#DeflateGate (Court of Appeals Reinstates Suspension)

[BballTim]

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.

  I haven't followed this story overly closely, but where and when did they do the measurement? Was it on the field or was it in the locker room?

  Also, you'd think the guys who were writing these articles would go to the trouble to figure out what they're talking about. It's high school level stuff.

  I don't think that anyone will ever know the full story about what happened. That doesn't really start with the Pats though. How was the initial inspection done? Do the people really measure the pressure in each ball? It's possible, but not definite. In soccer (for instance) the referees frequently inspect the game ball by picking it up and squeezing it to see if it's inflated properly.

  Were the footballs checked with gauges before the game? That's the assumption, but I wouldn't bet the bank on it. It's more likely that the balls were slightly underinflated to start with than they were later deflated.

[GratefulCs]

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.

Their sports science segment was up for about 15 minutes before they pulled it


Luckily it can still be found on youtube

[GratefulCs]

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.

And here it is!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VZ_S8F3mKFE

[danglertx]

I can't believe they wasted a whole segment without actually testing the loss of PSI in changing temperatures, which is really the only thing that maters.  ESPN should be ashamed.

[kozlodoev]

I can't believe they wasted a whole segment without actually testing the loss of PSI in changing temperatures, which is really the only thing that maters.  ESPN should be ashamed.

This is a pretty worthless segment. The most important question isn't whether it provides an advantage or not, it's whether pressure loss can occur without tampering after the balls are improved.

[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 id his TV show?

He finished his bit with "Go Seahawks", so I'm guessing he's fully impartial.

http://time.com/3681707/bill-nye-science-guy-deflategate/

[footey]

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.

Don't let the absence of facts get in the way of your jokes, Roy. What was the PSI of the Colts balls when measured by the refs? Did Luck select the same PSI level as Brady, or closer to 13.5?  Did they rub them down right before handing them over to the refs?  What did they measure at when tested? Exactly the same as the pre-game measurement?  When were they tested?  In the same climate as when the Pats balls were tested?  Did 11/12 Pats balls drop from 12.5 to 10.5? Or did they drop below 12.5 to as low as 10.5.  There simply are too many unanswered questions to deduce that the Pats purposely deflated the balls.  Let me know when Roger Goodell texts you the answers.  The only person who has made any reasonable effort to get to the bottom of what happened, and disclose his findings, was Bill Belichick, who happens to be preparing for a Super Bowl. 

[GratefulCs]

Anyone watching the pre-pro bowl coverage?


Man, there are some salty former players. I honestly can't believe that more people are upset with this than the head hunting from New Orleans

[Boris Badenov]

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.

Don't let the absence of facts get in the way of your jokes, Roy. What was the PSI of the Colts balls when measured by the refs? Did Luck select the same PSI level as Brady, or closer to 13.5?  Did they rub them down right before handing them over to the refs?  What did they measure at when tested? Exactly the same as the pre-game measurement?  When were they tested?  In the same climate as when the Pats balls were tested?  Did 11/12 Pats balls drop from 12.5 to 10.5? Or did they drop below 12.5 to as low as 10.5.  There simply are not too many unanswered questions to deduce that the Pats purposely deflated the balls.  Let me know when Roger Goodell texts you the answers.  The only person who has made any reasonable effort to get to the bottom of what happened, and disclose his findings, was Bill Belichick, who happens to be preparing for a Super Bowl.

I posted a related set of questions about 20 pages back, along with the same point about how you can't draw a conclusion without answers to them, and the point was ignored then. Don't expect it to be given any consideration now.

[colincb]

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2015/01/25/nfl-bears-plenty-of-blame-for-deflategate/

NFL bears plenty of blame for #DeflateGate

At this point, it’s unclear whether the NFL will find any evidence to support the suspicion that someone from the Patriots deliberately caused footballs to lose air pressure.  If the NFL fails to find a proverbial smoking gun, that alone could become a different kind of smoking gun.

