Schefter: Has Heard Speculation Colts might have deflated the footballs

But it might clear the pats completely because no claims could be made that the NFL covered for us.

I don't think Indy has a first round this year.

BingoBrown said:

I don't think Indy has a first round this year.

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They do.

Last years first went to Cleveland.

Patstopia said:

Doesn't matter what they find, even if they are guilty, the equipment manager will be blamed and fired. Then the club will handle it internally. Just like the the Jets trip-gate with a line of assistant coaches with Rex right behind them. The assistant was canned, and Rex claimed innocence, even if he was standing right in front of it!

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Well the Jets did blame us for giving them the idea.

Year in review: Patriots clobbered by KC, dynasty is over. Make playoffs, beat Baltimore on deceptive practices. Deflategate leading to the biggest game of year. Beat Seattle with spectacular interception at goal line in waning seconds. Everyone (HOF'ers, media, public) criticize Patriots as cheaters. "Colts found guilty of tampering with Patriot's football".......Icing on the cake.

Their owner is a crackhead, when you consider that this seems perfectly plausible.

I find it funny that all these Pats fans that were crying to the heavens about the media treating the team unfairly are now just fine doing the same to the Colts with absolutely no evidence. Actually, it's sad more than funny.

well then, looks like it's time for YOU to move on, Rosey O'Donnell...

JJDChE said:

I find it funny that all these Pats fans that were crying to the heavens about the media treating the team unfairly are now just fine doing the same to the Colts with absolutely no evidence. Actually, it's sad more than funny.

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No, it's neither sad nor funny. It's just equitable.

Jackson 2 said:

No, it's neither sad nor funny. It's just equitable.

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It's not even equitable. We were put through hell in what should have been a great week. Our QB was put through the meat grinder. There's nothing funny about it at all.

JJDChE said:

I find it funny that all these Pats fans that were crying to the heavens about the media treating the team unfairly are now just fine doing the same to the Colts with absolutely no evidence. Actually, it's sad more than funny.

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No evidence?

1. D'Qwell Jackson intercept ball.

2. Colts turn ball into league to prompt investigation against the Patriots.

3. Unknown sources claim D'Qwell Jackson "noticed" intercepted ball was "deflated" (it certainly didn't look deflated in any noticeable way in the footage of the play he intercepted it in) and brought it to the attention of the Colts.

4. D'Qwell Jackson later flat out denies this claim completely, leaving inquiring minds wondering how in the hell the investigation was prompted to begin with. "I don't know how it got to this point," he said, "but somehow I'm in the middle of it."

5. Colts GM denies being the one who brought the deflated ball to league's attention when asked directly.

6. Colts GM later (a s I understand it) revealed to have lied about it, and apparently IS the guy who brought it to the league's attention. (exactly who at Indy has such a halo around their head at this point that gives them any benefit of the doubt?) I guess he runs around the Colts sideline and squeezes all intercepted balls to check for slight differences in air pressure? Or just did this one time and happened to strike gold going 1/1?

7. Of all the balls the Patriots used, the ONLY one which was substantially below the league's PSI regulation just happened to be the one the Colts had on their sideline, which they used to prompt the investigation (Oh, what miraculous luck).

And this is just what I can remember off the top of my head.

There's plenty of fishy business going on here where Patriot fans are justifiable in throwing the word "if" around when it comes to the possibility that the people in the upper echelons of the Colts tried to set the Patriots up. Not exactly like the organization is just brimming with class and integrity.

I still think that the league will never investigate this. I don't think they want to find out that there is a conspiracy by the Colts and possibly Ravens to set up the Pats or Brady. I think they want this whole thing to go away not inflame it even more by showing there was a clear conspiracy to set up another team.

The Wells investigation may be classified as an "independent" investigation, but Wells and his company makes millions off of contracts with the NFL every year. So their findings will come up with whatever Goodell wants them to come up with. We saw with the Meuller investigation on how the league handled the Ray Rice situation, their independent investigators report what they want (all the damning stuff in that report were stuff Goodell already copped to).

I don't know if these allegations are true. But if the latest reports of the only ball significantly deflated beyond a few ticks or 1 PSI was the one that Jackson intercepted, then there is something fishy going on. I don't know how 11 balls are within 1 PSI or so of one another and there is one ball that is upwards to 2 PSI less than several of the balls and that ball happens to be the one intercepted by the Colts.

I just don't think the league wants this to go anywhere. I think they want the Wells' report to say the Pats' balls were deflated, there is no evidence of tampering, and the science is inconclusive and then give the Pats a nominal fine to give the impression to the haters that they know the Pats cheated, but they cannot prove it. It is bad outcome for the league, but it is their best of their possible outcomes.

http://fantasynews.cbssports.com/fa...rigson-told-nfl-about-underinflated-footballs

Good news football fans. The 2014 season might be over following the Patriots' victory over the Seahawks in Super Bowl 49 on Sunday, but the Deflategate scandal is live and well.

