Predict the Outcome of the Investigation

Guys, anyone hear anything on the latest on this fiasco?

My prediction: A lawyerly walk thru a mine field.

The lawyers admit that there is absolutely no way to measure any meaningful pressure without ALSO measuring the temperature of the air inside the balls. So they will institute a procedure to do this. They will have charts with air temperatures (from -10°F to 120°F. At each temp, there will be a minimum acceptable pressure & a maximum acceptable pressure.

Note again, that the temperature is NOT the ambient air temp.
Instead, it is the temperature of the air INSIDE THE BALLS.!
Once they have equilibrated for a long time, these temps will be equal, but there is NO guarantee of that, when they are taken from warm to cold or from cold to warm temps.

Here is what it will read, based purely on the theoretical pressure lapse rate, in 10°F increments:

Temp Min P Max P
(°F) (psig) (psig)

10 9.2 10.3
20 9.7 10.8
30 10.3 11.4
40 10.8 11.9
50 11.3 12.4
60 11.8 13
70 12.3 13.5
80 12.8 14
90 13.3 14.6
100 13.8 15.1
110 14.3 15.6
120 14.9 16.1

Note that this chart shows the current values (12.5 psi min, 13.5 psi max) at 72°F.

This shows EXACTLY what temperature does to pressure...

Announcement on April 3 at 5:00 PM Eastern Time - it's Good Friday and the beginning of Passover, and if I'm not mistaken (going off the top of my head here) the weekend of the Final Four, with the beginning of the MLB season following shortly thereafter, so it looks to me to be a good time to issue a statement meant to be snuck in under the radar. Just a statement, no press conference, nothing but lawyer-speak stating no definitive evidence of wrongdoing, no implication to the Colts, the refs, or anyone else, and certainly no apology to the Pats. Goodell, Kensil, and the other members of the rat squad will be off on 2-week vacations and unavailable for public comment until the draft a month hence. In short, it will be swept under the rug.

PatsWickedPissah said:

Wait! Point to the ONE ball, you mean the ONE ball that was away in the possession of the Colts and was "tampered" with by them measuring its psi lord knows how many times before crying to mommy, I mean the refs?

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You asked what I think the NFL will do. You did not ask what I think is right.

What's is the big deal, in the second the Pats. scored more points with the correct PSI .
rem

Let's posit that the league does hand out this dumb ass fine.
Were I Kraft, I'd insist that the league audit balls at halftime for every game.
This league is so dumb that all would go well early in the season. Lulled into complacency. Heh!
Suddenly in December, balls in games the North are going way out of spec, dropping in psi all over the place. Teams "cheating" and being fined left & right. Green Bay's season suspended for repeat violations in blatant disregard of Goodell's edict!
Teams "cheating" and being fined left & right.
Hilarity ensues.
Major clown show.

kennyb said:

A press conference with an articulate science person who explains in detail why the patriots balls lost a small amount of pressure and the colts balls lost less or none or whatever (most likely because the colts balls were colder upon initial pressure test). A full video demonstration of a ball being subjected to moisture and losing pressure.

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Without the crucial data that, by the NFL's admission, does not exist, all we can say is that the Colts' balls were in range on the retest. We don't know that they weren't overinflated (as a hedge in the case of a "sting").

AQPE said:

Announcement on April 3 at 5:00 PM Eastern Time - it's Good Friday and the beginning of Passover, and if I'm not mistaken (going off the top of my head here) the weekend of the Final Four, with the beginning of the MLB season following shortly thereafter, so it looks to me to be a good time to issue a statement meant to be snuck in under the radar. Just a statement, no press conference, nothing but lawyer-speak stating no definitive evidence of wrongdoing, no implication to the Colts, the refs, or anyone else, and certainly no apology to the Pats. Goodell, Kensil, and the other members of the rat squad will be off on 2-week vacations and unavailable for public comment until the draft a month hence. In short, it will be swept under the rug.

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This (although perhaps with the words "no provable evidence of wrongdoing").

Plus, of course, a few league sources leaking that they still think the Patriots are guilty.

ctpatsfan77 said:

Without the crucial data that, by the NFL's admission, does not exist, all we can say is that the Colts' balls were in range on the retest. We don't know that they weren't overinflated (as a hedge in the case of a "sting").

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ct, I gotta disagree. Strongly.

You are not prostrating yourself sufficiently before Mother Nature. Careful. She can be a cast-iron ***** if you piss her off with insufficient subservience ...

1) We know that EVERY ball inflated to 12.5 psig @ 75°F WILL show a pressure of 11.0 - 11.2 psig once the air inside has equilibrated to 50°F.

2) We strongly believe that the game balls were basically dry, having sat indoors for at least 24 hours. (I don't believe that the Pats practiced in the rain after 6 pm on Saturday. This would be easy to check.) If confirmed, this means that the leather was basically dry, with a relatively low thermal mass (compared to water soaked leather).

3) We know that it was a cold drizzling rain throughout the first half, which produces an excellent heat sink, quickly drawing the down the temp of the air inside the balls.

3) We know that the balls got soaked, the leather absorbed lots of cold water, thereby adding significantly to the leather's thermal mass.

4) We strongly suspect that the balls were brought inside for their half-time measurement. (More comfortable for the refs, & that's where the pressure gauges were. It's possible that they checked the pressure out on the field, but I doubt it.)

5) We strongly suspect that the exterior of the balls were wiped kinda sorta dry with a towel, once they were brought inside. (It's a natural thing to do when handling the footballs, as I found out in my test. It makes them less slippery & more comfortable to handle.)

6) We know that an external wiping will NOT remove the water from the bulk of the leather. This retains a cold reservoir of water-soaked leather around the internal air bladder, with a significantly higher thermal mass than the dry leather.