Even if (and at this point it could be a big if) the league finds proof of foul play, was it really worth it?  The NFL has tarnished its own shield by painting a Super Bowl participant as a cheater without clear evidence of cheating.  As noted on Friday, some believe that former Commissioners (such as Paul Tagliabue) would have addressed complaints coming from teams like the Colts regarding underinflated footballs not by trying to lay a trap for the Patriots, but by letting the Patriots know that the league office is paying attention to the situation, and that if there’s any funny business happening it needs to stop, now.  Instead, the league office opted to try to catch the Patriots red handed.

But what has the NFL really found?  As one league source has explained it to PFT, the football intercepted by Colts linebacker D’Qwell Jackson was roughly two pounds under the 12.5 PSI minimum.  The other 10 balls that reportedly were two pounds under may have been, as the source explained it, closer to one pound below 12.5 PSI.

The NFL has yet to share specific information regarding the PSI measurements of the balls that were confiscated and measured at halftime.  Which has allowed the perception of cheating to linger, fueled by the confirmation from Friday that the NFL found underinflated balls, but that the NFL still doesn’t know how they came to be that way.

“The goals of the investigation will be to determine the explanation for why footballs used in the game were not in compliance with the playing rules and specifically whether any noncompliance was the result of deliberate action,” the league said. “We have not made any judgments on these points and will not do so until we have concluded our investigation and considered all of the relevant evidence.”

Regardless of how hard or easy it could be or should be to get to the truth, the NFL owes it to the Patriots and the league to get there, quickly.  Instead, the premier American sporting event apparently will be played under a dark cloud, and anything other than an eventual finding of cheating will seem anticlimactic and contrived.  Even if the conclusion is regarded as legitimate, it won’t undo the damage that the Patriots and the NFL will have suffered during this bizarre period of pending allegations that have not yet been proven.

So at a time when the league office is still reeling from an insufficient investigation in the Ray Rice case, the league office now faces even more criticism for a clumsy sting operation that possibly will end up being a swing and a miss.  Surely, much of that criticism will be directed privately at the league office from the Patriots.

Complicating matters for the NFL is that the bat initially was swung by Mike Kensil, a former employee of the Jets with a reputation among the Patriots for being an agitator. (Kensil’s father, Jim, served as president of the Jets for 10 years from the late 1970s to the late 1980s.)  And so on the same day that the tampering charges filed by the Patriots against the Jets over Darrelle Revis became the latest chapter in a longstanding feud between the franchises, the tentacles of acrimony between the two franchises found a way to erupt into a brouhaha unlike many the NFL ever has seen.

The NFL never should have let this specific situation get to that point.  Even if the league deemed it proper to lay a trap, they should have realized the challenges of actually making a trap work.  In this case, it appears that they didn’t.

The tide is turning.

[Smokeeye123]

Anyone watching the pre-pro bowl coverage?


Man, there are some salty former players. I honestly can't believe that more people are upset with this than the head hunting from New Orleans

A lot of the former players speaking out against the patriots should donate their brains to Harvard.

[Rondo2287]

This new news that 10 out of 12 balls being closer to 11.5 psi should probably spell the end of Chris mortenson.  What a fraud

[rondohondo]

This new news that 10 out of 12 balls being closer to 11.5 psi should probably spell the end of Chris mortenson.  What a fraud

 like just about everyone on that network

[Ogaju]

why cant this just be handled like the weigh-in for boxing. If you make weight at the weigh in then it does not matter what weight you actually fight at after the weigh in.

In this case the balls are weighed before the game and after that there should be two ball officials that guard the balls during the game.

[littleteapot]

Jeez I basically assumed that the 11 out of 12 balls thing was real because how could you falsely report an actual measurement that someone made. There's clearly too many people with an ax to grind with the patriots to trust the allegations.

why cant this just be handled like the weigh-in for boxing. If you make weight at the weigh in then it does not matter what weight you actually fight at after the weigh in.

In this case the balls are weighed before the game and after that there should be two ball officials that guard the balls during the game.

Because you there isn't a pump you can use to make an athlete gain 30 pounds of muscle in a day or 2.