The latest news about Deflategate concerns Colts general manager Ryan Grigson, who has declined to comment on the subject. However, in an interview that will air on Showtime on Tuesday, NFL executive vice president of football operations Troy Vincent confirmed Grigson told the NFL in the second quarter of the AFC Championship Game the Patriots might be tampering with the footballs, per ProFootballTalk.com.

Although, t's unclear how Grigson learned about the underinflated footballs, per the report.

Leading up to the Super Bowl, the NFL appointed attorney Ted Wells to investigate the claims of underinflated footballs used in the AFC Championship Game. Although, as Wells indicated in late January, the investigation could take some time.

Stay tuned NFL fans. The soap opera that is Deflategate lives on.

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The rest of the footballs were a "tick under", so 12.3 PSI, 12.4 PSI, etc.

If all of the balls were that insignificant in how beneath regulation they were, how would the Colts even suspect there was "tampering" going on?

Is Ryan Grigson that sensitive to a ball .1 PSI under regulation with the squeeze test?

Tom Brady said he noticed no difference in the ball that he was using. Would he have noticed it if the ball was 10 PSI instead of 12.5? If so, that begs the question: Was it 10 PSI while in his possession, or lowered to 10 PSI after the interception?

I believe Tom Brady.

Meanwhile, Grigson didn't even have the integrity to stand by whether he prompted the investigation or not, which according to the NFL, he did.

PATS16N0 said:

No evidence?

1. D'Qwell Jackson intercept ball.

2. Colts turn ball into league to prompt investigation against the Patriots.

3. Unknown sources claim D'Qwell Jackson "noticed" intercepted ball was "deflated" (it certainly didn't look deflated in any noticeable way in the footage of the play he intercepted it in) and brought it to the attention of the Colts.

4. D'Qwell Jackson later flat out denies this claim completely, leaving inquiring minds how in the hell the investigation was prompted to begin with. "I don't know how it got to this point," he said, "but somehow I'm in the middle of it."

5. Colts GM denies being the one who brought the deflated ball to league's attention when asked directly.

6. Colts GM later revealed to have lied about it, and apparently IS the guy who brought it to the league's attention. (exactly who at Indy has such a halo around their head at this point that gives them any benefit of the doubt?) I guess he runs around the Colts sideline and squeezes all intercepted balls to check for slight differences in air pressure? Or just did this one time and happened to strike gold going 1/1?

7. Of all the balls the Patriots used, the ONLY one which was substantially below the league's PSI regulation just happened to be the one the Colts had on their sideline, which they used to prompt the investigation (Oh, what miraculous luck).

And this is just what I can remember off the top of my head.

There's plenty of fishy business going on here where Patriot fans are justifiable in throwing the word "if" around when it comes to the possibility that the people in the upper echelons of the Colts tried to set the Patriots up. Not exactly like the organization is just brimming with class and integrity.

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I'm a professional journalist myself in addition to being a Pats fan, and I was furious about the original misreporting of DeflateGate, which was unethical even by the low standards of the business. But JJD is right, this Colts speculation is just as bad. I heard the Schefter interview and he very much hedged his statement about the theory of the Colts possibly deflating a ball. He certainly didn't "report" it; he responded to a theory posed to him by Boston radio hosts. And the theory involved one football, not "footballs."

There are certainly some things to speculate about here, but it hasn't even been concretely reported that the one football that was 2PSI under was the D'Qwell interception ball (even the "fact" that only one football was 2 psi under comes from unnamed sources via Rapoport). The only reporting about the lone severely deflated ball being the one the Colts had relies upon an unnamed source, just like Chris Mortensen's report.

Obviously people can believe what they want, but I would hope Patriots fans take the moral high ground here and wait until a named source reports some verifiable information before we all jump to conclusions about the Colts or Ravens or whoever.

Don Kipines said:

I'm a professional journalist myself in addition to being a Pats fan, and I was furious about the original misreporting of DeflateGate, which was unethical even by the low standards of the business. But JJD is right, this Colts speculation is just as bad. I heard the Schefter interview and he very much hedged his statement about the theory of the Colts possibly deflating a ball. He certainly didn't "report" it; he responded to a theory posed to him by Boston radio hosts. And the theory involved one football, not "footballs."

There's certainly some things to speculate about here, but it hasn't even been concretely reported that the one football that was 2PSI under was the D'Qwell interception ball (even the "fact" that only one football was 2 psi under comes from unnamed sources via Rapoport). The only reporting on that relies upon an unnamed source, just like Chris Mortensen's report.

