Pats already accused of cheating!

[Porsche-O-Phile]

In fairness though (tossing a bone to the haterz here in the interest of humor), this image was taken during Bill Bellichick's press conference earlier. You can't make this stuff up. Hilarious!

[widebody911]

[Z-man]

It seems Bellichik is throwing Brady under the bus....

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/bill-belichick-claims-ignorance-of-deflated-footballs--throws-controversy-on-tom-brady-170301312.html

Belichick instead, most notably, threw this on Brady, whom, you would presume, he's spoken to this week.

"I think we all know that quarterbacks, kickers, specialists have certain preferences on the footballs," Belichick said. "They know a lot more than I do. They're a lot more sensitive to it than I am. I hear them comment on it from time to time, but I can tell you, and they will tell you, that there's never any sympathy whatsoever from me on that subject. Zero.

"Tom's personal preferences on his footballs are something that he can talk about in much better detail and information than I could possibly provide."

Brady will address the media at 4 p.m. ET Thursday, moving his news conference up a day.

That was about it from Belichick. Football condition isn't my thing. …Talk to Tom. …I have no idea. …I can't say anything else.

[scottmandue]

Originally Posted by Z-man

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nfl-shutdown-corner/did-ravens-tip-off-colts-about-patriots-deflating-balls--021046443.html

From that story:

"There was another story, from ESPN's Adam Schefter, that the Colts thought the Patriots had also under-inflated footballs during a regular-season meeting on Nov. 16. According to Schefter, Colts safety Mike Adams had two interceptions, and gave both balls to the Colts' equipment manager to save. Both times, sources told Schefter, there were concerns the balls were under-inflated.

All three things could be independently true. The Colts could have noticed the issue on Nov. 16. The Ravens could have noticed it during their playoff loss and told the Colts. And Jackson could have noticed it too on Sunday, even before the officials got a chance to inspect the balls at halftime (that part of the story makes it even stranger that the officials didn't do anything in the first half, constantly handling the footballs that were reportedly 16 percent or so flatter than league rules allow).

And if all the reports are accurate, and the Ravens noticed it, and the Colts noticed it in two separate games, who else in the NFL noticed it during the season?
"

[arcsine]

Now that Bellichick has pointed his finger at Brady, and Brady is untouchable, some lackey equipment manager is going to be told to fall on his sword to protect them all.

In the end it will not matter at all. This is probably more widespread of a practice than we care to imagine. Just think about it; The refs OK the balls and turn them back into the care of the individual teams. That is the end of oversight unless someone asks. In the big business of football, why wouldn't you try to get whatever advantage you can? Couple of pounds here or there. How about scenario where the ball the kicking team provides for a kickoff are over pressure but the kicker loves them and they are harder to catch?
The easy fix is to have the refs be in control of all the balls used in a game. They have a big basket of approved ones and the ball boy just takes one out of the pile to send into the game. All vestiges of illegal tampering or unfair advantage are gone with this one change.

[Lapkritis]

I kicked in high school and 1 yr in college beyond wide receiver duties. I preferred slightly under inflated/beat to **** balls. A brand new/over inflated ball would carry about 7 yards less. A medium aged ball with more elasticity would return hero yardage.

Throwing? I preferred higher psi... If they were soft then control was lower to throw. I.e, you couldn't throw a kicking ball with the same accuracy as a passing ball. The logic holds today (few years later) and is why different balls are still used for various plays in the game within the rules.

[Lapkritis]

Lower psi in throwing balls could be sabotage. I'm not sure my last post was clear enough. Depends on what Tom likes and I never played with him. Had the Colts won, this would be a non-issue.

[jyl]

What I don't get is, how could 11 balls possibly be changed from correctly inflated to under inflated after the start of the game, when they are on the sidelines? Tens of thousands of people watching, plus cameras everywhere, and no phone pic or video has surfaced of the ball boy tampering with a dozen balls? It seems more likely to me that the balls were under inflated when they were delivered to the referees before the start of the game. And that sounds more like a mistake than a plot.

Unless, hmm, could you pierce the ball, before delivering them to the referees, with an extremely fine needle to create a tiny leak, just enough for the ball to go from correct to under inflation over the course of three hours?. That would require some careful testing and planning.

[Lapkritis]

No. The pressure spikes on a ball in play would make any small leak visibly apparent. Think of the pressure from a helmet strike on a ball being carried. Far greater than standard fill.

I popped a few balls kicking as many kickers have... I could tell the moment I struck it that it broke from the way it traveled even if it wasn't visibly leaking for another 5-10mins. Refs could be in on it if the balls went into play... Or they were tampered with between inspection and when entered into play such as in the tunnel during warmups/lineups.

