#DFG: Canceling the Noise
- Thread starter nattysez
- Start date
I think the guy that 'picked' it realized he was holding a prune and not a football and reported it...just strange that Refs handling the balls all game long didn't notice.brandonchristensen said:
I kind of pin this on the Refs and their continued ineptitude.
Patriots were clearly being sporting, used the softer balls to keep the game close but not telling Indy so Luck wouldn't feel so bad. They would have got away with it too if not for those meddling Colts. Colts just had to make them use properly inflated balls and Brady couldn't stop throwing all those touchdowns.brandonchristensen said:
Seems like it would be a handicap.
Maybe we can spin this to be "Patriots handily defeat the Colts and they were using flat balls, with less aerodynamics and more difficult to grip."
They are that good.
As a non-Patriots fan, even I say that the NFL has now become Lawyer Ball.
On the field, it's all about "did he make a 'football move'? No, he was going to ground! Let's replay it for the 1000th time and comb through the gigantic rule book to see whether it is a catch or not." Now there is controversy about the exact psi of the footballs being used. Meanwhile the actual NFL lawyers are spending their time coaching players and team officials on how to not get convicted for beating up women and how to not be held legally accountable for all the concussions that keep happening.
NFL stands for National Football Lawyering. Go lawyers go! Soon the results of each game will be determined at a trial held six to eight weeks after the game is played.
Again, I am no Patriots fan but I really don't care one tiny little bit whether the footballs used on Sunday were inflated to 12.5 psi or 10.5 psi. It makes no difference, and every single game has multiple utterly arbitrary unreviewable calls by the refs that make much greater impact on the result of the game, but here we go with two more weeks of nitpicking arguments over minutiae.
Some of the footballs were only inflated to 10.5 psi! No, it was 0.97 more psi than that in some of the balls but not all of them! Objection! Overruled! Yay NFL!
On the field, it's all about "did he make a 'football move'? No, he was going to ground! Let's replay it for the 1000th time and comb through the gigantic rule book to see whether it is a catch or not." Now there is controversy about the exact psi of the footballs being used. Meanwhile the actual NFL lawyers are spending their time coaching players and team officials on how to not get convicted for beating up women and how to not be held legally accountable for all the concussions that keep happening.
NFL stands for National Football Lawyering. Go lawyers go! Soon the results of each game will be determined at a trial held six to eight weeks after the game is played.
Again, I am no Patriots fan but I really don't care one tiny little bit whether the footballs used on Sunday were inflated to 12.5 psi or 10.5 psi. It makes no difference, and every single game has multiple utterly arbitrary unreviewable calls by the refs that make much greater impact on the result of the game, but here we go with two more weeks of nitpicking arguments over minutiae.
Some of the footballs were only inflated to 10.5 psi! No, it was 0.97 more psi than that in some of the balls but not all of them! Objection! Overruled! Yay NFL!
The reporting so far seems to assume the balls were measured before the game by Anderson. That seems to be turning into the key question. The rule doesn't seem to suggest they must be measured before the game, just made available. I really think this is the question on which this saga will turn. If he measured them and later they were two psi different, that seems to be a worrisome story.
Just a thought: isn't there a chance if/when the Colts balls are inspected, that the Colts have magically reinflated them? Or are the balls kept by the league after the game?
I know Belichick is a pretty big control freak, but I don't think it's that outrageous to assume he leaves the ball preparations to Brady and the equipment team and has better things to worry about.
Brady can point to clear evidence of other QBs pushing the rules, play dumb a little bit, say he prepared the balls as he always does and assumed the refs would fix the balls if they didn't meet specifications. He accepts his fine for being careless, the Super Bowl goes on as usual, and this is embarrassing but in the end not something that's going to be more than a minor blemish on anyone's legacy
Brady can point to clear evidence of other QBs pushing the rules, play dumb a little bit, say he prepared the balls as he always does and assumed the refs would fix the balls if they didn't meet specifications. He accepts his fine for being careless, the Super Bowl goes on as usual, and this is embarrassing but in the end not something that's going to be more than a minor blemish on anyone's legacy
The other issue here is that under-inflated balls actually wear out faster than properly inflated ones. So there are some longer-term consequences to the Patriots using under-inflated balls.
Whatever the pros/cons are of using a deflated ball is irrelevant, there was a rule in place and the Patriots (allegedly) broke them and cheated.
