Deflating deflategate --[Mod Edit] AEI Opinion Piece in NY Times

Jackson 2 said:

Bingo. So many of them just matter-of-factly talk about 2 games as if it's already been determined. Of course, no matter what happens in those 2 games they win. If Jimmy G. plays well and the Pats win, they've got themselves a QB controversy, at least in their eyes. If the Pats lose 2, they've got their "the dynasty is cracking" story they've wanted for years.

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I don't think BB will allow for a QB controversy. Grapes will sit once TB is available. The lad will wait his turn and like it.

The mediots jumped the gun on the "Pats are dead" story last year. I tend to think that they'll be a little more cautious this time around.

Jackson 2 said:

The common thread I see more and more with these media people is that the vast majority of them seem to really have a high degree of contempt for us, the fans.

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And an even higher opinion of themselves and hypocrites that they are criticize players and coaches like BB for not giving access to them -the voice of the fans.

Rob0729 said:

Bedard is the guy who countered Peter King's argument that if Wells listened to Walt Anderson that he measured the footballs with the logoed gauge that the Patriots balls fall within the ideal gas law by saying that "Yeah, but if you take away each team's ball with the highest and lowest amount of PSI loss, that the Pats balls would drop exponentially more than the the Colts's balls". Like that meant anything. They were already comparing 11 Patriots balls to 4 Colts balls and he thinks that taking away 18% of the Patriots balls and 50% of the Colts balls would make it less skewed.

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Yes , he uses that logic to insinuate that the pats balls were maybe tampered but when asked he says science is a toss up.

I have a problem with most of the media on this. The math is not PhD level hard, but it's difficult.

Here is what Wells vs. AEI have done. Wells started with a bunch of data points can tried to fit an equation around them (multiple linear regression, which simply means multiple variables affected the PSI and the change at a constant rate with those variables). According to AEI, Wells chose only "Patriots effect" as the only variable, while AEI chose to add more. Which is right? It's been 30 years since my undergraduate stats class and I don't know.

What should happen is someone in the media should talk to some statistics professors and ask them to take the same data and run the test. How would they determine who is right? Like any statistics model, you plug the numbers in and it spits out an answer. However, when you do regression like this, you also can compute a number that reflects how close your answer reflects the data. This is called r-squared or the "coefficient of determination". Nobody, AEI or Wells tells us what their r-squared was. Typically, when we did a test, you start as simple as possible and if your r-squared is too low (closer to 1.0 is best), you add variables. I suspect AEI had a better r-squared because it tried to account for the changes in the passage of time inside a warm locker room.

But, I don't know. My point is -- why didn't anyone in the media -- Bedard -- heck, even some journalism intern at SI could have contacted some stats professors and asked what they would do in a situation like this. Preferably, non football fans even. But, Bedard and others seem to treat this as a he-said, she-said between Wells and AEI when it's the science that's important.

The physics is hard, the math is hard, the Patriots have been punished before and a lot of people like to bring the big dog down -- so, it's not surprising a lot of fans think the Patriots are guilty. But, media people are just lazy -- no matter who is actually right.

I always wondered if the morons added air at halftime to balls that were properly inflated but measured lower psi due to being in the cold then they must have over pumped the footballs. I finally found what the psi the balls measured after the game and voila, they did over pump, doesnt this also add proof that the balls were properly deflated in the first place?

full story here
https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/culture-beaker/deflategate-favored-foul-play-over-science

"Post-game psi measurements of four Patriots balls ranged from 12.95 to 13.65. These data, the Wells Report acknowledges (in a footnote), “did not provide a scientifically reasonable basis on which to conduct a comparative analysis.” If the report can acknowledge poor methodology for the post-game data, why not acknowledge that for the pre-game and halftime data as well?"

I've read AEI's report now for the fourth time. I can summarize it thusly.

1) only one combination of pre-game readings gauge vs. half time reading gauge shows Patriot footballs dropping below the lower limit of predicted by the natural gas law (High gauge pregame, low gauge half time). Wells had to assume that scenario for any of this to work.
2) Regardless of which combination of gauges used, the Colts balls were over inflated. That is most likely because they spent 10 minutes or so warming up.
3) The amount the Patriots were below was not statistically significant. Wells concluded the Patriots had deflated their footballs because they had dropped more than the Colts did in a statistically significant amount.
4) Wells was wrong because he didn't take into account the Colts balls being deflated.

I'll say it again. The stats on this get very ugly, but we're talking about something that would be taught in an undergraduate statistics class. The data is all there...Wells published it and AEI was able to pull it right out of the report. Why did no one in the media ask someone who knows about stats rather than make it a he-said, she-said?

Bedard gets added to the Arya Stark list. But below Roger "Meryn Trant" Goodell.

MagicMarker said:

The data is all there...Wells published it and AEI was able to pull it right out of the report. Why did no one in the media ask someone who knows about stats rather than make it a he-said, she-said?

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Because the media are a bunch of useless, jackazz turds.

Rawky77 said:

IMHO the only way Goodell is forced to resign is if Brady sues for defamation and the NFL* is forced to settle secretly for somewhere north of 200 million $. Than and only Then is Goodell done.

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the only way goodell resigns is if he is arrested for something.

TommyBrady12 said:

the only way goodell resigns is if he is arrested for something.

