#DeflateGate (Court of Appeals Reinstates Suspension)

[kozlodoev]

It certainly seems the Pats deflated balls which IS cheating, though it is unlikely that it can be proved. Yes, Pats were clearly the better team though that only makes the latest incident even more crass and classless.

Also, several have mentioned that the weather would bring the psi down, which is true. How do you explain the 12th football not being deflated? One would assume that the temperature would have effected all 12 footballs equally, yet it did not. Also, people keep bringing up Rodgers saying he likes overinflated balls. There is a window of 12.5-13.5 psi which is legal. So, Rodgers could prefer his balls at 13.5 (still legal). I am not aware of any complaints regarding the balls Rodgers uses in games either.

 Just wanted to make sure it was pointed out that neither argument holds any weight nor does it justify tampering with a ball; otherwise known as cheating.

Make sure you don't miss the part where Rodgers is quoted to say he likes to go above the rulebook limit to see whether the officials will take air out of the ball.

http://www.bostonsportsmedia.com/2015/01/deflategate-is-over-this-is-the-smoking-gun

[kozlodoev]

If the Patriots didn't monkey around with the temperature of the balls, I have a hard time believing the ball boy pulled out 12 footballs in front of everyone and started deflating balls right before the game.   Nobody noticed?  On Mike and Mike the former Officials supervisor said they give the ball boy the bag of balls just 10 minutes before the game starts.  He'd have to pull out all the balls, deflate, put it in the bag, grab the next one, deflate, put it in the bag, grab the next one, deflate and put it in the bag... and so on and so on without anyone noticing?  I'm not buying it.

It would be much easier to believe they heat them up, it probably wouldn't have to be too hot to get 2 psi  difference between 40degrees and whatever they needed to warm them to be legal.

It would be easy to test for anyone with a football, a pressure gauge,  and a refrigerator.  Someone get on that.

Someone seems to have done the math, which adds up to about 1.2 PSI if the temp drop is from 72F to 49F and the balls were inflated to the minimum to boot.

[danglertx]

Cool, so if you put 140degree or so air in them... 2lbs or so difference.  Is there a rule against use warm air to inflate a football?

[TheFlex]

In any sport its up to the referee to check the ball to make sure its regulation.  Ultimately it comes down to the refs failing to do their job - a recurring theme with the NFL.  The fact that there was gamesmanship going on...so what.  It's part of the sport and always has been.

The refs did check the balls, it is quite obvious that they were toyed with after they had been approved by the officiating crew. To further point out how asinine your comment is, it only took a few plays for the refs to realize that something was wrong with the footballs and they were immediately substituted in with properly inflated balls.

Um, no, it didn't. The balls were not reported "soft" until halftime when Brady was picked off. This was well-documented when the story broke down yesterday.

Which brings us full circle to the following question: how did the officials, who handle every ball after every snap (both Pats balls and Colts balls) didn't see anything wrong, and one Colts player suddenly figured out something is wrong from one touch. I mean, wouldn't it be immediately obvious to an official that the Pats balls were noticeably softer than Colts balls?

Also, the narrative of the story has suddenly changed from "balls were underinflated by 2 PSI" to "balls were underinflated by up to 2 PSI". So go figure.

My bad, got that info from a Pats fan. I knew I should never trust that evil breed of human 

[kozlodoev]

Cool, so if you put 140degree or so air in them... 2lbs or so difference.  Is there a rule against use warm air to inflate a football?

Not really, the rulebook is pretty minimalistic when it comes to the football. It just prescribes dimensions and makes it illegal to tamper with the ball after the officiating crew has marked it as approved.

http://static.nfl.com/static/content/public/image/rulebook/pdfs/5_2013_Ball.pdf

[kozlodoev]

My bad, got that info from a Pats fan. I knew I should never trust that evil breed of human 

Never trust a fan without verifying the facts. The main reason why you should ignore Bleacher Report altogether.

[danglertx]

Cool, so if you put 140degree or so air in them... 2lbs or so difference.  Is there a rule against use warm air to inflate a football?

