Deflated Footballs? - Ballgate posts go here - NSFW

[bmooney54]

I would imagine the ref would mark the ball differently for each game.
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[deec77]

I would imagine the ref would mark the ball differently for each game.
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If they were then the ball in the Colts possession would be easily identified as from a prior game. Also why would you then put all 30 plus balls into play if you could identify the 23 official AFC game balls?

According to the article they just initial them. After they're inspected they are placed in the game ball bag. Not sure why they would initial them differently for each game since it seems this was never a problem before. (read no one really cared). And who returned all the balls marked with Andersons initials including the official ACF game day balls into circulation?

I think this is going to all come down to the NFL official that was fired.

~Dee~

 

[king of kings]

You can't enter "common sense" into any decision including the NFL as part of the equation.

Commonsense died a long time ago.

 

[O_P_T]

If they were then the ball in the Colts possession would be easily identified as from a prior game. Also why would you then put all 30 plus balls into play if you could identify the 23 official AFC game balls?

According to the article they just initial them. After they're inspected they are placed in the game ball bag. Not sure why they would initial them differently for each game since it seems this was never a problem before. (read no one really cared). And who returned all the balls marked with Andersons initials including the official ACF game day balls into circulation?

I think this is going to all come down to the NFL official that was fired.

~Dee~

If they had initialed a ball previously, they may not put a second mark on the ball.

Presumably the mark is to indicate that it has been looked at by the refs and approved, so they can distinguish this from a substituted ball, that has no mark.

I think most of the concern for the refs are the kicking balls, not the game balls. There's a reason the kicking balls are "virgin" and not provided by the teams.

In the before time, teams used to do a whole bunch of funky things to make the kicking balls "better". Microwave them is one of the stranger things I've heard.

So presumably, the mark made on the kicking balls is different than what is placed on the game balls. This will let them quickly identify if the wrong type of ball is used for either type of play.

If we assume there was less concern about the play balls, which makes sense, then if it was marked with a game ball designation, and it was in spec, then there would be no need to mark it again, since the refs could distinguish it from a kicking ball, and that's all they really cared about.

If they really were concerned about the play balls, then one would assume they would document the data about size and pressure. Since they didn't that suggests they really weren't all that concerned about those values.

Of course, if you assume that the balls are not marked with something different for each game, then this does provide a pathway for some shenanigans, that I'm surprised none of the haters have brought up.

Consider the following hypothetical.

The Pats provide their 12 primary game balls to the Refs, inflated within specs.

They have prepared 12(?) other balls, that were previously initialed by Walt Coleman to be out of spec.

At some point they swap the second set of balls for the first.

If we assume it was the attendant who spent 90 seconds in the bathroom, one could easily do such a swap in that amount of time.

Maybe they have some of those old style toilets with the tanks mounted on the wall and the other balls were placed behind the tank.

The attendant, told the refs that he was going to the bathroom, no wait, he asked if he could go to the bathroom, and the rest, well........

 

[QuiGon]

Maybe they have some of those old style toilets with the tanks mounted on the wall and the other balls were placed behind the tank.

The attendant, told the refs that he was going to the bathroom, no wait, he asked if he could go to the bathroom, and the rest, well........

Bill Belichick said he wanted someone good - and he means good - to plant those balls. He doesn't want the attendant coming out of the bathroom with just his d*ck in his hands.

 

[spacecrime]

Spygate was 7+ years ago and fact is the Patriots, by their own admission, did do something they shouldn't have done. The punishment was overly harsh but it can certainly be argued that taking their lumps was the wisest course of action.

Anything can be argued, but I disagree that because we did something wrong doesn't mean the best course is to keep quiet when the charge is not presented correctly and everyone thinks you did something horrible.

7 years ago Kraft kept his mouth shut after punishment was handed down. Maybe this time if he gets fined for having low pressure balls in his possession or some bullshit, he will speak up. Maybe he will point to the inequitable non-issue of the Vikes-Packers heating up balls. Maybe if the charge is made to seem something that it is, he will not only clarify that not only were the Patriots NOT spying, their cameras were actually recording things that anyone could see and could be taped from the stands.

Maybe bluebirds will fly out of my ass.

 

[BostonTim]

Maybe they have some of those old style toilets with the tanks mounted on the wall and the other balls were placed behind the tank.

I see what you did there! The old Luna Azure thing. So who here is that dickhead McCluskey? Grigson? Kensil? God-el? F*** it. Use them loaded footballs to take out all three.

