And now pft takes a moment to acknowledge science AKA backpedals

BradfordPatsFan said:

If the sauna theory holds any water (er...air?) the rule will likely be rewritten that the balls must be inflated and inspected in the same environment where the game will be played to ensure stable air pressure measurements.

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Of course. But the rule isn't written that way now - and the league has NEVER (as far as we know) monitored for this situation and held teams to this standard. Until last Sunday night b/c Irsay had gone full conspiracy theorist on us.

Mike in 333 said:

If the same scenario is applied to the Raven's game the effect could have been even more pronounced since it was much colder that night. There's no rules broken, but some very simple changes to the rules can take the variability out of it pretty easily.

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If the league checked in the Ravens game, the PSI would've been much lower. If the league checked these things at halftime regularly in NE, they would see it happen every time. Rather than assume human tampering, they would use what little power they have in their stupid little brains to reason that Pressure in the ball is dependent on Temperature.

shmessy said:

Really?

THAT horse, Robert, has already left the barn awhile ago.

The NFL needs to close the gray areas in its badly written rules and gain back its credibility.

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You are right, but it is impossible for the NFL to put checks and balances to all of their rules. 32 sets of coaches and players are constantly seeking an edge. The NFL office will continuously be forced to defend themselves.

They would rather make an example of someone - like BB

shmessy said:

IF

I would give them each this slap on the wrist because, while technically legal, BOTH situations go against the intention of the rule. Both intentionally try to get a low Psi ball into play.

$25,000 fine and lumping him with Aaron Rodgers' situation is a message to the haters that while it is a violation of the rules intent (face it, the intent is to make sure the footballs WHILE IN PLAY are somewhat uniform pressure-wise) others - - including Saint Aaron - do it too. And that the NFL WILL change the verbiage of its rules in the future to close the loophole.

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Yup, that is exactly what I suggested a few days back in a different thread.

Given the public knowledge of other teams trying to adjust the footballs (vikings, panthers etc), the NFL now has an easy and efficient way out by fining all teams, including us, and clear up the mess prior to the SB.

The above is also the fair and smart thing to do. Which unfortunately is not what the NFL is prone to.

1960Pats said:

Winter is coming.

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....psssst.....it's January 24th.

Just to give you a heads up!

shmessy said:

....psssst.....it's January 24th.

Just to give you a heads up!

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It's a line from Game of Thrones. I thought everyone would see that.

NYCPatsFan said:

Yup, that is exactly what I suggested a few days back in a different thread.

Given the public knowledge of other teams trying to adjust the footballs (vikings, panthers etc), the NFL now has an easy and efficient way out by fining all teams, including us, and clear up the mess prior to the SB.

The above is also the fair and smart thing to do. Which unfortunately is not what the NFL is prone to.

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Why should the Pats be fined? They haven't done anything wrong or illegal.

BradyManny said:

If the league checked in the Ravens game, the PSI would've been much lower. If the league checked these things at halftime regularly in NE, they would see it happen every time. Rather than assume human tampering, they would use what little power they have in their stupid little brains to reason that Pressure in the ball is dependent on Temperature.

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Wait...isn't there some report that the Colts complained about it back in Nov itself?

If that is correct, I am more leaning to a simple campaign by well connected owners/coaches in the NFL to take down the Pats off-field.

They saw how camera-gate worked:
- a minor rule break was ratched up to high level 'spy' accusation even though BB admitted his error and explained that he misinterpreted the memo that he could continue taping as long as it was not used in the current game (which it never was)
- a public outcry by every pathetic but loud hater
- poor PR by Mr. Kraft and BB
- not surprisingly, a hyper Commy overreacting
- worse, the NFL destroying the tapes without any transperency - which just added fuel to the inferno
- and more terrible, the camera-gate occured @ the beginning of the season and played out the whole season. And yet, it took until the EVE of the SB for the shocking allegation about taping the Rams walkthru.

Who cares if that was proven false later? The smear served the purpose for it has caused even former QBs - however dim witted they are (Warner, Aikmen) - to be convinced that the Pats cheated.

So, simple blueprint:
-----------------------
- find out some minor rule that the Pats broke,
- or better, create new claim (especially after gettng thrashed). For eg: when visting Gillette, leave a couple of their ipads containing not-that-sensitive info.
- after returning, have someone file a complaint to the league that some of their ipads are missing.
- leak it to a local reporter that the ipads were last seen at the Pats visitor's lockerroom and that their missing is a bit 'suspicious'.
----------------------

That's it.

Sit back and enjoy the public lynching.

Pats will return the ipads immediately and put out statement that it was left in the locker room. Even though those ipads cannot be broken into within the few hours that the Pats cleaning guys find them, BSPN to pull up dozen experts to show how ipads can be easily broken into immediately and run this story non-stop.

You can count on Jack Del Rio to chime that they had a 'lot of issues' when playing here. Aikmen will pontify that this is the 'fourth' strike and so the Pats should be banned for ever. Jerry Rice will demand for all the SB titles to be stripped.

Given what happened since last Sunday, isn't the above very possible?

1960Pats said:

Why should the Pats be fined? They haven't done anything wrong or illegal.

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Easy: They are the cause of this huge storm and can't prove that they didn't do it (I know, two negatives, that is why it is easy to pin the blame), whereas many former QBs claim that Brady is bullshitting and so does a good % (you know that is very generous) of the media and national TV networks.

Didn't Goodell claim that ignorance is not an excuse or something like that? Plus, NFL will show that they are treating the Pats equally as the others.

Trust me, I will be thrilled if that happens.

I will be furious if the Pats are singled out for harsher punishment.