Not really, the rulebook is pretty minimalistic when it comes to the football. It just prescribes dimensions and makes it illegal to tamper with the ball after the officiating crew has marked it as approved.

http://static.nfl.com/static/content/public/image/rulebook/pdfs/5_2013_Ball.pdf

Yeah, that was my point.  I knew there wasn't.  Just like the spygate rule and furthur "clarifications" all stated you couldn't videotape from that location for use in "the game."  It didn't prohibit it, just as it pertained to "the game."  Which game?  The one going on?  So you can do it to break down the game after, grade players based on what the defense called for?  Poorly written rules and the clarification seemed to end the confusion, until the last line when they stuck "the game" back in there.

A better system would have the balls delivered uninflated to the referees and they inflate them.  They then give them to the ball boy who is an employee of the NFL instead of the teams. 

[SHAQATTACK]

It really takes BALLs to come up with something this trivial

[TheFlex]

My bad, got that info from a Pats fan. I knew I should never trust that evil breed of human 

Never trust a fan without verifying the facts. The main reason why you should ignore Bleacher Report altogether.

I'm a Ravens fan who admittedly would love nothing more than to be able to say the Pats cheated in beating us a couple of Sundays back, so I don't know why I was so eager to regurgitate info coming from the enemy.

[Eja117]

Ok so we got Aaron Rogers admitting publicly that he intentionally overinflates the balls and we have two teams caught on tv.

Punish them. They cheated. They are the cheats.

[TheFlex]

Oh, and what an ****y season for the NFL. Domestic violence rules the regular season, allegations of foul play rule the playoffs.

This is why I'm a bigger NBA fan. At least when there's foul play, the perpetrators write books about it 

[SHAQATTACK]

Next time

Don't deflate your balls

[mgent]

If the Patriots inflate the balls with hot air, then give the officials the balls to check and after playing in 40 degree weather the balls cool and the PSI goes down, is that cheating?

Why weren't the Colts affected, then?

Plus, from what I understand, weather probably wouldn't account for losing 2 PSI in a few hours.

I have some minor degree of the sympathy for the "everyone is doing it" argument.  I think the "this wasn't intentional" justification is silly, though.

IF THE PATRIOTS INFLATED THEIR BALLS WITH HOT AIR.  Maybe the Dolts used room temperature balls.  Maybe the Patriots inflate their balls to 10 1/2 psi room temp, stick them in the sauna until they get to 12 1/2 psi and then give them to the refs to check the PSI. 

What I am saying is, if you want an underinflated ball, simply pump it up with hot air, get it checked, then send it out into 40 degree weather.

Haha, and they wouldn't notice one team's balls are 100+ degrees and much hotter to the touch than the other team's?  Seems a lot more noticeable (qualitatively) than less air.

Why would they go through all that, when all they have to do is stick a needle in the ball for 2 whole seconds?  It's not like that even solves the problem of having your balls checked after the game.  All that means is they would have to fudge TWO weigh-ins instead of just one.

[SHAQATTACK]

Ok so we got Aaron Rogers admitting publicly that he intentionally overinflates the balls and we have two teams caught on tv.

Punish them. They cheated. They are the cheats.

40 lashes

Public flogging

[D Dub]

Cool, so if you put 140degree or so air in them... 2lbs or so difference.  Is there a rule against use warm air to inflate a football?

Not really, the rulebook is pretty minimalistic when it comes to the football. It just prescribes dimensions and makes it illegal to tamper with the ball after the officiating crew has marked it as approved.

http://static.nfl.com/static/content/public/image/rulebook/pdfs/5_2013_Ball.pdf

best part about this rule, the unit of measure articulated by the NFL:

The ball shall be made up of an inflated (12 1/2 to 13 1/2 pounds) urethane bladder enclosed in a pebble grained, leather case
(natural tan color) without corrugations of any kind.

13.5 pounds...per?  seems open to interpretation. 

was there a rule broken or is this a broken rule?