[MikeSid]

The equipment staff would be as comfortable preparing those balls as Giselle would be ordering Tom's eggs for breakfast.

Brady wouldn't have to say a thing.

In the 2 hours and 15 minutes between referee inspection and game time, I have to believe the equipment staff has enough unfettered access to properly cook Tom's eggs to his liking.

[Lapkritis]

Here's an interesting take:

Boston College Professor: Weather Had To Play Role In DeflateGate | New England Patriots | NESN.com

[Z-man]

Originally Posted by Lapkritis

Here's an interesting take:

Boston College Professor: Weather Had To Play Role In DeflateGate | New England Patriots | NESN.com

What kind of professors do they hire in Boston?

"Say you inflate the ball to 12.5 PSI — the NFL minimum — in a room at 70 degrees, and then used the ball outside where it was 50 degrees. That 12.5 PSI would eventually become 11.5 PSI,” Naughton said. “If you inflate the ball to 12.5 PSI in an even warmer room where it was, say, 80 degrees, and then played outdoors at 40 degrees, that 12.5 PSI would become 10.5 PSI — a drop of two PSIs.

Eventually? Sure - a leather football will eventually loose pressure over time. And let's assume that the Colt's balls were at 13.5 when checked -- then by the same measure, they would have also dropped below 12.5 (13.5 psi - 2 psi = 11.5 psi). I guess that prof isn't a math teacher! (Unless he is accusing the Colts of over-inflating their balls -- now there's a tactic - blame the Colts for cheating!)

That 'professor's' expert opinion holds no water. "Eventually the pressure will drop 2psi" is like saying, "If my aunt had balls, she'd be my uncle."

The folks defending the Pats are better off keeping quiet on this one, especially if their expert opinion has no merit.

-Z

[J P Stein]

The center would get my vote as the culprit in lowering the pressure......just a ring with a little shaft on it as he's playing with his balls. The QB has other things to worry about in the few seconds he has with his balls.......like 4-6 monsters all trying to rip his other set of balls off.

Does much-to-do-about-nothing fit in here?

Oh well, it does help the talking heads fill up air time and get noticed.

[BE911SC]

Madden said that no one would dare to alter a ball without the QB's knowledge.

(Seattle fans: Madden's right. Patriot fans: Madden's an idiot.)

[Tobra]

I found the comments by former players that are sportscasters now to be particularly damning. Upshot is that no equipment manager would do that without being told to by the quarterback or the coach.

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by Z-man

That 'professor's' expert opinion holds no water. "Eventually the pressure will drop 2psi" is like saying, "If my aunt had balls, she'd be my uncle."

The folks defending the Pats are better off keeping quiet on this one, especially if their expert opinion has no merit.

-Z

I don't really have a dog in this fight, but you're going off the rails here Z. The guy is talking about air pressure and temperature. Any reasonable person would understand that in this context "eventually" means the time it takes for the ball to cool from room temperature to field temperature.

[cairns]

Pv=NRT

The professor has a point although I don't think the pressure would have changed that much. Someone else could the math.

[Esel Mann]

Z, play fair, no need to drag your aunt and uncle into this for purposes of visual examples

This is a simple one to solve. Process of elimination, if it wasn't the giants, and it wasn't the colts, and it wasn't the patriots then who does that leave???

Also, the pats scored less with the deflated balls in the 1st half versus the 2nd half. Somebody was trying to give the colts a boost. Those cheaters!!!

It leaves only one other possibility: an official did it in the ball inspection room with a bleeder type pressure gauge. Find the guy who shows up Sunday in a striped shirt with a gambling/drug habit and you'll find the perp.

[jyl]

The temperature factor could explain the balls being under inflated during the game if they were inflated to the bare legal minimum before the game, in a warm room. Maybe some equipment guy figured that was okay - get them as soft as possible, as long as they pass inspection.

But the magnitude of pressure drop wouldn't be very large. 75 F is 297 K, 55 F is 285 K, 297 to 285 is a 4% drop, that means the pressure in pascals would drop about 4%. Converting to psi, if the pressure was 12.5 psi at 75 F, it would drop to 12.0 psi at 55 F.

Of course we don't know how under inflated the balls were during the game.

Edit: FYI, the formula is PV = nrT, the "ideal gas law" familiar to every physics student

P is pressure in pascals
V is volume
T is temperature in kelvin (K)
nr are constants

Assume V volume is constant which is approximately true, a football isn't very elastic (not like a balloon), at least at the range of pressures we're talking about. Then P pressure will change proportional to T temperature - if you are using the correct units, which is why you have to convert Farenheit to Kelvin and pascals to psi.

[rfuerst911sc]

I wonder what the possibility is of the official/s in charge of checking the air pressure in the footballs failed to do so ? I thought you checked them no you said you were checking them. It's possible.