And will seriously switching my fav game to curling.

NYCPatsFan said:

Easy: They are the cause of this huge storm and can't prove that they didn't do it (I know, two negatives, that is why it is easy to pin the blame), whereas many former QBs claim that Brady is bullshitting and so does a good % (you know that is very generous) of the media and national TV networks.

Didn't Goodell claim that ignorance is not an excuse or something like that? Plus, NFL will show that they are treating the Pats equally as the others.

Trust me, I will be thrilled if that happens.

I will be furious if the Pats are singled out for harsher punishment.

And will seriously switching my fav game to curling.

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The media and NFL is the cause of this storm.

You really listen to Goody the Jet?!? Stop that this instant.

If the Pats are fined or not, this will still be a great SB if they win.

I enjoy watching curling but I've never played a game.

bpippin said:

Why don't they fill the footballs with nitrogen, I believe nitrogen isn't affected by temp

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you have got to be kidding me! Nitrogen is a gas. The law I cited is the ideal gas law. It is so sad to see the NFL and the entire press corps ignorant of high school science

PatsWickedPissah said:

you have got to be kidding me! Nitrogen is a gas. The law I cited is the ideal gas law. It is so sad to see the NFL and the entire press corps ignorant of high school science

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My favorite was when one sports mediot (Mike Tanier I think?) said he heard the air in the Pats balls were 80% nitrogen, 20% oxygen and questioned why (gee...you know, whats that mixture we call...oh, right AIR.). Thought it was suspicious.

I'm convinced people think the air they breathe is 100% oxygen.

Maybe this is a teaching opportunity (as much as I hate that phrase) to raise consciousness of the populace to HS science.

OK, just fell off the turnip truck there.

BradyManny said:

My favorite was when one sports mediot (Mike Tanier I think?) said he heard the air in the Pats balls were 80% nitrogen, 20% oxygen and questioned why (gee...you know, whats that mixture we call...oh, right AIR.). Thought it was suspicious.

I'm convinced people think the air they breathe is 100% oxygen.

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Are you serious? I can't wait for the SB pregame shows. I guarantee that they will have videos of these experiments and laugh off the entire thing. I just hope they show the totally over reactions of the experts after calling Brady a liar, saying they should be banned etc...

Dr Pain said:

Are you serious? I can't wait for the SB pregame shows. I guarantee that they will have videos of these experiments and laugh off the entire thing. I just hope they show the totally over reactions of the experts after calling Brady a liar, saying they should be banned etc...

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NOW who just fell off the turnip truck?

PatsWickedPissah said:

NOW who just fell off the turnip truck?

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We can lobby for it at least. They have 6 plus hours to fill

If true, this mystery is OVER with no rule-breaking whatsoever occuring.

The sauna treatment right before use was once common in the pre-Kball era:

Reacting to stories of footballs being put in dryers, microwave ovens -- even saunas and hot tubs -- to give kickers an advantage, the league went to the K-ball to create more equality.

http://www.newsday.com/sports/colum...as-solution-on-how-to-fix-this-flat-1.9827623


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slight correction to the scenario though:

The footballs would not have to have been INFLATED while in the sauna, they merely would have had to have been KEPT in the sauna long enough for all of the air inside them to get wicked hot. This takes awhile, since leather poorly conducts heat.

Then 15 min before inspection, take them out of the sauna. The leather surface cools rapidly, but (again since leather conducts heat poorly) the air inside the ball would STILL be very warm, even after 15 minutes.

Voila, Ball passes inspection with 12.5 psi because the air inside it is 100 degrees F. Over the next two hours, outside, the air within the football cools to 50 degrees and the pressure drops 2 psi.


The Colts don’t use a sauna, pressure doesn’t drop for them. Physics does not hate the Patriots in the least!

Somewhat sneaky, 100% legal.

By the way, LOTS of people in football have mentioned saunas as a way to condition/ break in footballs, so it is not even necessarily all that sneaky. More like "Wicked smart"

robertweathers said:

The balls were at 12.5 PSI when the refs checked them.

At some point in time the balls went down in PSI after that time.

If Brady had nothing to do with the reduction in PSI, why should be be fined?

The NFL has a flawed operational process. Period.

Why should he pay a fine for a change when he had no involvement? Just so you can feel better?

@shemessy you are better than that.

This is worth fighting for.

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I agree. This is worth the effort to shove it down the throats of the haters.

Rob0729 said:

That was my take as well.

Of course, back in the day this type of stuff was considered gamesmanship. Now it is the most horrible form of cheating imaginable.

Not to make excuses for the Patriots. But if this is what they did, I can't see how they can get in trouble for it (well, I can because the league wants to or even needs to drop the hammer on them, but they shouldn't be able to in this circumstance). Yes, you can argue it is sneaky and underhanded and treads the line, but I defy anyone to explain how it breaks the rules as they are written. Nowhere in the rules book does it say the balls have to a certain PSI at a certain temperature or that the balls need to be filled and stored at certain room temperature. They just need to be within a certain PSI level at inspection.

It is a loophole in the rule to gain an advantage, but it doesn't violate the letter of the law as it is written. At best you can say it violates the spirit of the law.

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The reality is setting a 12.5-13.5 range 2 hours 15 minutes before the game at room infers this standard is set to produce a desired pressure taking into account all the variables of a game...i.e out door temp, big guys falling, number of plays.

Besides, the refs get the balls on Friday. Things cool.

If you wanted the ball to naturally deflate then the warm air theory makes sense, certainly more than letting air of the ball. If this was the case though why would the team not just come out and say that is what they do.