January 30, 2015

That's begging the question though, isn't it? What rule was definitely broken? And does this mean you're in favor of similar penalties for the Packers and Giants and any other team that's openly admitted to doctoring the footballs? How about the Panthers and Vikings?

posted by yerfatma at 08:45 AM on January 30, 2015

What rule was definitely broken?

Rule 2, Section 1: "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."

The NFL has confirmed that balls used by the Patriots were not in compliance. A rule was broken, so the team gets a punishment for that.

The league isn't obligated to make a federal case out of this. They could have just punished for the violation without getting into intent. It would be easier to sell a minor punishment to the public as fair when they don't get into intent.

And does this mean you're in favor of similar penalties for the Packers and Giants and any other team that's openly admitted to doctoring the footballs?

I'm not aware of any other team admitting to playing with footballs outside of the required inflation. But if any did, none were caught. The Patriots were. So they get a punishment. Maybe those guys gotta study the rule book.

posted by rcade at 09:57 AM on January 30, 2015

The video doesn't show who is doing it. The person has a coat with a red X on it, not team gear, and the video says it was done for both teams. Is a sideline attendant a team official or a league official?

I'm not against punishing for that either. If those teams were breaking rules about footballs, then the league should factor in the decision to warn them in any punishment decision about the Patriots. Or punish them now, since it was a recent infraction.

posted by rcade at 11:07 AM on January 30, 2015

I'm loving the Boogie Cousins/Clay Travis back-and-forth.

posted by Ufez Jones at 01:04 PM on January 30, 2015

The harder they push, the worse they will look in the end.

I think that's an argument for punishing quickly (and likely less severely) without getting into intent.

posted by rcade at 03:13 PM on January 30, 2015

The league has proof that a rule was broken. By a repeat offender.

Doesn't "repeat offender" rely on your first statement? And isn't your first statement begging the question given the League hasn't revealed anything?

posted by yerfatma at 03:33 PM on January 30, 2015

Doesn't "repeat offender" rely on your first statement?

No. The second offense makes the repeat offender.

You've twice said people are "begging the question" by asserting that a rule was broken. Playing with improperly inflated footballs is breaking a rule and the NFL has confirmed the Patriots did that. I don't see any uncertainty on that point -- there's a rule and it wasn't followed.

posted by rcade at 04:14 PM on January 30, 2015

rcade: Playing with improperly inflated footballs is breaking a rule and the NFL has confirmed the Patriots did that

This is news to me, do you have a source for this? It is my understanding that the NFL claims when they measured the balls at halftime, they were lower than 12.5 PSI; that this is about all we can state factually. We can't say what they were at before the game although the ref OK'ed them, and we can't say the actual measurements at half time or when and where they were taken. It has been amply demonstrated that a legally inflated football will be below 12.5 PSI- by significant amounts numerically, even if it's not detectable by most people in a blind test.

So unless I'm missing some new wrinkle, I still don't think the Patriots did anything wrong whatsoever. Not in the abstract sense of "Of course it's against the rules, but everyone does it", but in the sense that I don't think they did literally anything in violation of the rules, and scant evidence they even gamed the system in some egregious way. I've yet to hear (although I'm not exactly following this story too closely at this point) a shred of evidence of any malfeasance. We went from "Patriots letting air out of the balls, almost 2 pounds lighter, what cheaters!" to nothing of substance. It was all smoke, and no fire; if anything, shouldn't the NFL be paying the Patriots for their trouble?!

No proof of leaking of any kind. No specific measurements to be reviewed, nor specific times and methods. An inflation drop entirely explainable- even expected- by temperature (and Colts balls that were either overinflated, or simply never measured at halftime but only an hour or more after the game after they'd been sitting inside warming back up). No one on field ever noticed, because it turns out you can't, not really. So all we get is one locker room guy taking a 90 second piss break on security camera as our "smoking gun".

And for this media circus, a team deserves a fine or loss of draft pick? Why, because a week ago the media and many fans were personally convinced they had done something wrong, and now they gotta pay... just because?

What I think really happened is that no one ever cared too much about that rule, it was never strictly enforced because 12.5-13.5 is not some divine ratio derived by alchemists, but an arbitrary range made up decades ago. Further, no one in the NFL apparently ever did the numbers and realize how much the PSI changed with temperature and adjust their rulebook or process accordingly- as beaverboard notes they did with the kicking balls- so they probably assumed that if it was 12.5 coming out of the locker room, it'd stay that way through the game. Refs do a squeeze test, say good enough because it "feels" right, mark the ball and the game goes on. It's not only possible but likely that people have been unintentionally playing with balls inflated to anywhere from 10 to 15 PSI for decades, without anyone really noticing week over week.

The Colts "tattled" on the Patriots possibly based on a rumor from the Ravens, and the lack of understanding of the Ideal Gas Law among the NFL, media, and fans led to the nation proving its collective stupidity for almost two straight weeks. The NFL and Goodell are in a position that they have nothing- no evidence of anything but their own ref's lax enforcement and a rulebook and process that was clearly ignorant of how the temperature affects the ball. Goodell is for some intrinsic reason afraid to simply say this and exonerate the Patriots, so they're digging in their heels. It's some immutable law of PR, that no one can just act like an adult about anything in the public eye.