7) We know that the only mechanism at work in warming the air inside the bladder is thermal conduction thru the 4 layers (bladder elastomer, vinyl, linen, water-soaked leather) and then conduction & convection to the air in the room.

8) We know that items 2 thru 7 above guarantee that the air inside the balls cooled down rapidly & rewarmed very, very slowly.

9) ALL of the above applies just as much to the Colts' balls as it does to the Pats' balls.

10) I believe that the Colts knew nothing more about football thermodynamics than any football team, player, or reporter prior to this incident, and would have had zero clue how to rig the system to allow their balls to pass a half-time pressure inspection while having the Pats' balls fail.

11) "Overinflated Colts' balls" requires that THEIR balls be switched after inspection. Which is just as dumb as the Pats' balls being switched after inspection. Mr. Occam says "No f'king way, José!"

My conclusions:

i) It is 100% IMPOSSIBLE that the Colts' balls were checked & found to be "within specs". This violates the rules of this universe.

ii) It is 100% IMPOSSIBLE that the Colts' balls were checked, found to be 1.0 to 2.0 psi under pressure (as they would have to have been) & NOT have that information be released.

iii) Due to i) & ii) above, it is impossible that the Colts' balls were inspected at all.

R E M said:

What's is the big deal, in the second the Pats. scored more points with the correct PSI .
rem

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Damn right. Can you imagine Brady's numbers if he got to throw regulation PSI his whole career!?

"We know that EVERY ball inflated to 12.5 psig @ 75°F WILL show a pressure of 11.0 - 11.2 psig once the air inside has equilibrated to 50°F."

We do not know that the ambient room temp was 75 or 70 or whatever, just "normal locker room temperature" according to BB. For all we know they may run the locker rooms a couple degrees cooler when playing in cold weather to lessen the transition for the players.

Worse yet we have only leaked rumors as to the psi of allegedly tested Pats footballs at halftime. Bottom line is that we have no real data. I don't think the NFL has anything more than the refs' imperfect recollections of measuring balls at halftime.

But the point is moot because footballs inflated to 12.5 psi at anything resembling room temperature must be measurably below NFL allowable psi after an hour outside at 50 degrees. MUST.

It's mind-blowing that not one individual in authority became aware of this (through a friend, professional contact, etc.) within 24 or at worst 48 hours of this becoming an issue. I realized this immediately upon hearing about it Monday, going WTF?

Science does not matter in Goodell's NFL, He creates his own facts and enforces his own rules thanks to powers given him by Kraft and the other owners. Too bad Kraft didn't realize what a POS he empowered and supported when it mattered. He maybe PO'd now but it's way too late.

PatsWickedPissah said:

It's mind-blowing that not one individual in authority became aware of this (through a friend, professional contact, etc.) within 24 or at worst 48 hours of this becoming an issue. I realized this immediately upon hearing about it Monday, going WTF?

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Technical illiteracy.

But worse than that. WILLFUL, obstinate technical illiteracy.

I was in Phoenix for the week before the Super Bowl. I buttonholed 60 to 70 reporters, and about a dozen sports radio talk shows, newspapers, etc. INCLUDING the entire sports reporter staff at the Boston Globe. (Gasper was civil and slightly helpful, but uninterested in hearing or writing about the facts. Bob Ryan is a total f***ing *******. Surprised me.)

I told them that I could explain exactly what happened, show them the calculations & that I'd run the experiment to prove it.

ONLY ONE actually gave me the 10 minutes to listen to the explanation. They complained that "there's no way to make equations seem interesting to the readers." And never followed up on anything.

The rest were not the slightest bit interested in hearing the facts.
NO, that statement is wrong. It's too soft.

The rest were ADAMANT that they did NOT want to hear the facts.

They didn't want to ruin their perfectly fun, sensational lynching.

I asked a couple of them if it bothered them that they were accusing innocent people of cheating & lying. For most, the meaning of the question didn't even register. For a cynical few, the answer was "Nope, doesn't bother me at all."

I really wish you had a video of a few of them reacting to your info. It would expose them for the frauds they are.

You think that the press that writes say about politics etc. is any different? I don't.

Calhoun, unfortunately I was alone. Nobody to hold a camera.

One thing that's interesting: Whenever I read newspaper stories regarding things that I know a lot about (mechanical engineering, medical devices, rock climbing, etc.), I end up asking myself "What moron wrote this crap. It's ALL wrong."

Then, one day about 30 years ago, I had a revelation: "Since they get all these things so wrong on the topics that I know about, WHY THE HELL do I hold on to the belief that they get the fact correct in the topics that I don't know about??"

The answer is, "they don't. They get huge parts of EVERY story completely wrong."

I used to give interviews once a year or so in my line of work and eventually I just stopped granting interviews because they would always make me look silly, clueless or just plain stupid by mixing up the facts or misquoting me. Usually it was a piece that was trying to support the work I was doing and it always felt like it was doing the opposite. It makes me wonder how some these reporters keep their jobs. I think Marshawn and BB have got it right, just give the reporters as little as possible and they will have less that they can screw up.

tom.kordis said:

One thing that's interesting: Whenever I read newspaper stories regarding things that I know a lot about (mechanical engineering, medical devices, rock climbing, etc.), I end up asking myself "What moron wrote this crap. It's ALL wrong."

Then, one day about 30 years ago, I had a revelation: "Since they get all these things so wrong on the topics that I know about, WHY THE HELL do I hold on to the belief that they get the fact correct in the topics that I don't know about??"

The answer is, "they don't. They get huge parts of EVERY story completely wrong."

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There's even a name for this: Gell-Mann Amnesia