Cheers, BostonTim

 

[QuiGon]

Anything can be argued, but I disagree that because we did something wrong doesn't mean the best course is to keep quiet when the charge is not presented correctly and everyone thinks you did something horrible.

7 years ago Kraft kept his mouth shut after punishment was handed down. Maybe this time if he gets fined for having low pressure balls in his possession or some bullshit, he will speak up. Maybe he will point to the inequitable non-issue of the Vikes-Packers heating up balls. Maybe if the charge is made to seem something that it is, he will not only clarify that not only were the Patriots NOT spying, their cameras were actually recording things that anyone could see and could be taped from the stands.

Maybe bluebirds will fly out of my ass.

They've already taken a radically new strategy compared to spygate. They've already come out swinging and addressed the allegations in multiple press conferences. Kraft has already challenged the commissioner on this whole thing.

Why you think they will revert back to their post-spygate silence when they have already completely abandoned it is a mystery.

 

[QuiGon]

I see what you did there! The old Luna Azure thing. So who here is that dickhead McCluskey? Grigson? ? God-el? F*** it. Use them loaded footballs to take out all three.

Cheers, BostonTim

The answer is obvious...

Grigson is Solozzo. A rival. An enemy. Someone who tried, but failed, to take out Don Vito.

Kensll is McCluskey. A 3rd party who is supposed to be a fair, impartial enforcer of the law, but is instead a corrupt little bitch firmly in the pocket of Grigson.

 

[deec77]

If they had initialed a ball previously, they may not put a second mark on the ball.

Presumably the mark is to indicate that it has been looked at by the refs and approved, so they can distinguish this from a substituted ball, that has no mark.

I think most of the concern for the refs are the kicking balls, not the game balls. There's a reason the kicking balls are "virgin" and not provided by the teams.

In the before time, teams used to do a whole bunch of funky things to make the kicking balls "better". Microwave them is one of the stranger things I've heard.

So presumably, the mark made on the kicking balls is different than what is placed on the game balls. This will let them quickly identify if the wrong type of ball is used for either type of play.

If we assume there was less concern about the play balls, which makes sense, then if it was marked with a game ball designation, and it was in spec, then there would be no need to mark it again, since the refs could distinguish it from a kicking ball, and that's all they really cared about.

If they really were concerned about the play balls, then one would assume they would document the data about size and pressure. Since they didn't that suggests they really weren't all that concerned about those values.

Of course, if you assume that the balls are not marked with something different for each game, then this does provide a pathway for some shenanigans, that I'm surprised none of the haters have brought up.

Consider the following hypothetical.

The Pats provide their 12 primary game balls to the Refs, inflated within specs.

They have prepared 12(?) other balls, that were previously initialed by Walt Coleman to be out of spec.

At some point they swap the second set of balls for the first.

If we assume it was the attendant who spent 90 seconds in the bathroom, one could easily do such a swap in that amount of time.

Maybe they have some of those old style toilets with the tanks mounted on the wall and the other balls were placed behind the tank.

The attendant, told the refs that he was going to the bathroom, no wait, he asked if he could go to the bathroom, and the rest, well........

Each head ref initials them (all balls) with their own initials after they inspect them (all balls) prior to the game. Then 10 minutes before the game they give them (all balls)to the ball persons or so the story goes. If I'm understanding you correctly half a dozen initials could be on any given ball(game ball/non kicking balls)? I agree no one ever cared about the balls(game balls/non kicking balls) but I also think that game day balls aren't suppose to be used more then one game. That's my understanding i could be wrong.

~Dee~

Oh and by the way I'm coloring Easter eggs, making sure a JRT and a Border collie don't eat the baby bunny, all while making sure the granddaughters are sleeping. So a good chance i may have misunderstood you just saying.

 

[Number Cruncher]

The answer is obvious...

Grigson is Solozzo. A rival. An enemy. Someone who tried, but failed, to take out Don Vito.

Kensll is McCluskey. A 3rd party who is supposed to be a fair, impartial enforcer of the law, but is instead a corrupt little bitch firmly in the pocket of Grigson.

...

 

[patfan64]

So I'm wrapping up the Easter festivities yesterday and I decided to stir the pot a bit. So I asked my Redskin fan brother in law what he thought about the punishment handed down to the Browns and Falcons. He said it was blown out of proportion and he didn't feel that they should have been punished at all.

Then we got into the Spygate punishment. He thought it was fair. BB directly broke a rule. I asked him how it differed from the Browns and Falcons. He said a lot of words but nothing that made sense.