To have Tom Brady laugh this off and have Gronk poke fun at it with a meme and now having this be a real story is ridiculous. The Patriots look like they have egg all over their faces.
To have Tom Brady laugh this off and have Gronk poke fun at it with a meme and now having this be a real story is ridiculous. The Patriots look like they have egg all over their faces.
I think people don't realize how little a difference 1-2 psi can mean for a ball in terms of feel and performance.
For reference, FIFA rules mandate that official soccer balls be between 8.5 and 15.6 psi. Think about that range and then the fact that some of this issue may come down to whether or not the Pats balls might have been delivered at 12 psi when they should have been at 12.5. That doesn't mean the Patriots weren't trying to grab an edge but, if so, we are talking about marginal differences that could easily be explained in terms of delivering the balls like Brady likes, as per usual, and expecting the refs to tweak them up to 12.5 if necessary.
For reference, FIFA rules mandate that official soccer balls be between 8.5 and 15.6 psi. Think about that range and then the fact that some of this issue may come down to whether or not the Pats balls might have been delivered at 12 psi when they should have been at 12.5. That doesn't mean the Patriots weren't trying to grab an edge but, if so, we are talking about marginal differences that could easily be explained in terms of delivering the balls like Brady likes, as per usual, and expecting the refs to tweak them up to 12.5 if necessary.
twibnotes said:
The Simms quote quoting Rodgers suggests that they would let some air out if he over-inflated them
edit: here's the quote:
http://beta.espn.go.com/blog/boston/new-england-patriots/post/_/id/4776728/jim-nantz-phil-simms-discussion-adds-context-to-deflated-football-talk
In regard to the 1 out of 12, maybe the ref did a pre-game pressure check on one ball, and then did a visual/squeeze comparison of the other 11 to it?
This!!twibnotes said:
The specification is 13 +/- 0.5 PSI
If the balls are measured correctly, which there is not enough information to derive if they are measured correctly,
than the corrective action can not be to :
Step #1 Leak a rumor and cause a media shit-storm
A rational corrective measure would be to:
1. Re-measure (contain the problem)
2. Inflate to specification (correct the problem)
I mean really, how do you prove this? Video evidence of some guy on the sideline with a gauge and a inflation needle? Are all the balls from all teams checked after every game? I'd like to know what the exact weights psi were for the Colts were. Much ado about very little. Smear tactics, sore losers.bankshot1 said:
If it turns out this is on the Pats, the League isn't likely to think much at all about how much of an edge a rule violation gave them, particularly since they're repeat offenders and they've taken a colossal dump in public just before the League's showcase event. In terms of public perception, the public is likely to care even less.Morgan's Magic Snowplow said:
Anyone who had been hoping that the team would be bringing home a trophy two weeks from now untainted by Spygate in popular perception can forget about it.
Stitch01 said:
BB is into "business as usual" so his attitude the last two days likely would not indicate anything. From Curran's latest:
The below quote is from the rulebook, it does not say anything about BB or the Patriots being responsible for judging inflation pressures. in fact it is quite clear on who the sole judge of football standards compliance is
"The Referee shall be the sole judge as to whether all balls offered for play comply with these specifications. A pump is to be furnished by the home club, and the balls shall remain under the supervision of the Referee until they are delivered to the ball attendant just prior to the start of the game."
"The Referee shall be the sole judge as to whether all balls offered for play comply with these specifications. A pump is to be furnished by the home club, and the balls shall remain under the supervision of the Referee until they are delivered to the ball attendant just prior to the start of the game."
Exactly. My hope is the balls were not tested pregame and therefore no punishment can be handed down. They inflated by feel, the person inflating them was incompetent or the pump was out of calibration. No way they can hand down punishment.DennyDoyle'sBoil said:
Right, and we know that. The concern is whether or not AFTER the refs checked the balls (heheheheh) the Patriots deflated them in some capacity.
Of course, there's no way to actually know this.
Of course, there's no way to actually know this.
ilol@u said:
For fuck's sake. I don't know why some people have become so obsessed with rule enforcement and biblical punishments for meaningless infractions but the world wasn't like this even a decade ago. You people weren't as loud and you weren't as prevalent. You throw around the word "cheating" like it has no latitude to it because you want it to be some sort of scarlet letter. There are rules and there are RULES. But now even for nothing rules the mouth-breathing vanguard of justice starts throwing around words like suspension, firing, fines... even trying to re-write history itself at times. I don't know how we got here, but here sucks.
