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My.... Wet Football in the Fridge... Test


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My "not close to being the same but why not" deflategate reenactment.....

1) Junior sized football (only sports ball in garage that doesn't leak over time)
2) In my 85 degree garage (Florida), I inflated the ball to 20 psi (my large bicycle pump scale begins at 15 psi)
3) In kitchen sink, ran cold water (approximately 60 degrees) all over football for 1 minute
4)) Placed wet football inside 39 degree refrigerator for 2 hours

Initial observation: the football going into the fridge was hard as a rock. Could not compress ball with one hand

5) After 2 hours, removed ball from refrigerator and measured psi with bike pump....approximately 15 to 16 pounds. (4 to 5 pound reduction)

Observation: after refrigeration, the ball was still hard as a rock and my gut feeling was....the Patriots are screwed...until I read the psi

No doubt my experiment lacked in reproduction value on every level...ball size, ball material, external temperature, fridge temp, humidity, altitude, readability of psi scale, etc. Regardless, , two basic points were settled in my mind:
1) psi drops......duh
2) if 4 to 5 psi differentials can not be perceived by human contact (me), I'm finding it difficult to believe the Colts DB could determine he was gripping a deflated ball based on a reduction of only 1 to 1.5 psi. It's bullsh*t. (sting)

PS....I attempted to repeat the experiment by first releasing all of the original experiment's air out of the football (the air was still very cold after 5 minutes in the garage) and then pumping garage temperature air back into the football....this time to 25 psi (scale easier to read). Of course, being an act first/ think later football fan, the football exploded at the higher psi and possible blew my ear drum out. (the dog went running and is now hiding under the couch).
I am accepting donations for future medical costs, a new junior football, and pizza (I'm pretty hungry right now)
 
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My "not close to being the same but why not" test.....

1) Junior sized football (only sports ball in garage that doesn't leak over time)
2) In my 85 degree garage (Florida), I inflated the ball to 20 psi (my large bicycle pump scale begins at 15 psi)
3) In kitchen sink, ran cold water (approximately 60 degrees) all over football for 1 minute
4)) Placed wet football inside 39 degree refrigerator for 2 hours

Initial observation: the football going into the fridge was hard as a rock. Could not compress ball with one hand

5) After 2 hours, removed ball from refrigerator and measured psi with bike pump....approximately 15 to 16 pounds. (4 to 5 pound reduction)

Observation: after the refrigeration, the ball was still hard as a rock and my gut feeling was....the Patriots are screwed...until I read the psi

No doubt my experiment lacked in reproduction value on every level...ball size, ball material, external temperature, fridge temp, humidity, altitude, readability of psi scale, etc. Regardless, , two basic points were settled in my mind:
1) psi drops......duh
2) if 4 to 5 psi differentials can not be perceived by human contact (me), I'm finding it difficult to believe the Colts DB could determine he was gripping a deflated ball based on a reduction of only 1 to 1.5 psi. It's bullsh*t. (sting)

PS....I attempted to repeat the experiment by first releasing all of the 1st experiment's air out of the football (the air was still very cold after 5 minutes in the garage) and then pumping garage temperature air back into the football....this time to 25 psi (scale easier to read). Of course, being an act first/ think later football fan, the football exploded at the higher psi and possible blew my ear drum out. (the dog went running and is now hiding under the couch).
I am accepting donations for future medical costs, a new junior football, and pizza (I'm pretty hungry right now)

Someone pointed out a series of questions asked of Troy Vincent. He basically admitted that they had every intent of measuring the footballs at half-time. Period. So yes, it was a sting.
 
I'm finding it difficult to believe the Colts DB could determine he was gripping a deflated ball based on a reduction of only 1 to 1.5 psi.

The Colts DB has consistently said that he didn't notice anything about the football and never contacted anyone about it. This was misinformation spread early on but quickly debunked.
 
then pumping garage temperature air back into the football....this time to 25 psi (scale easier to read). Of course, being an act first/ think later football fan, the football exploded at the higher psi and possible blew my ear drum out. (the dog went running and is now hiding under the couch).

still better than exponent

now just imagine you got paid 500k for doing that
 
I did my own test many years ago, thats why i know the balls do deflate. I went out to shot some baskets, the night before had been pretty cold. The ball wouldn't bounce to i had a bright idea.....put in the oven for a few minutes. I don't remember what i set the temp at 300-400 degrees, my intention was to leave it in for five minutes. Except there was a knock on the door, it was a neighbor. We got into a discussion and i forgot about the ball until he said '' do you smell something burning''? I ran into the kitchen, opened the oven door only to see a smoking basketball. i opened the window and threw it out. And i'll tell you, it got its bounce back and then some!!!
So the day before the ball was fine, after one cool or cold night it wouldn't bounce. Fifteen-twenty minutes in the oven it bounced like a super ball.
 
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you should've tried letting 3/10ths of a psi out and see how much farther you could throw it

I marked that funny, but too few people realize this is over a few tenths of a psi (If you think Anderson would not remember which gauge of two very different looking gauges he used to measure over 50 football just a few hours later when it turned into a major issue) and not one or two psi's. Two psi is very diificult to notice, 0.3-0.4 psi is impossible to notice.
 
