chicken dinner.

Ice_Ice_Brady · Jan 23, 2015

I was expecting to see some evidence of how the balls actually showed tampering, by a needle hole or puncture in a sticker, or something along those lines.

So Peter King took the known facts that the world has known as week and added the conclusion that the balls were tampered with by a human, even though there is still no clear evidence that the balls were tampered with by a human. What an incredible writer with well-placed sources throughout the NFL.

Since we learned that all of the footballs were underinflated, which broke earlier this week, the only real developments that have come up since then:

-The D'Qwell Jackson story was false and he could not tell.
-The Ravens fabricated a story that their kicking balls were deflated, only to backtrack when they realized the K balls are handled by the NFL.
-It was learned that the NFL was actually watching the Patriots the whole time in a sting operation and still have no evidence.
-The Colts knew the balls would be tested as they were in on it to, so the weight of their balls becomes completely irrelevant.
-The NFL has been interviewing tons of people, trying every angle to prove something they are not sure of, yet not Tom Brady, and they have absolutely nothing.
-The Patriots have adamantly denied doing anything to the footballs.

-Every new organization in the world joins in the witchhunt and proclaims the Patriots guiltier by the day.

pencilneckgeek · Jan 23, 2015

Sorry if this is a rehash of what others have said. I can't bring myself to read these threads. However, I am happy to comment on the physics.

Reinflating the balls at half-time by adding 2 psi would not substantially change the temperature of the balls. The mass added to produce that change would undo less than 10% of the temperature effect. That is, the balls would heat up by 10% more than if they did not re-infate them. There is more mass of air in the ball, due to the reinflation, and that causes the cold ball to meet the pressure requirements. When the ball is subsequently brought outside, 5 minutes later, it does not appreciably cool, and therefore the pressure is unchanged.

The Colts balls are another issue. They may be more airtight, due to their different prep. They may have been inflated to 13.5 psi originally, and thus the inevitable 1 psi drop due to basic physics would put them around 12.5 psi. It is, of course, possible that Tom was skirting the rules, too, but that's outside my area of expertise, so I'll leave that to the many, many experts.

neuronet · Jan 23, 2015

BadMoFo said:
So you're saying it was much colder on our sidelines. Ok. That's believable.

You are assuming both sides started at the exact same PSI. A questionable assumption.

neuronet · Jan 23, 2015

Ice_Ice_Brady said:
-It was learned that the NFL was actually watching the Patriots the whole time in a sting operation and still have no evidence.

Wait what?

iapatsfan · Jan 23, 2015

Once again, another article that doesn't specify a pressure gauge was used BEFORE the game. Every time a gauge is mentioned, it is when discussing halftime and post-game. Has there been a single report that definitively states a pressure gauge was used BEFORE the game?

My theory - Nobody (including officials) paid any attention to the specific PSI of footballs before NFL games. The balls were probably presented to officials who then felt them, and at that point determined they were good to go. I do not believe that NFL officials inserted a pressure gauge into every game ball last Sunday. I would bet they didn't for any of them. Because it is such an inconsequential thing, I'm sure the "quick feel and ok it" method was a regular occurrence. The balls were probably the exact same PSI when they were pulled out of the game that they were when the officials OK'd them.

I would bet the officials are pissed for something so insignificant becoming an issue. If my theory is correct, the "low pressure tattletale" on the Colts is going to end up doing nothing but making the officials look bad. If the balls were approved by NFL officials at a lower than required pressure, that is on the NFL, not the Patriots. I'm sure if the officials told them to bump up the pressure BEFORE the game, they would have done it. They did it as soon as they were made aware DURING the game, and it made no difference in Brady's performance.

In summary, Peter King is a lazy moron.

ausbacker · Jan 23, 2015

How is it possible for the Patriots footballs to have been reinflated by the end of the game if;

1. The Patriots used footballs belonging to the Colts before halftime.
2. The footballs belonging to the Patriots were confiscated and put into the NFL's care.
3. The Patriots used 12 back-up footballs in the second half.

Further proof that the media has no ****ing idea what they are reporting on and they can't get their simple timeline of events universally correct.

kennyb · Jan 23, 2015

neuronet said:
You are assuming both sides started at the exact same PSI. A questionable assumption.

Not only that he's assuming the Colts balls were inflated witg the same temperature air ours were. If they were inflated with 50 degree air brought inside for a quick pressure test then back outside then of course they would lose no psi.

This is simple stuff. Ours were probably put inside for a while pumped up at 75. 45 at halftime means psi goes down 1.3 or so.

kennyb · Jan 23, 2015

Sticky Caulk said:
I think what he is saying is that the Pats balls were refilled after the first half and did not drop again. Which doesn't make sense either, but who knows. These guys have made so much **** up at this point.