I would pay to see the media backtracking if it came out that the balls were actually defective and couldn't contain air properly.
My hope too. The 11 but not 12 is troubling me though. The fact that one was in compliance seems weird. One possibility is the deflater didn't get to them all. We'll know when we know. I have a bad feeling though.SoxinSeattle said:
Why do we all assume this is BB? Rodgers suggested he inflated his game balls himself.
I wonder if Brady checked 11 of them to his liking and Jimmy G checked the 12th assigned to him just in case.
The Colts (reportedly) claim they noticed it last time when it wasn't cold or rainy. Maybe Brady has prepped his game balls by feel for his entire career and nobody had said boo until now.
Edit: or more likely Brady prepped one ball and the equipment manager has matched it since.
I wonder if Brady checked 11 of them to his liking and Jimmy G checked the 12th assigned to him just in case.
The Colts (reportedly) claim they noticed it last time when it wasn't cold or rainy. Maybe Brady has prepped his game balls by feel for his entire career and nobody had said boo until now.
Edit: or more likely Brady prepped one ball and the equipment manager has matched it since.
Or the ESPN.com article. People clamoring for lifetime ban for Brady and Belichick. So many hot takes
I've been reading the forums of other teams. "Ban Belichick, forfeiture of entire draft to colts, replay AFCCG between Indy and Baltimore, issue the death penalty and ban us from postseason play."Kliq said:
Some people really are this fucking stupid.
What.
The.
Fuck?
Ok, I get this is emotional for a lot of you and this is a place to get things off your chest and stuff.
And that's good.
A fairly ridiculous amount of the posts in the last couple of hours, however, have rehashed stuff that would be unnecessary for anyone who had read a few pages of the thread before posting.
That sucks.
Like, for example, if you are one of the many people who posted about pounds with reference to the weight of the ball and not the pressure, then you were sucking at posting. I'm not saying that you always suck, but at that moment, you were sucking.
That's our one real rule, though, yeah? Don't suck.
There are other examples of this, but that was the first and most obvious.
We'd rather not have to go scorched earth on posters during what should be a fun and exciting week. Please help us on that regards.
The.
Fuck?
Ok, I get this is emotional for a lot of you and this is a place to get things off your chest and stuff.
And that's good.
A fairly ridiculous amount of the posts in the last couple of hours, however, have rehashed stuff that would be unnecessary for anyone who had read a few pages of the thread before posting.
That sucks.
Like, for example, if you are one of the many people who posted about pounds with reference to the weight of the ball and not the pressure, then you were sucking at posting. I'm not saying that you always suck, but at that moment, you were sucking.
That's our one real rule, though, yeah? Don't suck.
There are other examples of this, but that was the first and most obvious.
We'd rather not have to go scorched earth on posters during what should be a fun and exciting week. Please help us on that regards.
From Boston.com
"Game officials discovered at halftime that game balls were under-inflated according to the Globe. The officials tested each ball twice using different gauges."
I hope they didn't use F'ing ball needles each time. If they used needles I'm shocked they were only 2 lbs under.
http://www.boston.com/sports/football/patriots/extra_points/2015/01/report_patriots_may_have_deflated_footballs_for_af.html?p1=feature_stack_1_hp
Edit: Too dumb
"Game officials discovered at halftime that game balls were under-inflated according to the Globe. The officials tested each ball twice using different gauges."
I hope they didn't use F'ing ball needles each time. If they used needles I'm shocked they were only 2 lbs under.
http://www.boston.com/sports/football/patriots/extra_points/2015/01/report_patriots_may_have_deflated_footballs_for_af.html?p1=feature_stack_1_hp
Edit: Too dumb
Peter Kings "Game 150" piece talks about there being 6 balls for kicking, yet that rules PDF referenced upthread speaks about 8 balls for kicking. The NFL.com rule page I cited upthread talks about 12 for kicking. Quite a lack of convergence on these ball rules.
According to the Globe piece "According to the rule book: "If any individual alters the footballs, or if a non-approved ball is used in the game, the person responsible and, if appropriate, the head coach or other club personnel will be subject to discipline, including but not limited to, a fine of $25,000.""
So this is so serious it's a $25K fine?
So this is so serious it's a $25K fine?
So why hasn't any journalist/publication try to duplicate the pressure checking procedure and see if it causes more air to be let out?
jose melendez said:
Read the Curran piece on CSNNE.com. Under Goodell's "Integrity of the Game and Fair Competition" initiative, the penalties could be much higher.