Deflategate came up. It got heated. He told me to stop acting like a homer (this guy rooted for the Giants in my house twice.) So I told him to stop being a hater. He said the facts will come out soon.

So it got me thinking. Are we only hearing what we want to hear? I don't do a lot of research on the net. I rely on the Planet for my information. I would love to have nothing happen to the Pats here (or even better for the Colts to be involved.) But if Goodell hands out any punishment - we are going to have a hard time living this down.

 

[Mayo1251]

So it got me thinking. Are we only hearing what we want to hear? I don't do a lot of research on the net. I rely on the Planet for my information. I would love to have nothing happen to the Pats here (or even better for the Colts to be involved.) But if Goodell hands out any punishment - we are going to have a hard time living this down.

Sorry, long-time lurker, not sure why today is the day I feel like posting, but somebody has to tell you: your sister has most likely married an idiot.

Spygate was overblown. The principal took a student to task for breaking a rule he told him not to. It wasn't about competitive advantage, it was about respecting authority. Belichick didn't respect Goodell since from an early stage he realized what we all do now - that Goodell is some knuckle dragger in a position he's not qualified for. It's not cheating to steal signs that are signaled in front of 70,000 people - by all accounts it's part of the game. And there wasn't the technology to process video fast enough back then for the Patriots to use the stuff in-game, anyway (it was all digital tape, clumsily processed, at best, in real-time).

In terms of deflate-gate, the gas laws have been known for about 150 years. Unfortunately, the Patriots crossed the wrong people who were unaware of the immutable laws of nature, and got wrapped up in a controversy about nothing.

Next holiday season, you should buy your brother-in-law Thermodynamics for Dummies and a Patriots hat.

 

[thomas144]

So it got me thinking. Are we only hearing what we want to hear? I don't do a lot of research on the net. I rely on the Planet for my information. I would love to have nothing happen to the Pats here (or even better for the Colts to be involved.) But if Goodell hands out any punishment - we are going to have a hard time living this down.

I think most Patriots fans are better informed about what we do and don't know with respect to the "facts" about Deflategate than most fans of other teams. I don't think it's a case of hearing only what we want to hear. All indications are that there was only one football that was significantly deflated (and even that one was not particularly noticeably deflated or the refs probably would have noticed it) and that was the one intercepted by the Colts. So the only real unanswered question is why would that one ball be deflated, how did it happen, does this happen all the time, etc.

It's entirely conceivable that the Wells investigation will only conclude after next season, after balls in every game can be tested before, during, and after every game in the NFL this year. There doesn't seem to be enough baseline information to know if it's unusual that 11 or 12 footballs would be at least slightly underinflated at half-time, or whether it's unusual that 1 or 12 would be down by 2 PSI. Maybe it really is something that just happens in the course of a pro game. I don't think anyone really knows.

 

[Hawg73]

So it got me thinking. Are we only hearing what we want to hear? I don't do a lot of research on the net. I rely on the Planet for my information. I would love to have nothing happen to the Pats here (or even better for the Colts to be involved.) But if Goodell hands out any punishment - we are going to have a hard time living this down.

A fair enough question. There are probably plenty of cases where we, as a group, see things through our own homer goggles.

In this case, I wasn't sure what to think until I heard Belichick, Brady and Kraft give their press conferences and my finely-tuned bullshit detector knew that we were the ones getting porked. I have complete faith that there was no deception on their parts.

I'd stake anything that that is the case. That this is all a total hose-job. I wish I could bet on the outcome, only I have so little respect and trust for the Commisioner's office that I don't doubt they could attempt to make us sacrificial lambs to make their own bungling henchmen look better.

You wan't to know why this is taking so long? Because Roger can't find a way to pin the tail on the Foxboro donkey. The spin masters have nothing but a public embarassment coming and they are trying to find a time to minimize the publicity without a massive public black eye.

They are going to get one anyway.

 

[Number Cruncher]

Sorry, long-time lurker, not sure why today is the day I feel like posting, but somebody has to tell you: your sister has most likely married an idiot.

Spygate was overblown. The principal took a student to task for breaking a rule he told him not to. It wasn't about competitive advantage, it was about respecting authority. Belichick didn't respect Goodell since from an early stage he realized what we all do now - that Goodell is some knuckle dragger in a position he's not qualified for. It's not cheating to steal signs that are signaled in front of 70,000 people - by all accounts it's part of the game. And there wasn't the technology to process video fast enough back then for the Patriots to use the stuff in-game, anyway (it was all digital tape, clumsily processed, at best, in real-time).