If it's a ticky-tacky fine like $25K, then Bob Kraft probably pays it, takes his pound of flesh from Goodell in private, and we see the sports fandom continue to believe the Patriots are a corrupt organization or a "bunch of cheaters". Meanwhile, the NFL has a wisp of a chance of implementing better rules to address this now that we've all become aware of it, such as climate controlled container on field and/or balls filled (and re-filled at half time) to a fixed pressure by machine, running at the same temperature as that on the field.

posted by hincandenza at 04:54 PM on January 30, 2015

Air was intentionally removed from the Patriots balls in violation of a league rule.

Cheating is cheating.

the lack of understanding of the Ideal Gas Law among the NFL, media, and fans

Here's an interesting read for those who have drank Bill's potion

posted by cixelsyd at 05:28 PM on January 30, 2015

rcade: New York Times: "[T]he NFL confirmed Friday that game balls used by the New England Patriots during the first half of Sunday's AFC championship game against the Indianapolis Colts were underinflated ..."

Oh come on, man. I apologize for being cruelly blunt, but you should be embarrassed for yourself at this point. I mean, that article is from January 23rd, a whole week ago! It only states that the NFL claimed they were investigating these allegations. No PSI values are listed, nor any other factual evidence; just speculation from random football personalities, such as Tim Hasselback and his prognostications on what ball boys would do.

I mean, how much clearer can I state it? There is at this time no actual evidence any wrong doing occurred. We don't know the starting PSI, we don't know the PSI at half time, just some vague assurance it's "two pounds" or maybe "nearly two pounds" or some other unsubstantiated guess work by a couple of refs or officials days later.

And without actual facts, logs, documentation, or anything, all the science supports that a 1+ PSI can easily be lost just from the 20 degree temperature difference from indoor to outdoor. We've seen both theoretical calculations and actual experiments- you know, the bedrock of science- that show these effects.

So before you go taking away draft picks... I repeat, do you have ANY evidence that the balls were underinflated before the game, or tampered with in game that I and others haven't debunked repeatedly already? Because it seems to me that you want to say that because you've read about this story, you need there to be punishment so that you feel good. Why? If they didn't do anything wrong, why should they get any punishment, no matter how slight?

cixelsyd: Here's an interesting read for those who have drank Bill's potion

How was that interesting? The mental giant who wrote that basically says "Well, we can easily account for 1 psi, but not 2 psi!"... even though we've never been told the actual recorded measurements at any time before or during the game, so we don't even know if the 2 psi is accurate, a rounded up value, or what. Not to mention the 1.0-1.6 PSI drop in physical experiments done recently have consistently shown up, easily allowing for the "nearly 2 PSI" drop to be anything but "fishy".

Lacking any actual number, only fanatical zealots would still cling to this idea there is or ever was some "proof". Hey, if you show me the log books that the NFL refs use every game to record the PSI, and then show me the one from the Colts game which shows a measurement before the game and then at the half that cannot even charitably be accounted for by PV = nRT... then I'll change my tune. I mean, if a decent gauge recorded a 2.4PSI drop that was rounded down to "two pounds", even I'd say that was "fishy".

But you can't offer that up. None of you can. Because it doesn't exist. But because you've let yourself be convinced initially there was some great cheating conspiracy by the Patriots, you will never ever be convinced otherwise. To you, they will always have gotten away with it. Until Bill and Tom and Bob and Co. somehow prove a negative, you will never not believe this was just a dumb story the media got wrong. That's surely something that has never happened before....

posted by hincandenza at 06:54 PM on January 30, 2015

I apologize for being cruelly blunt, but you should be embarrassed for yourself at this point.

I don't apologize for being blunt: I'll respond when you stop sounding like a typical dumbass from an ESPN Facebook thread.

posted by rcade at 07:11 PM on January 30, 2015

I admire the heck out of Chuck Pagano, but he is not going to out-detail Bill Belichick.

The premise that Belichick went into the game knowing outdoor conditions would bring footballs below 12.5 PSI is contradicted by his Mona Lisa Vito press conference, in which he described a process where such deflation would have been unintentional.

Maybe warm them up a bit more before you give them to the refs to check

In that presser he also denied that footballs ever were subjected to hotter conditions than the normal locker room environment when prepared before they were tested by refs.

So if he was being clever, as you suggest, that would also make him a pretty elaborate liar.

I'm not suggesting one alternative or the other. Just pointing out that the clever Belichick theory doesn't gibe with the "here's why this accidentally could have happened" presser.

posted by rcade at 08:47 PM on January 30, 2015

Do they also have to leave the room if they hear Al Michaels say: "Do you believe in miracles?"

posted by beaverboard at 10:01 AM on January 31, 2015