Zolak - Patriots think the league has NOTHING

I watched the 40 second deflation video and while it seems plausible I also noted in the write up that only deflating the balls took 40 seconds. Walking in shutting the door, etc made the whole thing take 77 seconds according to their write up. Clearly he was rushing which the ball attendant wouldn't have been doing but I don't think its totally out of the realm of possibility that a person could do it all in 90 seconds. That being said the most likely thing to have happened in the bathroom is still he taking a piss.

Now at the end of the day little facts that we are all missing are the crux of the story. I think these will eventually come out in Wells story. Basically the Patriots guilt/innocence will come down to:
- Where were the colts balls inflated?
- Where were the Pats balls inflated?
- Did the refs document there initial testing?
- Did anyone see the refs do the initial testing?
- Where were the Pats balls checked?
- Where were the Colts balls checked?
- How long were the Pats balls in a different environment when checked?
- How long were the Colts balls in a different environment when checked?
- Where where the Pats and Colts balls when they were refilled?
- Where were the Pats and Colts balls when they were rechecked?
- Does the video of every other game show the ball attendant going to the bathroom before the game?

Without the answers to these questions I think it is really pointless trying to come to any conclusion. We don't have those details but I have to think the Wells investigators must by this point. I still cling to the Patriots adamant denials as their belief that these facts are in their favor but that is hardly 100%. I still also can't believe that we are talking about the slight deflation of footballs the week before the superbowl. What a travesty.

The Brandon Five said:

That's fine. I want to see them test balls at every outdoor game next year in November-January. I expect fines for every team that had balls that obey the laws of physics.

I also want to see the video of the head coach not just adjusting the balls, but taking them out of the bag, adjusting them and putting them back in the bag in under a minute.

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And taking a piss? Can we see that too?

upstater1 said:

People are letting other fans get to them.

In discussing this with some Patriots haters, even they admit that the whole ballboy thing is hilarious and that he was just in there taking a piss.

Anyone who continues in this vein of pinning it on the ballboy is just clearly trying to get a rise out of Patriots fans.

But then there are all the other twits who deny basic laws of science. Those people are just ignorant, like Peter King.

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They are taking the pi$$.

BSR said:

I watched the 40 second deflation video and while it seems plausible I also noted in the write up that only deflating the balls took 40 seconds. Walking in shutting the door, etc made the whole thing take 77 seconds according to their write up. Clearly he was rushing which the ball attendant wouldn't have been doing but I don't think its totally out of the realm of possibility that a person could do it all in 90 seconds. That being said the most likely thing to have happened in the bathroom is still he taking a piss.

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AFAIK the bathroom in question does not have a handicapped stall like that. So, nice try.

And why would the attendant be looking over his shoulder? No one gave a crap about ball pressure before we beat the Colts and this asinine non-troversy started.

PatsWickedPissah said:

Why does nearly everyone ignore the biggest item, the laws of physics?
If the refs set the balls at 12.5 psi or thereabouts n their indoor locker room, the balls HAD to be deflated at halftime.
People ignoring this basic fact is mind-blowing.

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We're discussing preponderance of evidence and lower burden of proof, PWP.

I'm giving examples of how that applies. This is according to Goodell's policy change in 2008.

As stated many times now, if it were "just" about the balls being deflated (and physics, per your example), we'd be in a much better place. Unfortunately, now there's proof that the ball boy left to go to an unauthorized area. Explaining those 2 "coincidences" may be a challenge.

Fawn Lebowitz said:

If the balls must lose 2 psi due to the cold and rain, why didn't the balls used in the second half lose psi?

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Simple they were inflate when already cold, so no effect int he 2nd half. The heat content of the air is inconsequential because of the much large mass of the cold, wet ball and bladder.

If the balls had been allowed to get wet and were filled after being at the ambient temperature and were filled outside there never would have been an issue.

supafly said:

We're discussing preponderance of evidence and lower burden of proof, PWP.

