#DeflateGate (Court of Appeals Reinstates Suspension)

[Celtics4ever]

The Pats won by some many points that I doubt deflated balls made a difference.  Their gameplan and talent was better.

Great example of a media running with a story and blowing it out of proportion not that we have not seen that in the news all the time.

[LooseCannon]

It's kind of like complaining about possible vote fraud that didn't affect the results in an election that wasn't that close.

[Quetzalcoatl]

Bill Nye the Science Guy has apparently said that BB's explanation doesn't make sense.

Or do you think he is biased because he worked for Boeing in Seattle, which was also where he did his TV show?

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2015/01/25/bill-nye-says-bill-belichick-made-no-sense/

Another group went out and recreated the conditions with actual balls and found that they deflated by an average of 1.8 psi per game.  Bill Nye is an entertainer who is talking out of his ass and making the Patriots look bad on conjecture.  There is nothing here other than a witch hunt

[LooseCannon]

This story isn't going to go away because people are interested.

According to ProFootballTalk:

I've never gotten more emails from readers than I have this week, and they were all strongly in one camp or the other on #DeflateGate.

[GzUP617]

Michael Naughton — the chair of Boston College’s physics department — has gone on the record to state that, “it’s not possible for weather NOT to have played a role,” in Ball-ghazi.

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. 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.

http://nesn.com/2015/01/boston-college-professor-weather-had-to-play-role-in-deflategate/

[LooseCannon]

Do they use space heaters on the sidelines so that even if they are not directly trying to heat the balls the ambient temperature where the balls are kept would be significantly higher than 40 degrees?

[Roy H.]

Michael Naughton — the chair of Boston College’s physics department — has gone on the record to state that, “it’s not possible for weather NOT to have played a role,” in Ball-ghazi.

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. 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.

http://nesn.com/2015/01/boston-college-professor-weather-had-to-play-role-in-deflategate/

I guess the real story should be that the Colts were using balls that defied physics, haha.  Same thing with that 12th Patriots ball.

[littleteapot]

Michael Naughton — the chair of Boston College’s physics department — has gone on the record to state that, “it’s not possible for weather NOT to have played a role,” in Ball-ghazi.

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. 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.

http://nesn.com/2015/01/boston-college-professor-weather-had-to-play-role-in-deflategate/

I guess the real story should be that the Colts were using balls that defied physics, haha.  Same thing with that 12th Patriots ball.

Hahahahahaha!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vxHkAQRQUQ

[kozlodoev]

I guess the real story should be that the Colts were using balls that defied physics, haha.  Same thing with that 12th Patriots ball.

You understand that Colts' footballs may or have may have been inflated to more than 12.5 and may or may not have been deflated indoors?

A pundit (NY Post, IIRC) today morning was criticizing Belichick for "not providing conclusive evidence that noone on the Patriots tampered with the footballs". After this, I guess there's no winning in the court of public opinion.

[BleedGreen1989]

I guess the real story should be that the Colts were using balls that defied physics, haha.  Same thing with that 12th Patriots ball.

You understand that Colts' footballs may or have may have been deflated to more than 12.5 and may or may not have been deflated indoors?

A pundit (NY post, IIRC) today morning was criticizing Belichick for "not providing conclusive evidence that noone on the Patriots tampered with the footballs". After this, I guess there's no winning this in the court of public opinion.

Bingo.

[rocknrollforyoursoul]

Bill Nye the Science Guy has apparently said that BB's explanation doesn't make sense.

Or do you think he is biased because he worked for Boeing in Seattle, which was also where he did his TV show?

Bill Nye thinks belief in evolution is necessary in order to have "engineers that can build stuff," so I don't give any weight to what he says.

As for footballs, anyone (such as myself) who grew up in a cold-weather state knows that taking a well-inflated football out into a cold environment will result in a loss of air pressure (though it may take quite a while for the air-pressure loss to become so great as to be noticeable by feel). We never took psi measurements, of course, but I can well imagine a 12.5 psi football dropping to the "criminal" level of 11.5 or even 10.5 in cold conditions. And since 2 psi is equivalent to the weight of a dollar bill, it's unlikely that anyone would notice the loss in air pressure just by feeling the football (as evidenced by the on-field game officials apparently not noticing anything off with New England's footballs).

[littleteapot]

I guess the real story should be that the Colts were using balls that defied physics, haha.  Same thing with that 12th Patriots ball.

You understand that Colts' footballs may or have may have been inflated to more than 12.5 and may or may not have been deflated indoors?

Um so did they not rub them or were they checked somewhere with a different temperature than where the pats balls were checked?

[kozlodoev]

Bill Nye the Science Guy has apparently said that BB's explanation doesn't make sense.

Or do you think he is biased because he worked for Boeing in Seattle, which was also where he did his TV show?

Bill Nye thinks belief in evolution is necessary in order to have "engineers that can build stuff," so I don't give any weight to what he says.

As for footballs, anyone (such as myself) who grew up in a cold-weather state knows that taking a well-inflated football out into a cold environment will result in a loss of air pressure (though it may take quite a while for the air-pressure loss to become so great as to be noticeable by feel). We never took psi measurements, of course, but I can well imagine a 12.5 psi football dropping to the "criminal" level of 11.5 or even 10.5 in cold conditions. And since 2 psi is equivalent to the weight of a dollar bill, it's unlikely that anyone would notice the loss in air pressure just by feeling the football (as evidenced by the on-field game officials apparently not noticing anything off with New England's footballs).

And a Pittsburgh science think tank was able to replicate what Belichick suggested happened. Whoops.

“We took 12 brand new authentic NFL footballs and exposed them to the different elements they would have experienced throughout the game.’?¯ said Healy, a masters student in mechanical engineering at Carnegie Mellon. “Out of the 12 footballs we tested, we found that on average, footballs dropped 1.8 PSI when being exposed to dropping temperatures and wet conditions.”

“During testing, 12 brand new footballs were inflated to 12.5 PSI in a 75 degree Fahrenheit room. This was to imitate the indoor conditions where the referees would have tested the footballs 2 hours and 15 minutes before kickoff. The footballs were then moved to a 50 degree Fahrenheit environment to simulate the temperatures that were experienced throughout the game. In addition, the footballs were dampened to replicate the rainy conditions.”

http://itiswhatitis.weei.com/sports/newengland/football/patriots/2015/01/25/bill-nye-science-guy-claims-bill-belichick-doesnt-make-any-sense-in-explanation/

[GzUP617]

 Bill Nye is the Dr Oz of science right now.

[danglertx]

Doesn't ESPN have a whole bit about sports science?  Can't they test it and replicate the loss of PSI?  Of course they can, and probably did but they don't want to let a good story go without beating it to death a couple more weeks.