There have been some interesting theories floated on this thread as to how the whole Deflate-Gate mess got started. I have yet another theory for the consideration of those with the patience to read lengthy comments. Its only possibly tenuous assumption is that it assumes that the Colts are not merely lying weasels, as most people on this Board believe, but actually clever lying weasels.
Among the lies that the Colts have told in connection with Deflate-Gate concerns when they first became aware that the Patriots were using underinflated footballs. The story they have been sticking to since D’Qwell Jackson denied bringing the issue to the Colts attention during the AFC Championship Game is that they noticed that the Patriots were playing with underinflated footballs during the November game in Indianapolis, presumably referring to the two balls they intercepted in the first half of that game.
Now if one assumes either that each of the footballs that the Patriots gave to the referee for testing in Indianapolis was inflated to 12.5 PSI, the level that Brady says he likes them, or that any deficiency in air pressure in them was corrected by the referee, as the NFL says the referee is supposed to do and does do, then one wouldn’t expect the air pressure in the two balls that the Colts intercepted in the game in Indianapolis to be more than a tick below 12.5 PSI. The game was played indoors and when one adds the bright lights and body heat of 65,000 plus fans, one wouldn’t expect the temperature on the field during the game to be much below the temperature of the room that the balls were stored and later tested in by the referee. Of course, being indoors, there is no rain that would reduce the internal air pressure of the footballs. However, if the Colts tested the two intercepted footballs with a pressure gauge, they would have gleaned one potentially useful piece of information: that Brady likes to play with footballs at the lower limit of the permissible PSI range.
This is where the clever part comes in. If someone in the Colts organization was familiar with ideal gas law, the Colts might have contrived a way to force Brady to play with overinflated footballs during the second half of the AFC championship game. The Carnegie Mellon experiment indicates that the weather conditions at the game could have caused and probably did cause the Patriots’ footballs to drop between 1 and 2 PSI below the minimum, depending on whether they were taken out of the ball bag and exposed to the pouring rain. By re-inflating the footballs to 12.5 PSI at half-time, the NFL forced Brady to play with balls during the second half that would have tested at 13.5-14.5 PSI when they were warm and dry prior to the game—far more than Brady likes them. In order to bring this about Grigson might have suggested during his conversation with the league office in the week before the game that the league check the pressure of the footballs at half-time. Or, if he didn’t want to be that obvious, say something like the following: “You know we noticed that the Patriots were playing with underinflated footballs during their game against us in Indianapolis. And the funny thing was we saw the referee measure them with a gauge prior to the game.” That would have been enough to steer a Patriots-hater like Kensil to check them at half-time, given a pretext for doing so. The Colts could have reasonably and, in retrospect, accurately anticipated the utter cluelessness of the referees, NFL and entire sports media about the effects of temperature and rain on the internal air pressure of a football.
For this scam to be worth the bother, Luck would need to be a quarterback, like Aaron Rodgers, that either prefers to play or is comfortable with playing with footballs at or above the 13.5 PSI maximum, as the Colts’ footballs also would be checked at half-time of the AFC Championship game. But that might well be the case. Of course, since the Colts knew in advance that there was a good chance that their footballs would be tested at half-time, they could have taken measures to ensure that their footballs stayed above the 12.5 PSI threshold, such as inflating their footballs to the 13.5 PSI maximum before the game or storing their footballs in a cold place (e.g., the unheated storage compartment of a bus) before handing them to the referee to be tested prior to the game. This theory explains why the Colts didn’t raise the issue of underinflated footballs during their game in Indianapolis when they had every incentive to do so: the Patriots’ footballs didn’t fall below the 12.5 PSI threshold during that game.
Now let’s consider what might have happened.
1. Playing with overinflated footballs screws up Brady and the Colts go on to win the AFC Championship Game. Would the story have been, “Patriots get cheated out of AFC Title by being forced to use overinflated footballs during the second half?” Of course not. The story the next day and weeks thereafter would have been, “Patriots try to cheat their way to another title, but fortunately the NFL catches them in time and justice prevails.” Were an investigation conducted, the most that the Patriots could hope for was some tepid conclusion by Wells that there wasn’t enough evidence that the Patriots tampered with the footballs, which is all we’re likely to get anyway. Under no circumstances would Wells risk his relationship with the NFL by suggesting that the NFL may have caused the Patriots to lose the game by unfairly handicapping them with overly inflated footballs. And there is no way making the charge that the Patriots were using underinflated footballs would ever redound to the Colts’ detriment. There is no way to prove that the Colts made this allegation in bad faith as there is no way to prove, absent a confession by the Colts, that the Colts didn’t notice that the Patriots footballs were underinflated at the game in Indianapolis.
2. Colts outscore patriots in second half, but Patriots hang on to win the game anyway. Under this scenario the chorus in the media that the Patriots should be stripped of their title would be loud and large, and would not be confined to loons like Gregg Doyel. The Patriots’ appearance in the Super Bowl would be seen as illegitimate and there would be considerable sympathy for the Colts in the press that they were the rightful representatives of the AFC.
3. Patriots outscore Colts in second half but by not as much as they did in first half. Similar to #2, but not quite as bad from a Patriots perspective, although the claim would be made that had the Colts not been forced to play catch-up because of the Patriots’ cheating that the Colts would have won the game.
4. What actually happened: Patriots outscore Colts by more in the second half with the overinflated balls than they did in the first half. Even with this outcome, there was considerable advantage in insinuating that the Patriots engaged in ball tampering: the scandal deflected attention away from the Colts’ pathetic performance in the AFC Championship Game and tainted the accomplishments of a despised rival in the eyes of the public. The Colts’ minions in the press were also able to score points for high mindedness by conceding that the Patriots’ cheating did not affect the outcome of the game, but that the integrity of the game demanded that the Patriots be punished severely.
Under any of the possible scenarios that the Colts might have contemplated, there was considerable upside and no downside to making a bad faith allegation that the Patriots were using underinflated footballs. The perfect sports crime.
