email just sent to Mike Florio.
Mike,
As you know, the key unanswered question is: which gauge did referee Walt Anderson use in his pregame football pressure checks? It makes all of the difference, a finding of “it looks like no tampering happened” vs. a finding of “tampering looks like a possible cause of this”.
Fortunately, there is a previously IGNORED piece of evidence that points toward which gauge Walt Anderson really did use.
Consider the data obtained from the 12th Patriots football, the intercepted football, which was not tested at halftime but was tested 3 different times by James Daniel, the NFL Director of Game Operations. Daniel used the pressure gauge that (according to Wells) was the Patriots normal gauge (page 65, Wells report: "Daniel retrieved a gauge that was near the air pump in the dressing area of the Locker Room, and they tested the intercepted ball three times before the balance of the game balls were brought back to the Officials Locker Room"; note 36: "We believe that Daniel located and used the pressure gauge supplied by the Patriots. We further believe that this is the gauge that John Jastremski considers his normal gauge".)
The Patriots normal gauge reads much like the gauge that Walt Anderson used in pregame tests, per Wells Report Exponent supplement page 1: "later Walt Anderson recalled that when tested pre-game, most of the Patriots footballs measured at 12.5 pounds per square inch-gauge (psig), though there may have been one or two that measured at 12.6 psig. In addition, two game balls initially measured below 12.5 psig and were inflated and adjusted to 12.5 psig."
The average pressure of the intercepted football was 11.5 psi (average of readings = 11.52; I think that the two decimal point precision is clearly unwarranted, given the obviously large error bars). Wells report page 70: "the measurements—11.45, 11.35 and 11.75 psi, respectively— were written on athletic tape that had been placed on the ball for identification".
This football, oddly the very one that has been pointed at as starting the ruckus, was thus within the expected ideal gas law range of 11.3-11.5 (Wells Report raw numbers for this range = 11.32-11.52).
This 11.5 reading on the intercepted football gives a strong indication ("more likely than not") of which gauge Anderson used in his pre-game checks. He used the gauge that, for the other 11 footballs, gave about the same average reading (11.49 psi) at halftime: the "logo" gauge. Simply put, 11.5 is much more like 11.5 than it is like 11.1. Remember, the Patriots footballs were nearly alike in pressure to start with.
Another way of saying it: the logo gauge reads more like the Patriots gauge, based upon the aggregate set of in-game measurements. The Patriots gauge reads like the gauge that was used in pregame checks, based upon Anderson's recollection of having to adjust very few Patriots footballs (2 of 24?) in those pregame checks. Thus A=B and B=C, and then A=C (more likely than not!).
If Walt Anderson indeed used the logo gauge in pregame checks, then only the halftime measurements taken with the logo gauge are valid. This set of data showed that 3 Patriots footballs were a little LOWER than expected based on temperature effects (0.3-0.4 psi outside of range, footballs #2, #4, and #10, Wells report table on page 8), 4 Patriots footballs were a little HIGHER than expected (0.3-0.4 psi outside of range, footballs #1, #6, #7, #8), and the other 5 Patriots footballs were in the range where you would expect them to be. There is obvious variability of pressure readings: the very same person (Daniels) used the very same gauge to test pressure on the very same ball and had readings that varied by 0.4 psi. Thus a reasonable person would have to doubt whether an 0.3-0.4 psi difference is a reliable indicator of ANYTHING, especially since just as many footballs were on the high end as were on the low end.
A contrarian can take the odd position that McNally deflated 3 footballs by a nearly imperceptible amount, inflated 4 footballs by a nearly imperceptible amount, and left 5 footballs alone, while then (logically) laughing to himself about how Tom Brady will now have now no idea what to expect every time that a ref puts a new football into play.
It seems more reasonable to conclude that McNally used his bathroom break for its normal purpose, that the logo gauge was used for Walt Anderson's pre-game measurements, and that football pressure data supports the argument that, more likely than not, air was not removed from the Patriots footballs by anyone. It is still unclear, though, whether Tom Brady might have been generally aware that this was not happening!
Regards,
(Me)
