Perhaps the Most Damning Part of This Ordeal

[catent]

It dawned upon me last night as I was tossing and turning in bed that the most damning part of the NFL's investigation, as it pertains to a sting, frame-job, etc, is that the Colts were not investigated.

Many of us, myself included, brushed off this fact (that Indy was not investigated) simply because, well, the Colts footballs were not *quite* as underinflated as New England's, and, furthermore, their measurements roughly fit in with the ideal gas law -- in fact, they showed a lack of expected pressure loss. So, the fact that several of their footballs measured under 12.5 PSI was meaningless to us because we're objective. Those numbers didn't look suspicious to anyone -- it was clear Indianapolis hadn't intentionally deflated their footballs.

Here's the problem, though. In the transcript recently released, Troy Vincent and the NFL claim they didn't take science into account when pondering why New England's footballs were underinflated. They had no knowledge (at least as it pertains to football) of the ideal gas law. They simply saw that many of New England's footballs measured under 12.5, and thus cheating had to have occurred.

Here's the 'gotcha!'. I can't remember exactly how many, but at least one of the Colts' footballs measured under 12.5 PSI. If you were working under the assumption that the NFL was (that the ideal gas law could have no impact on inflation, and therefore underinflation had to have been caused by a human) there's absolutely no reason to *not* doubt the Colts of cheating. If their footballs had deflated below the legal limit, similar to New England's, the only reasonable conclusion the NFL could have drawn was that both teams had intentionally deflated their footballs.

The only explanation for this behavior is that 'Deflategate' was a setup, a sting, a frame-job, (insert term of choice). They wanted to nail New England for something... anything, and they tried their darndest to pull it off.

Problem is, by ignoring/being ignorant of science, the NFL put themselves in a situation where they now have no explanation for why they didn't assume Indy to be guilty of cheating as well. There is no rational, reasonable explanation for why New England was assumed guilty of wrongdoing by virtue of the fact that their footballs were underinflated, yet Indianapolis was not. Had the NFL/Vincent claimed that science *was* on their mind during the time they were measuring the footballs, they could have reasonably claimed that they assumed New England to be guilty of cheating (and Indy to be innocent) because of the relative pressure drop(s) of their footballs when compared to Indy's. However, by claiming ignorance of scientific principles, I believe they exposed this whole process as a sham. Not that we didn't already know that.

To me, this is the most damning part of this whole ordeal.

TL;DR:

>NFL/Vincent claims ignorance of science/ideal gas law as it pertains to football deflation.
>Sees New England has underinflated footballs, assumes it must have been intentionally done by a human given their lack of an alternative explanation (ideal gas law), and thus, cheating had to have occurred.
>Sees Indianapolis has underinflated footballs, assumes none of the above.

It was a sham from the start.

 

[patriot1136]

The other interesting thing is that the Colts equipment guy checked the level of the ball that Jackson intercepted, which is a rule violation. He could have let out a lot of air during that check which got things rolling at halftime. Although, it seems like prior to the game they were trying to set up the Pats.

 

[Froob]

Never investigated for complaints their ball boys keep needles under their long sleeves....

 

[Koma]

That's an excellent point, dreighver. We know that the Colts footballs were set at 13 PSI and none of them, with either gauge, measured at that setting at halftime.

If the Vincent and company had no idea that the weather conditions and temperature could impact the PSI, why weren't they concerned about the Colts balls being lower than their original setting? Even if they were going to ignore the possibility that they were tampered with, why not pump them back up to 13 PSI?

 

[eom]

Think you're overlooking one thing - according to mortensen none of the colts balls were deflated.