The Published Wells Report.

I feel the same frustration as all of you. I am a firm believer of the politics of the NFL. I thought the outcome would be different but am now convinced of the continuous framing of our team and Bob Kraft's non power in the league.

I read a good portion of the report and then caught myself. I thought this is what the Goodell and the NFL wants fans to do. Bring credibility to this rag sheet. What I mean by this is

Does it really matter what the psi of footballs are. Doesn't a team still have to give the QB time to throw, the QB choose the right progression, the reciever make the catch, the RB choose the right lane and make the right cuts.

If the NFL really thought the ball psi was important they would control the balls at all times and both teams play with the same balls. Giving teams control of the balls to prepare balls to QB's likings shows they want a precision game on the field.

Carolina were warming the balls up on camera on the sidelines. Rodgers admitted to wanting them overinflated. It is gamemanship that the NFL did not care about until now.

Goodell is using this as a powerplay to try and erase the many errors of last year. He knows 31 other teams fans are begging for him to find fault and punish the Pats. They will love him for it. Fans will stop talking about Ray Rice and feel relieved that this is why their team sucks compared to our team.

We won the SB without any of this nonsense and we know the real truth. Hang in there guys we are still the BEST

Sfpat said:

So to summarize, the NFL wouldn't believe the many scientists who explained what happened, doesn't know how anything happened, isn't sure what happened but believes something happened so concludes that Tom did it in the library with the Candlestick. And one wonders how a certain person was elected President.

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Reagan?

You can't suspend Brady or anyone else based on probably or maybe

Jeff Howe ‏@jeffphowe 3m3 minutes ago
It's more probable than not the Patriots hang a hundo on the Colts next season.

farn said:

All kinds of good points being made by posters. But, in the end, none of us like what's in this report - regardless of our interpretation.

It stinks. And, I can only speak for myself, those texts prove nothing but they are plenty for haters to gobble up. And I wish they didn't exist.

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Actually, the only thing I don't like are the conclusions which are ludicrous and not supported at all by any of The evidence presented.

Palm Beach Pats Fan said:

"Our scientific consultants ultimately informed us that the data alone did not provide a basis for them to determine with absolute certainty whether there was or was not tampering."
-buried on page 112

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Funny the bullet points he used to draw his "more probable" conclusion omitted this, but included increased conversations with Brady after accusations were made. Cherry picking.

ctpatsfan77 said:

Someone over at reddit posted this link about Exponent:

http://articles.latimes.com/2010/feb/18/business/la-fi-toyota-exponent18-2010feb18

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Hilarious.

Brady_to_Moss said:

You can't suspend Brady or anyone else based on probably or maybe

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Agreed, no PROOF or EVIDENCE provided by the Wells Report that Brady did anything wrong. Just a lot of conjecture, and circumstantial evidence and opinions.

ctpatsfan77 said:

Someone over at reddit posted this link about Exponent:

http://articles.latimes.com/2010/feb/18/business/la-fi-toyota-exponent18-2010feb18

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So what is Exponent's involvement with this issue?

Brady_to_Moss said:

You can't suspend Brady or anyone else based on probably or maybe

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Yes but when has Goodell or NFL done anything logical ? they will probably go the way of public opinion.

SVN said:

Yes but when has Goodell or NFL done anything logical ? they will probably go the way of public opinion.

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Rich Hill‏@PP_Rich_Hill
If you want to know why they used "more probable than not," it's because that's the requirement for punishment.

Interception said:

I love the Patriots and I love Brady, I really don't care if he bribed an assistant into changing pressure... but it's pretty obvious that Brady at least knew a bit about it.

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What is the plan to change air pressure at away games then? Or do they just forfeit those?

karguy85 said:

Goodell vs. Kraft. Bigger fight coming that Pacquiao vs. Mayweather?

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Kraft isn't going to fight it which is just as bad as admitting it if they did anything. The NFL continues it's slide under Goodell. When you say probable and still punish a team that is just bad all the way around.

SVN said:

Yes but when has Goodell or NFL done anything logical ? they will probably go the way of public opinion.

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They will use the Wells Report as a guideline, but in the end, the decision to hand Brady/Pats any penalties will come from the NFL/Goodell

It's more probable than not that the Jet-centric NFL office paid Ted Wells a helluva lot of money to, more likely than not, produce a hatchet job of an "independent investigation", which is generally aware of the kerosene poured onto the fire in the ongoing witch-hunt against the best NFL franchise in league history.

A post on reddit calling into question their PSI experiment

NOTE: none of what follows is mine it is from reddit user IllumiZ on Pats Reddit.

36 For these and subsequent experiments a “wet” football was one in which a hand held spray bottle was used to spray a football with water every 15 minutes during the period simulating the first half of game play. The spray bottle with its contents was kept at the same environmental conditions as the footballs undergoing spraying. Each time the footballs were sprayed they were toweled off.

I think this is a huge problem. The tight timing window for measuring the balls at halftime is a big factor in the report's conclusion (that deflation was not likely due to natural conditions). They claim that the Patriot's balls would have had to be measured within 4 minutes of halftime in order to fit the experimental data:

...only if the testing of the Patriots balls began immediately once the footballs arrived in the Officials Locker Room at halftime and took no more than 4 minutes, and only if the majority of the Patriots game balls were wet. As noted, testing of the Patriots balls is likely to have begun no sooner than 2 minutes and is likely to have taken approximately 4 to 5 minutes...

1) The water used to spray the balls was at ambient temperature. However, rainwater is colder than ambient because it is falling from the (colder) atmosphere.

2) Wetting the balls with a handheld spray bottle and immediately wiping them off, once per 15 minutes, is not an adequate simulation of wet game conditions.

3) Look at figure 21 on that same page (42) - wetness has a significant impact on the ball's pressure. Specifically, it takes much longer for the wet ball to adjust to the inside temperature.

In conclusion the actual balls were slightly wetter and colder than the experimental setup. Thus the "4 minute window" is not accurate and the PSI could be explained through natural conditions. Here I have shown that the "rainwater" in the experimental setup wasn't cold enough, and that it wasn't applied to the balls in a manner that would simulate gameplay conditions. Combined, these effects could explain away the entire PSI discrepancy.

Bella*chick said:

If Walt remembered the psi to be 12.5 or 13.0 or whatever, it is HIGHLY unlikely that was an exact measurement. MOre likely it was off by enough to explain any "discrepancies of science."

And don't get me started on biased scientists can be. You'd think science can't lie, but science isn't doing the talking…..people are and people twist things how they want them to be ALL the time.

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I am a scientist (molecular biology and cloning for 17 years) and the cardinal sin of science is having a conclusion in mind before you start experiments and reading the data. It will bias your analysis.

In my mind the balls were 12.5 when tested, they fell below that due to weather and Pats balls were more variable than Colts due to differences in prep process. What's the big deal here?

Chiuba E. Obele said:

Rich Hill‏@PP_Rich_Hill
If you want to know why they used "more probable than not," it's because that's the requirement for punishment.

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Interesting, wasn't aware of that language.

Wow, local news is totally misrepresenting the outcome, "Pats caught cheating again"

Palm Beach Pats Fan said:

"Our scientific consultants ultimately informed us that the data alone did not provide a basis for them to determine with absolute certainty whether there was or was not tampering."
-buried on page 112

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Even that should say "with any confidence" rather than "with absolute certainty", but hey, what's a slanted hackjob, witch hunt report without heavily biased language?