In terms of deflate-gate, the gas laws have been known for about 150 years. Unfortunately, the Patriots crossed the wrong people who were unaware of the immutable laws of nature, and got wrapped up in a controversy about nothing.

Next holiday season, you should buy your brother-in-law Thermodynamics for Dummies and a Patriots hat.

You should post more often....

 

[HarpoonIPA]

What is it? 12 weeks ago today we woke up to this story...

I truly feel we are going to learn of a conspiracy of epic sports proportions. And that this conspiracy will blow our minds, we will find out the true hatred out thier of our team. It will be just a little headline because of the ramifications that will happen with NFL sponsors Heads will roll, but not all at once, and it will be the beginning of the fall from grace of the NFL.

 

[QuiGon]

So it got me thinking. Are we only hearing what we want to hear? I don't do a lot of research on the net. I rely on the Planet for my information. I would love to have nothing happen to the Pats here (or even better for the Colts to be involved.) But if Goodell hands out any punishment - we are going to have a hard time living this down.

There is a lot of homerism - and a lot of haterism - involved in this topic. I pride myself on being able to look at these things with an unbiased eye and this is what I see:

1) The haters are convinced the Patriots are guilty but when asked what actual real evidence they have supporting that conclusion (and after sifting through the personal attacks) they invariably say 2 things:

a) The Mort Report. They hold onto the original "2 PSI below regulation" report like the Pope holds onto the Bible. They don't care that this report has been contradicted many times since. They claim the report closest to the event it the one most likely to be true, but that's bull. Initial reports are usually the less accurate ones. Reports that come out later tend to be more accurate than the ones released right away

b) The Statistical Analysis. IMHO, this analysis is extremely flawed and provides no evidence of cheating on the part of the Patriots. It is just cherry picked stats.

2) Both haters and homers have distorted views of Roger Goodell. The haters say Goodell is in Kraft's pocket. They love to talk about the dinner that took place the night before the game like that is some sort of smoking gun. You hear of Kraft's connection to Viacom a lot (as if that has any relevance). Of course, the homers love to talk about how Goodell is out to get the Patriots, but I don't buy that either. I am not saying he is a good commissioner or that spygate was handled well, but I do not believe he is "out to get" anyone and I do not believe that working 1 year as an intern for the Jets back in the 80's is even remotely relevant.

3) Having said that, the homers do have a point when discussing Kensll. This guy grew up with the Jets. He and his father worked for the Jets for 40 years (which is a big chunk of that team's 55 year existence). He was there when Belichick spurned them. Such a person would never in a million years be allowed to referee a Patriots football game, yet he has oversight over all of football operations. Go figure.

4) Grigson is a laughable figure. I mean, it is pretty funny how he was with the Rams when the Patriots won SB36, he was with the Eagles when the Patriots won SB39, and now he has been kicked around by the Patriots for a couple years as a Colt. What he did was sleazy, but he is not expected to be fair and impartial.

5) I believe Wells will release his report when he is ready. He is not stalling with the hope that everyone forgets about the whole thing, and I think it is laughable the notion that he is going to time the report's release with the NCAA Tournament or Easter or The Masters or the draft or whatever. He isn't worried about the timing or the publicity.

 

[Alco]

If anything the haters are the ones only hearing what they want to hear. Most of them will tell you the Rams walkthrough tape exists and 11 of the 12 balls were significantly underinflated. It's like any articles/facts that come out and don't comply with their anti-Pats agenda was never written.

Being a Pats fan has shown me something I would've never imagined.... The average NFL fan is a whiny butt hurt little girl.

 

[QuiGon]

It's entirely conceivable that the Wells investigation will only conclude after next season, after balls in every game can be tested before, during, and after every game in the NFL this year. There doesn't seem to be enough baseline information to know if it's unusual that 11 or 12 footballs would be at least slightly underinflated at half-time, or whether it's unusual that 1 or 12 would be down by 2 PSI. Maybe it really is something that just happens in the course of a pro game. I don't think anyone really knows.

I don't think we are going to have to wait until next season for the report. We know he has spoken to physicists on the matter. Also, I believe I read somewhere he has spoken to other teams, so I am sure he is trying to get some insight into what standard gameday procedure is.

Everyone on the planet knows this got blown way out of proportion because it was the Patriots. I just hope Wells has the sack to state the obvious in his report.