Wells Report Challenges Belichick's Science Simulation
 Belichick likely isn't happy after Wednesday's release of the Wells report. (USA TODAY Images) |
Patriots head coach Bill Belichick spent a Saturday explaining a little science after their AFC Championship victory, which came after he was faced with allegations about the team deflating footballs prior their game against the Colts.
At the time, the press conference was called because he felt the team "needed to say something", and then proceeded to give an extensive scientific explanation of the apparent loss in pressure during the game after the team simulated their pregame preparation of the footballs to try and understand what might have happened. Belichick said the "vigorous" rubbing process to prepare the balls he said "raised the PSI level approximately one pound" and that once the officials put the air pressure at 12.5 psi, that "once the football reached its equilibrium state, it was probably closer to 11.5"
Exponent, the company hired in the report to test the theory, is contesting that assertion after doing their own testing. They're claiming that after 20 minutes of rubbing, the pressure "increased in a given ball by approximately 0.7 psi," and claimed that the football returned to its starting pressure within "fifteen and thirty minutes after the cessation of the rubbing."
They also claim that the delay in time between when they were done being prepared (approximately 2:30pm) to when the officials inspected them (approximately 3:45pm) would have reduced the pressure and the new measurements have shown the difference. They found that none of the footballs delivered an artificially high or low reading and were still at 12.5 psi.
"Based on these experiments, Exponent concluded that the average pressures recorded for the Patriots game balls during halftime of the AFC Championship Game were lower than the lowest average pressures attained by the simulations," the report read. "In other words, when tests were run using the most likely game-day conditions and circumstances, the Patriots halftime measurements could not be replicated, and the pressures observed for the Patriots footballs by Exponent during its experiments were all higher."
"This absence of a credible scientific explanation for the Patriots halftime measurements tends to support a finding that human intervention may account for the additional loss of pressure exhibited by the Patriots balls."
As a result, they're ruling out Belichick's testing and explanation for what occurred.
Needless to say if you think he was upset before about the amount of time he wasted going through the motions for that data, he's likely not going be very happy after today's news.