The wetness test is pretty interesting. Not much has been made of it, but Exponent's test is one of several mistakes they made which is clear evidence that they were not hired to figure out what happened but hired to find the Patriots guilty. In their experiment they used a spray bottle to get the ball wet before immediately drying it off. They repeated it multiple times, but still it is not good enough. That in no way simulates a ball spending a couple of minutes in the rain and specifically rolling around in wet grass. Try walk in the rain and see how wet you get, then try rolling in the grass and see how wet you get. It is incomparable. Just another area where Goodell, Wells, Exponent and the rest of the Goodell minions screwed over the Pats. It also easily explains the variation in psi levels of the balls as the balls would not have a consistent wetness.
 
The wetness test is pretty interesting. Not much has been made of it, but Exponent's test is one of several mistakes they made which is clear evidence that they were not hired to figure out what happened but hired to find the Patriots guilty. In their experiment they used a spray bottle to get the ball wet before immediately drying it off. They repeated it multiple times, but still it is not good enough. That in no way simulates a ball spending a couple of minutes in the rain and specifically rolling around in wet grass. Try walk in the rain and see how wet you get, then try rolling in the grass and see how wet you get. It is incomparable. Just another area where Goodell, Wells, Exponent and the rest of the Goodell minions screwed over the Pats. It also easily explains the variation in psi levels of the balls as the balls would not have a consistent wetness.

again, I've posted this before, people who have no backgrounds in science get way too carried away with exponent's process because they label themselves as 'scientists'.
the problem is that there is really nothing scientific about that process -- they put on a little show and get paid.

we have no idea how wet any of these various footballs were, what the actual temp of the rain was, the air, the ground, the footballs, etc
these were balls that had the factory lacquer scraped off and had been aggressively distressed for several weeks --- did we test these same balls, or new balls?
were they rolling around on the grass, in a bag, on a house, or with a mouse?

the bottomline is all this is entirely irrelevant, as the degree of error is greater than the values measured in this process, and even at worst our end result MAYBE could be read as a few tenths of a psi discrepancy which is an absolutely ludicrous issue to be questioning.

it was a funny post, and I probably joked about it, but that guy with the fridge who exploded his ball really, actually, literally, and factually, did just as legit an experiment as exponent.
 
I snuck up on Goodell and stuck a pin in the back of his head..

nothing happened...the psi reading was the same as before insertion...zero
 
This is why patsfans.com is the best website on the web. Nice job Borg.
 
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My "not close to being the same but why not" deflategate reenactment.....

1) Junior sized football (only sports ball in garage that doesn't leak over time)
2) In my 85 degree garage (Florida), I inflated the ball to 20 psi (my large bicycle pump scale begins at 15 psi)
3) In kitchen sink, ran cold water (approximately 60 degrees) all over football for 1 minute
4)) Placed wet football inside 39 degree refrigerator for 2 hours

Initial observation: the football going into the fridge was hard as a rock. Could not compress ball with one hand

5) After 2 hours, removed ball from refrigerator and measured psi with bike pump....approximately 15 to 16 pounds. (4 to 5 pound reduction)

Observation: after refrigeration, the ball was still hard as a rock and my gut feeling was....the Patriots are screwed...until I read the psi

No doubt my experiment lacked in reproduction value on every level...ball size, ball material, external temperature, fridge temp, humidity, altitude, readability of psi scale, etc. Regardless, , two basic points were settled in my mind:
1) psi drops......duh
2) if 4 to 5 psi differentials can not be perceived by human contact (me), I'm finding it difficult to believe the Colts DB could determine he was gripping a deflated ball based on a reduction of only 1 to 1.5 psi. It's bullsh*t. (sting)

PS....I attempted to repeat the experiment by first releasing all of the original experiment's air out of the football (the air was still very cold after 5 minutes in the garage) and then pumping garage temperature air back into the football....this time to 25 psi (scale easier to read). Of course, being an act first/ think later football fan, the football exploded at the higher psi and possible blew my ear drum out. (the dog went running and is now hiding under the couch).
I am accepting donations for future medical costs, a new junior football, and pizza (I'm pretty hungry right now)

Sheesh - you're experiment was more scientifically accurate than Exponents!! They got $600K and all you want is a pizza?!?
 
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I've also been conducting experiments in air pressure and heat. Every day I give my 4 year old daughter a closed sippy cup filled with cold milk. If she doesn't drink it in the first two minutes, it warms up and the warmed expanded air inside forces milk through the straw, causing a mess. Based on this evidence, I'm docking the Patriots two draft picks and suspending Brady for 4 games.
 
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I did my own test many years ago, thats why i know the balls do deflate. I went out to shot some baskets, the night before had been pretty cold. The ball wouldn't bounce to i had a bright idea.....put in the oven for a few minutes. I don't remember what i set the temp at 300-400 degrees, my intention was to leave it in for five minutes. Except there was a knock on the door, it was a neighbor. We got into a discussion and i forgot about the ball until he said '' do you smell something burning''? I ran into the kitchen, opened the oven door only to see a smoking basketball. i opened the window and threw it out. And i'll tell you, it got its bounce back and then some!!!
So the day before the ball was fine, after one cool or cold night it wouldn't bonce. Fifteen-twenty minutes in the oven it bounced like a super ball.
I feel sorry for the poor basketball.
 
  • Ha Ha
Reactions: Ian
I snuck up on Goodell and stuck a pin in the back of his head..

nothing happened...the psi reading was the same as before insertion...zero
You mean to say there wasn't a lot of hot air released? :confused:
 
Not many have mentioned this but leather is easier to stretch when it is wet so that would decrease psi as well.
 
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