NFL probing Patriots' possible use of deflated balls during AFC Championship

"She knows cars better than I know Footballs".
When he said he wasn't Mona Lisa Vito from "My Cousin Vinnie" (fantastic movie btw) I almost lost it.
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Perfected by a certain group of people near Washington D.C.

 

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Sounded like they were setting up their legal defense against the NFL results. Bring in Barry Scheck and Henry Lee for Cross Examination of the football.

 

Maybe because the Colts inflated it to the highest legal level or they inflated them outside?

If the former is true, the Colts balls would still be within the legal range after the pressure drops. If the latter is true, the pressure wouldn't drop at all and they'd be within the range.

If the Patriots prepared their balls in the locker room (which is what Belicheck says) then the football would lose about 1.5-2 PSI when taken outside to the cold.

It could be that no one was at fault in this situation and the NFL needs greater and more tight standards in place regarding this. Nevertheless, if this is true, the NFL and the big media outlets have done a flagrantly ignorant job of reporting.

I'm not saying Patriots are innocent in this. I don't know what actually happened just like everyone else. All I'm saying is the Patriots argument definitely holds up. Weather and atmospheric conditions do affect football pressure. It has been confirmed by scientists along with many YouTube videos of people actually trying it. I'd still like to know the exact PSI numbers for both teams before the game and when they were measured again at halftime.

Right now there's too many unknown variables to confidently make a decision.

 

That isn't even close to correct.

 

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


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Sorry, I need to watch an entire video to know you're talking ****? Do the math, it isn't possible.

 

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Everyone has focused on the passing game with Brady but there might be a different reason for the deflating.

Dumb Luck

The New England Patriots’ prevention of fumbles is nearly impossible.

http://www.slate.com/articles/sport...s_lose_an_insanely_low_number_of_fumbles.html

In light of the ball deflation scandal currently consuming the New England Patriots, football data analyst Warren Sharp looked at the Patriots’ recent fumble statistics and found some startling results. A slightly different version of this post first appeared on Sharp’s own site. It is reprinted with his permission.

On Wednesday, I investigated whether the New England Patriots outperform expectations in bad weather and found that, yes, they do. Then I remembered this remarkable fact: The 2014 Patriots were just the third team in the last 25 years to never have lost a fumble at home! The biggest difference between the Patriots and the other two teams that did it was that New England ran between 150 and 200 more plays this year than those teams, making the Patriots stand alone in this unique statistic. Based on the desire to incorporate full-season data (not just home games, as a team theoretically would bring “doctored footballs” with it on the road) I performed the following analysis:



I looked at the last five years of data and examined total fumbles lost in all games (as well as fumbles per game) and, more importantly, total offensive plays run. Thus, I was able to determine average plays per fumble lost. The results are displayed in the chart above. Keep in mind, this is for all games since 2010.

One can clearly see the Patriots, visually, are off the chart. There is no other team even close to being near to their rate of 187 offensive plays per fumble lost. The league average is 105 plays per fumble lost. Most teams are within 21 plays of that number.

I spoke with a data scientist whom I know from work on NFLproject.com and sent him the data. He said:

Based on the assumption that fumbles per play follow a normal distribution, you’d expect to see, according to random fluctuation, the results that the Patriots have gotten over this period, once in 16,233.77 instances.

Which in layman’s terms means that this result only being a coincidence, is like winning a raffle where you have a 0.0000616 probability to win. [In] other words, it’s very unlikely that it’s a coincidence.

I actually went back and researched five-year periods for the entire NFL over the last 25 years. The Patriots’ ratio of 187 plays to 1 fumble lost is the best of any team in the NFL for any five-year span of time over the last 25 years. It wasn’t just the best—it wasn’t close:

1. 2010–2014 Patriots: 187 plays/fumble lost
2. 2009–2013 Patriots: 156 plays/fumble lost
3. 2006–2010 Colts: 156 plays/fumble lost
4. 2005–2009 Colts: 153 plays/fumble lost
5. 2007–2011 Patriots: 149 plays/fumble lost
6. 2008–2012 Patriots: 148 plays/fumble lost
7. 2010–2014 Texans: 140 plays/fumble lost
8. 2004–2008 Colts: 139 plays/fumble lost
9. 2006–2010 Jets: 135 plays/fumble lost
10. 1999–2003 Chiefs: 134 plays/fumble lost
There are a few key takeaways. First and foremost, the 187 plays per fumble lost dwarfs even the rest of the best seasons of the last 25 years. Second, the Patriots have been at the top of the NFL since 2007.

Ironically, as my study on Wednesday showed, the Patriots’ performance in wet weather home games mysteriously turned ridiculous starting in 2007. In 2006, they went 0–2. From 2007 onward, they went 14–1.

The next obvious question becomes: Where were the Patriots in this statistic pre-2007? Take a look:



As you can see, the Patriots won their Super Bowls having a below-average rate of fumbles lost given today’s average of 105 plays per fumble lost. But in 2007, something happened to propel them to a much better rate. (You’ll remember, that just so happened to be the same year they went 16–0 in the regular season.) But even looking at these numbers, it’s clear how insane the 187 number is: They are almost running 100 more plays without a single fumble as compared with the 2002–2006 period when they won two of their three Super Bowls.