It makes perfect sense if they were filled with outside cold air at the half. The warm air inside the ball loses pressure as it cools. Warm air in ball before the game loses pressure as it cools.

kennyb · Jan 23, 2015

stephens44 said:
PSI drops 18% between 100 degrees F and 0 degrees F. Therefore if the balls were filled indoors at 75 degrees and checked at 45 degrees outdoors hours later, the greatest drop would be about 6%, which is NO WHERE near 2 lbs PSI (It would bring the ball to 11.75 PSI, not 10.5). The temperture change was simply not enough to explain this, not even close actually.

Absolute pressure drops that much not guage pressure. Do you know the difference?

The absolute pressure of the ball at 12.5 is 27.2 psi. That's atmospheric plus guage pressure.

I know you're thinking "yeah yeah" but you need to understand why you're wrong.

If the absolute pressure of the ball goes down 6% then the guage pressure goes down 6% of 27.2 or 1.6 psi. It does not go down 6% of 12.5psi which is what you thought.

So you're quoting something you don't understand and getting the wrong answer.

18% is ABSOLUTE PRESSURE CHANGE. 12.5 IS A GUAGE PRESSURE. THEY'RE NOT COMPARABLE WITHOUT TAKING AIR PRESSURE IN TO ACCOUNT.

kennyb · Jan 23, 2015

upstater1 said:
Read the article in the boston globe in which a Phyiscist Schmaltz says it would take 30 minutes for a 1 or 2 PSI drop in those the games temperatures

No he's read something he doesn't understand without knowing he doesn't understand it and his minds made up.

Ice_Ice_Brady · Jan 23, 2015

neuronet said:
Wait what?

Maybe not "learned" but more than implied. The initial story broke that the Colts became suspicious when Jackson intercepted the ball. That later debunked (by the way, will that writer be suspended for the Super Bowl for citing a false source?) It was then reported, and apparently the real story, that actually the NFL was planning to investigate the balls at halftime and were suspicious of this prior to the game. So, you are telling me that the Patriots were not being monitored by the NFL? If they weren't, isn't there some kind of entrapment law that protects people from being setup? Meanwhile, the Colts are okay with them playing the first half with underinflated balls, a gigantic advantage I may add, obviously, so long as they would be busted?

PYPER · Jan 23, 2015

BadMoFo said:
So you're saying it was much colder on our sidelines. Ok. That's believable.

In matters such as these, one must analyze the variables. If air pressure on the Colts and Patriots balls were different, how could that happen.

A) Were they filled at the same location? If the Colts balls were filled in a cold area while the Patriots filled theirs in a warm one, that could explain the difference.

B) Teams are allowed to "condition" their footballs. It is possible that the footballs ability to maintain pressure could be compromised by this process. A brand new ball will typically maintain pressure longer than an 10 year old ball. When teams "condition" their footballs, they are essentially aging them artificially. Since each team has their own processes and end goal in how they condition the ball, this could explain the discrepancy.

Either scenario is possible. Some might then say, "Well, then why did the Patriots balls maintain pressure in the 2nd half". The variable there goes back to option A listed above. When the officials reinflated the Patriots footballs, where did that occur. If it was on the field or in an otherwise cold location like the tunnel or something, those balls would maintain pressure because the air being put into them would have been cold "condensed" air. Since it was already cold air, it wouldn't have changed in the 2nd half.

Personnally, I think I've nailed this mystery. Time to move on.

upstater1 · Jan 23, 2015

Ice_Ice_Brady said:
Maybe not "learned" but more than implied. The initial story broke that the Colts became suspicious when Jackson intercepted the ball. That later debunked (by the way, will that writer be suspended for the Super Bowl for citing a false source?) It was then reported, and apparently the real story, that actually the NFL was planning to investigate the balls at halftime and were suspicious of this prior to the game. So, you are telling me that the Patriots were not being monitored by the NFL? If they weren't, isn't there some kind of entrapment law that protects people from being setup? Meanwhile, the Colts are okay with them playing the first half with underinflated balls, a gigantic advantage I may add, obviously, so long as they would be busted?

If the Patriots were being monitored this story would have been over 10 seconds after the final whistle.

They would have either caught the culprit redhanded, or realized there was no deliberate deflation.

kennyb · Jan 23, 2015

If they were being monitored they definitely pressure checked the balls.

72 to 45 means 12.5psi goes to 11.1 psi.

RhodyPatriot · Jan 23, 2015

Bertil said:
He has obviously started with a conclusion in mind and evolved a tortured justification to support it.

I'd bet they were NEVER checked with a pressure gauge before the game.

Peter King: Footballs were tampered with by human

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