Obviously people can believe what they want, but I would hope Patriots fans take the moral high ground here and wait until a named source reports some verifiable information before we all jump to conclusions about the Colts or Ravens or whoever.

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Nobody has jumped to conclusions. Everyone in this thread has said "if", and what that would mean.

Your cautioning the moral high ground would be better reserved for people who believe Belichick and Brady snuck into a room through air ducts to deflate footballs after they were cleared for inspection.

That said, I don't believe it is necessarily far fetched that some scumbag or scumbags at the Colts organization would quickly release air from a football and then turn it in to tarnish the Patriots.

Do I need to go through the list of criminals on this football team? They're not exactly a tower of virtue.

PATS16N0 said:

It would be much more than that.

If the Colts deflated a football, and brought it to the league with allegations of `Patriot cheating,` what that would mean is the Colts actively, with premeditation, executed a conspiracy of deception against the NFL in an attempt to dishonestly tarnish a team leading into the Superbowl.

That would mean a LOT more than the loss of a 3rd or 2nd.

That would be NFL bannings for life for the participants, probably the largest fine in NFL history, and easily Indy's 1st, if not two 1sts.

It would be huge.

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Actually, for "competitive reasons", I imagine there's a low limit on the compensation paid TO a victimized team, especially if the victimized team is the Patriots.

Don Kipines said:

I'm a professional journalist myself in addition to being a Pats fan, and I was furious about the original misreporting of DeflateGate, which was unethical even by the low standards of the business. But JJD is right, this Colts speculation is just as bad. I heard the Schefter interview and he very much hedged his statement about the theory of the Colts possibly deflating a ball. He certainly didn't "report" it; he responded to a theory posed to him by Boston radio hosts. And the theory involved one football, not "footballs."

There are certainly some things to speculate about here, but it hasn't even been concretely reported that the one football that was 2PSI under was the D'Qwell interception ball (even the "fact" that only one football was 2 psi under comes from unnamed sources via Rapoport). The only reporting about the lone severely deflated ball being the one the Colts had relies upon an unnamed source, just like Chris Mortensen's report.

Obviously people can believe what they want, but I would hope Patriots fans take the moral high ground here and wait until a named source reports some verifiable information before we all jump to conclusions about the Colts or Ravens or whoever.

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The only report right now I believe is true is the Rapaport report that all the balls except one were not nearly as deflated as what Mortensen reported (all being 2 PSI under). There have been far too many other reporters who have said they heard the same thing and Mortensen has seemed to back off that report and not defended it. The rest is pure speculation at this time.

But if the intercepted ball is 1 PSI or more deflated than all the other balls, that should raise red flags. I know they all wouldn't be deflated the same amount, but if most the balls are either 1 PSI or just under and only one ball is 2 PSI under, that is statistically improbable. That should be something that Ted Wells investigates if true.

Rob0729 said:

The only report right now I believe is true is the Rapaport report that all the balls except one were not nearly as deflated as what Mortensen reported (all being 2 PSI under). There have been far too many other reporters who have said they heard the same thing and Mortensen has seemed to back off that report and not defended it. The rest is pure speculation at this time.

But if the intercepted ball is 1 PSI or more deflated than all the other balls, that should raise red flags. I know they all wouldn't be deflated the same amount, but if most the balls are either 1 PSI or just under and only one ball is 2 PSI under, that is statistically improbable. That should be something that Ted Wells investigates if true.

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I would like to know what "one tick" under regulation meant. Since PSI seems to be measured in tenths (?) I assumed we were potentially talking about the other balls being in the neighborhood of 12.3, 12.4, 12.2, etc. If they meant -1 PSI, I assume they would of said that, instead of "a tick under."

PATS16N0 said:

Nobody has jumped to conclusions. Everyone in this thread has said "if", and what that would mean.

Your cautioning the moral high ground would be better reserved for people who believe Belichick and Brady snuck into a room through air ducts to deflate footballs after they were cleared for inspection.

That said, I don't believe it is necessarily far fetched that some scumbag or scumbags at the Colts organization would quickly release air from a football and then turn it in to tarnish the Patriots.

Do I need to go through the list of criminals on this football team? They're not exactly a tower of virtue.

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You're doing the same thing people did when they rushed to judgment because of Spygate. Irsay's drug problem and Jackson's pizza-guy arrest don't add up to tampering with a football.

There are no facts in this story yet, just bits and pieces of totally unconfirmed information. The only thing speculating on that kind of info does is take the sting out of it for the Colts if it turns out to be true that they tampered with a ball. If you want them to look as bad as possible if they do turn out to be guilty, it doesn't make sense to create sympathy now by accusing them before the facts are in.

Patriot fans speculating isn't the same as the media pronouncing guilt. Pats fans don't have the platform and aren't assumed to be disinterested.

Ridiculous to equate the two.