To further illustrate how these numbers are astonishing, the below graphic lays out clearly how far off the Patriots are from the rest of the league. The Patriots and their 187 plays per fumble lost is far from the bell-shaped curve:



Here’s the same chart as the top one, this time displaying color bands as we move away from the 105 plays per fumble lost average. You can see the darker red band contains all teams but the bottom three and the top three and that the bottom three are very close to the darker red band. Meanwhile, the Patriots are really in a league of their own:



Looking at all fumbles, and not just fumbles lost, we come up with similar findings.

First, it should be noted that teams playing indoors fumble the ball less frequently, the foremost reason being that the ball won’t be wet from precipitation or damp from late-night condensation. The below graphic looks at all fumbles over five-year periods during the last 25 years. As you can see, of the top 25 team-periods, 17 are dome teams, including 11 of the top 15.



As is apparent, the Patriots are the only outdoor NFL team in the last 25 years to average 70 plays per fumble or better. It’s simply uncanny, as the statistics above similarly showed.

The league average from 2010 to 2014 was 50 plays per fumble. For indoor teams, the average was 55 plays per fumble. For outdoor teams, excluding the Patriots, the average was 46 plays per fumble. The Patriots averaged 73 plays per fumble, almost 60 percent more than outdoor teams and almost 50 percent more than the league average the past five years.



As we can clearly see in both near-term and long-term data that dome-based teams (that play at least eight games out of the elements) have an advantage in the fumble department, we can exclude them from comparisons to the Patriots.

If we do, I can produce a chart nearly identical to the one at the very top that looked only at fumbles lost. This one looks at all fumbles, whether lost or recovered. I think the point still remains:



Could the Patriots be so good that they just defy the numbers? As my friend theorized: Perhaps they’ve invented a revolutionary in-house way to protect the ball, or perhaps they’ve intentionally stocked their skill positions with players who don’t have a propensity to fumble. Or perhaps, still, they call plays that intentionally result in a lower percentage of fumbles. Or maybe it’s just that they play with deflated footballs on offense. It could be any combination of the above.

But regardless of what, specifically, is causing these numbers, the fact remains: This is an extremely abnormal occurrence and is not simply random fluctuation.

 

Debunking the debunkers.

http://www.boston.com/sports/column...e_blame_it_on_the_rain_or_is_there_no_de.html

tl;dr - physically impossible for weather to have played a role in the balls deflating to the degree they did

 

This is particularly interesting, given this:

http://www.denverpost.com/broncos/ci_27381757/tom-brady-reached-out-peyton-manning-jake-plummer


For Tom Brady, the feel and size of the football came into focus long before Deflategate. Brady joined forces with Peyton Manning in 2006, successfully convincing the NFL to allow visiting teams to provide footballs for their offense. Before the change, home teams supplied all footballs, meaning visiting quarterbacks had only pregame warmups to adjust to the size and slickness.

 

It's amazing to see how much of a strategic advantage this has given the Patriots. At first I thought the impact had to be miniscule... but it's clearly not. I hope Brady and Belichick are kicked out of the league.

 

If the Patriots have been using deflated balls since 2007 wouldn't BOB know about it? I wonder how many teams got away with this last season.

 

I love all the excuses. Hey, if the refs didn't catch it then it's on them that the patriots cheated! Patriots didn't cheat, they just have such a good home field ad advantage that the weather only impacts their football! Screw Seattle the new england weather is the real 12th man!

They didn't cheat! Look some garage scientist in a completely uncontrolled experiment lowered the psi by .5 so two pounds is normal!

 

What are you referring to?

 

We don't even know if Patriots did cheat. If the balls started off at 12.5, atmospheric conditions could lower it to around 11-11.5. Mortenson's report said they found the balls to be up to 2 psi lower. Was he comparing this from the minimum 12.5 or the maximum 13.5 or somewhere in the middle? And what does "up to" mean?

Also, did the NFL actually test the psi's of the balls before the game or did they just do a quick "squeeze test" which I've heard is quite common. Again, I'd like to see the actually numbers of both team's PSI's before the game and when they were remeasured after half time.

If the Patriots did cheat and they find evidence linking them to it, then yes they deserve punishment. Finings, taking away draft picks, salary cap hits, and maybe even suspensions. But until I see the proof I'm going to withhold judgment.

The biggest issue in my opinion is that why this has turned into such a big deal. I'm pretty sure this has gotten more press than bounty gate, which is just absurd. We talking about slightly under inflated footballs here. Many teams do this on the regular. Its such a miniscule factor and as Steve Young said, "it's not going to win or lose you games." And to the people who now say their legacy is absolutely tainted because of this, does it also taint the achievements of all the other teams who have done this or any other small infractions? So as long as you don't get caught, your achievements are still in tact? And heck, this is just assuming if the patriots did actually do this.

And to the whole fumble thing, that's interesting. But the patriots use their own balls on the road too, so I'm not too sure what to make of it. But usually good teams do a great job not turning the ball over.

Again let's just wait to see how this all plays out. If they were found to intentionally cheat, they deserve harsh penalties. If they find no evidence, then I don't know how you can just assume they did. But it seems like the court of public opinion has already made it's decision

 

You'd have to either be a Pats fan or INCREDIBLY naive to think that this is any more than yet another example of the Pats cheating. It's like seeing the wife of a convicted wife beater walking around with a black eye and buying the story that she walked into a doorknob.

 

So I called this out as complete crap. you then rolled it back

So now it instead of 2-1.5 it is 1-1.5. The problem is, a few hundred years ago people have worked out how ideal gas behaves in thermodynamic processes. You don't have to just guess. Most of us learned these laws in the 10th grade. Do the math.