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And it would have to be something bad. Murder or armed robbery wouldn't do it...

I'm not a physicist, but I am an ex-math professor. The day the Wells report came out I went straight to the numbers, as is my wont. Spent the next few weeks arguing that the raw data in the Wells report basically proves the balls weren't tampered with, and even if there were footage of Giselle skulking down the sideline holding a needle and laughing maniacally, it didn't matter.
So now that the Wells science/stats are discredited all I'm hearing is that the science is a wash, so the texts are enough to prove guilt, at least to the desired standard.
Thing is... the science is not at all "a wash". The science says that the balls WAY more likely than not were not deflated.
But part of the strategy all along was to muddy the science to the public and rely on innuendo. And to a large extent it is working. You have talk show hosts ridiculing mathematical symbols as if they are gibberish. You have the word "deflator" bandied about with glee as if it means something sinister. You have "the texts" being treated as if they are chronologically placed in the midst of scandal, when they were randomly chosen out of context.
The truth just doesn't seem to be enough.

Beethree?? Ok...got it....

Geefiftytwo....got it

Ennthirtysix....BINGO!!! I got BINGO!!!

best hit from twitter search on "wells report"

https://twitter.com/search?q="Wells Report"&src=tren&vertical=default

See Truth ‏@SeeTruth100 41m41 minutes ago
Fracking Injected Millions Of Gallons Of Carcinogens Into Wells, Report Says http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20110416/us-drilling-chemicals/… #conscioushealthsolutions #health

Mr. Objective said:

I’m scratching my head wondering how anyone could have an objection to a think tank--whose very purpose is to affect public policy, influence public opinion, and stir up discussion of issues of interest to the think tank’s researchers and donors--“leaking” one of its reports to the press. One might with equal logic complain about a columnist like Bedard not keeping his opinions private. Bedard is a genuine imbecile.

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Well said. Some things go past the point of questionable into the land of the bizarre, and that's one of them. The very word is goofy: "leaks" about their report?? Your analogy is perfect..look, every column of Bedard is getting leaked!

Crazy pills...

JMC00 said:

My god when will people realize that Felger isn't trolling on this one.

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Do not feed the energy beast!!!

Jackson 2 said:

And it would have to be something bad. Murder or armed robbery wouldn't do it...

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Suicide.

SVN said:

I dont think he was on the patriots side. He wrote very rudely in his mailbag that the pats are are fault for toeing the line of rules responding to a fan question. Was very insulting of the pats practices.

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@GregARetard and @BenTrollin. #mediots.

Beethree said:

I'm not a physicist, but I am an ex-math professor. The day the Wells report came out I went straight to the numbers, as is my wont. Spent the next few weeks arguing that the raw data in the Wells report basically proves the balls weren't tampered with, and even if there were footage of Giselle skulking down the sideline holding a needle and laughing maniacally, it didn't matter.
So now that the Wells science/stats are discredited all I'm hearing is that the science is a wash, so the texts are enough to prove guilt, at least to the desired standard.
Thing is... the science is not at all "a wash". The science says that the balls WAY more likely than not were not deflated.
But part of the strategy all along was to muddy the science to the public and rely on innuendo. And to a large extent it is working. You have talk show hosts ridiculing mathematical symbols as if they are gibberish. You have the word "deflator" bandied about with glee as if it means something sinister. You have "the texts" being treated as if they are chronologically placed in the midst of scandal, when they were randomly chosen out of context.
The truth just doesn't seem to be enough.

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Thanks, Beethree...like I've said before, I've read all of these multiple reports several times and I struggle to understand. Please, in laymen's terms, what is it that tells you it's WAY more likely than not the balls were not deflated?

MagicMarker said:

Thanks, Beethree...like I've said before, I've read all of these multiple reports several times and I struggle to understand. Please, in laymen's terms, what is it that tells you it's WAY more likely than not the balls were not deflated?

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Because if you assume that the balls started at 12.5psi, measured using the gauge that Walt Anderson explicitly said he used, their halftime measurements were spot-on with what would be expected based on natural effects. Which leaves two possibilities:

1) The Pats engaged in some weird plot to deflate a couple (but not all 12) balls by a tenth of a psi or so, despite the fact that that level of deflation is imperceptible, or

2) The balls weren't tampered with. Anderson measured them pre-game using the gauge that he stated he used. Some of the balls were a tick under 12.5 when he measured them. From there, air acted as air does.

BradyFTW! said:

Because if you assume that the balls started at 12.5psi, measured using the gauge that Walt Anderson explicitly said he used, their halftime measurements were spot-on with what would be expected based on natural effects. Which leaves two possibilities:

1) The Pats engaged in some weird plot to deflate a couple (but not all 12) balls by a tenth of a psi or so, despite the fact that that level of deflation is imperceptible, or

2) The balls weren't tampered with. Anderson measured them pre-game using the gauge that he stated he used. Some of the balls were a tick under 12.5 when he measured them. From there, air acted as air does.

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So (and anyone can correct me if I'm wrong), the two big complaints about the Wells Report were

1. You have to assume the balls were measured pre-game using the opposite gauge from the one Anderson was reasonably sure he used.

2. It doesn't take into account (at least not in the conclusions) the warming of the Colts balls for being in the locker room longer.