I'm giving examples of how that applies. This is according to Goodell's policy change in 2008.

As stated many times now, if it were "just" about the balls being deflated (and physics, per your example), we'd be in a much better place. Unfortunately, now there's proof that the ball boy left to go to an unauthorized area. Explaining those 2 "coincidences" may be a challenge.

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Really a ball boy can empty a ball bag, deflate the balls (to Brady's liking) and place them back in the bag in 90 seconds. Great love to see a demonstration of that trick. LOL

supafly said:

We're discussing preponderance of evidence and lower burden of proof, PWP.

I'm giving examples of how that applies. This is according to Goodell's policy change in 2008.

As stated many times now, if it were "just" about the balls being deflated (and physics, per your example), we'd be in a much better place. Unfortunately, now there's proof that the ball boy left to go to an unauthorized area. Explaining those 2 "coincidences" may be a challenge.

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Preponderence of evidence does not mean you can come up with one possible theory of guilt that is not supported by any other facts,and call it a day.

Why is it an 'unauthorized' area? There are no instructions that the ball boy must take the balls directly to the field without urination.

patsfan13 said:

Really a ball boy can empty a ball bag, deflate the balls (to Brady's liking) and place them back in the bag in 90 seconds. Great love to see a demonstration of that trick. LOL

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Well, unfortunately, it's all over the internet today with plenty of different examples, so it is creating a bit of a doubt.

It's also believed that the bag wouldn't need to be dumped out, if it's a mesh bag and access may be had to all of the balls.

Do I believe it, personally? No.

A preponderance of evidence in legal terms is associated with indictments. Is there enough evidence to warrant a trial? It neither proves innocence or guilt. Unless the league is going to call a tribunal they're misusing the term. If they're going to punish just on the basis of some evidence circumstantial or otherwise that pure BS.

AndyJohnson said:

Preponderence of evidence does not mean you can come up with one possible theory of guilt that is not supported by any other facts,and call it a day.

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"Preponderance of Evidence" is simply the burden of proof. With Goodell's policy change, that has lessened significantly.

Things looked much better back when it was a case of simple physics. Now we also have a proven case of taking the balls into an unauthorized area as well.

I'm not claiming that we're screwed, but you'd have to bury your head in the sand to not realize that it's worse than it was before.

supafly said:

Well, unfortunately, it's all over the internet today with plenty of different examples, so it is creating a bit of a doubt.

It's also believed that the bag wouldn't need to be dumped out, if it's a mesh bag and access may be had to all of the balls.

Do I believe it, personally? No.

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Doubt it's a mesh bag. They need to keep the balls dry on the sidelines.

Cramden said:

Doubt it's a mesh bag. They need to keep the balls dry on the sidelines.

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Agreed.

I'm simply stating where the doubt lies.

Again--I don't believe that anything happened, but those who don't believe that we're up against something may be kidding themselves. We'll have to see.

patsfan13 said:

BY rule it is the refs job to ensure that the balls are legal ie properly inflated. They ruled the balls legal so they were properly inflated according to the NFL.

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No, as someone else already said, it just means they checked them. It doesn't mean they did their jobs correctly, that their equipment was accurate or properly calibrated, or that they did their jobs honestly.

I mentioned this in another thread, but I think it bears repeating. Besides the effect of temperature and barometric pressure on the air pressure in a football, their is another possibly important effect that could significantly impact pressure, and NO ONE IS TALKING ABOUT IT: leather is a porous material and when it gets wet, like wood, it swells. Swelling => greater volume inside the football => lower air pressure all other things being equal. (PV = nRT => P = nRT/V).

Anyone remember what the weather was doing that day? I do. It was raining buckets. Maybe if a lot of us keeping writing about this to Mike Reese he will mention it in his blog and in turn, prompt the NFL investigators to um... investigate it.

PatsWSB47 said:

Listening to Florio on WEEI right now. says the NFL can punish the Pats simply because the balls weren't at 12.5. No explanation or proof of intent is needed. said another head coach tested to see if he could deflate 12 balls in 90 seconds and he was told he did and still had time to take a piss. Lets face it, Pats are going down on this. The leaks are leaks for a reason, they want to take the pats down.

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The issue isn't whether the balls met regulations, it is whether the Pats deliberately tampered with them. If there is no finding of guilt on the latter point I would be happy to see the team pay the $25K fine. Trust me, they have already spent way more than defending themselves against these allegations.

Double TE said:

Its because the Dolts balls were within the required range. People are hanging on to that "fact".

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Still haven't seen any official statement that asserts that "fact". Just reporters quoting other reporters quoting unnamed sources.

PromisedLand said:

No, as someone else already said, it just means they checked them. It doesn't mean they did their jobs correctly, that their equipment was accurate or properly calibrated, or that they did their jobs honestly.

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The refs cleared the balls for play the NFL said they measured the balls, perhaps the NFL is lying and covering for the refs, matter of fact I think that is what happened, but it really doesn't matter if the refs approve the balls they are legal to use in the game.

PatsWickedPissah said:

There have been numerous detailed posts here that answer that question.
Physics.
Balls filled at halftime to X psi and temperature T should be at just about the same pressure at the end of the game because the temperature never changed more than 2 degrees or so.
Question definitively answered and rendered moot.

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The most frustrating part of this entire discussion to me is that BB and the Patriots actually REPLICATED the conditions, and reported the results.
How could? What if? and why? questions about what happened are pointless without this context.

The Patriots prepped the balls, raising the pis 1 to 1.5 lbs. The Patriots handed the balls to the refs after being prepped (up 1-1.5) and having been stored at indoor temperatures. The effect of bringing them outside is another .5 to 1 psi.
BOTH OF THESE EFFECTS ARE TEMPORARY, AND AS THE BALLS STABILIZES FROM PREPARATION AND WARMS BACK TO ROOM TEMP, THEY GO AWAY.

The Patriots prepare the footballs, on game day, and hand them to the refs in the state where they are temporarily over pressurized by preparation and are at room temp.
Lets assume they are 12.5.
If the balls sat in the room for a few hours, they would drop to 11 to 11.5 (normalizing from the preparation).
If they are taken outside they will now drop another .5 to 1 pound and be anywhere from 10 to 11.
When they are return inside they will warm to 11 to 11.5 but never again reach the 12.5 that the refs measured (if they did) because the effect of prep is gone forever.

The Colts balls were prepped in Indy (I cant fathom why they would do it here). So the Patriots footballs and the Colts footballs will differ in deflation by 1 to 1.5 psi because of the effect of preparation. Since the balls are delivered to the refs 2:15 before kickoff, we do not know where they were stored, so we do not know whether the effect of being taken into the cold would apply.

Patriots footballs if started at 12.5 will be 11 to 11.5
Colts if started from 12.5 to 13.5 would be either 12.5 to 13.5 if started cold, or 11.5 to 13 if started from warm.

As far as the second half footballs, that is very easy to explain as well.
These balls by the time the game was over had return to 'pre-prep' equilibirum, and inflated to whatever the refs did, and had been in the cold already, so had neither effect (prep or cold) impacting them, so they would have measured the same before and after.

This is incontroverible logic if taken with the results of a field test to replicate conditions that BB did.
It cannot be disproven without a separate field test to show BBs findings are wrong, and they would have to be drastically wrong.

To me the key fact NOT in evidence here is whether there was in fact a controlled experiment done by the officials. Did they in fact recheck BOTH teams' balls, or only the Patriots'? If they did check the Colts' balls and found them to have retained significantly more pressure than the Patriots', that would imply something was different about our balls - either they were messed with, or their was something different about them already when the officials checked them pre-game. Without that control, it is difficult to draw any conclusive results from the simple fact that the balls allegedly measured less at halftime than they did pre-game.

BTW I have an MS and BS in engineering from two of the best American engineering schools. I know the physics.