Warrior General Games

Originally posted by DiMo28
Obviously, taking draft picks away doesn't deter Belicheat and the Pats so stronger actions must be taken. Sean Payton was suspended for a season for something that isn't even cheating. Belicheck needs to get that at minimum. Remember, "ignorance is not an excuse." Ban Brady too. Send a message to the league that any cheating will not be tolerated.

this is the most ridiculous thing I have read today.

I think the real issue here is how much have ball inflation rules actually been enforced? We've all learned over the last few days what procedures refs go through inspecting footballs for a game. But my take from all this is combining what we've learned from the Pats and the comments from Aaron Rodgers is that enforcement on this stuff has been pretty lax. If Aaron Rodgers hates it when referees take his game balls and let air out of them, this tells us he's using illegally inflated balls (which Phil Simms said he told him about and what Rodgers himself stated when interviewed a couple of days ago). So, when it comes to this whole issue, it has to be one of the following:

1) Some quarterbacks are having footballs over/underinflated to their liking and the balls aren't really being checked by any officials.

2) Some quarterbacks are having footballs over/underinflated to their liking by someone from their team after the balls are initially checked, but no one is really checking them after.

3) Some quarterbacks are having footballs over/underinflated to their liking. At least some of the referee crews are catching it, fixing or replacing the illegal footballs, but not letting the NFL know about.

4) Some quarterbacks are having footballs over/underinflated to their liking. At least some of the referee crews are catching it, fixing or replacing the illegal footballs, and letting the NFL know about. But the NFL isn't doing anything about it.

5) Some quarterbacks are having footballs over/underinflated to their liking. At least some of the referee crews are catching it, fixing or replacing the illegal footballs, and letting the NFL know about. Then the NFL has contacted the teams and told them to knock it off or face the penalty.

Trying to keep some impartiality here, it should be hard to lay the hammer down on the Pats unless their situation is #5. #5 is like Spygate: Here's a letter to all teams to stop filming coaches signs, but the Pats did it anyway and got the hammer. But if there has been a total non-enforcement of a rule (and Rodgers testimony makes it look like the NFL/referees aren't truly enforcing it), it's a little bit silly to talk about the integrity of the game when you (the NFL) aren't bothering to enforce your own rules. So I suppose they could hit the Patriots as a team and Belichick in particular as repeat offenders. But if they go after Brady with some form of discipline, they pretty much have to go after Rodgers the same way, too.

The irony here is if Rodgers hadn't talked about it, then it would look like a Patriots/Bellicheat thing only. But, we know for a fact it's at least a Packer thing as well.

I'm pretty sure the ball boy is going to take all the blame unless we are to believe the game balls magically deflated themselves.

The difference between teh Rodgers situation and the Pats one is that Rodgers can bring his ball to the game over 13,5 PSI but the refs will put it down at 13,5 for the game.

the pats balls were inflated DURING the game. after the refs inspected them so someone in the Pats organization deflated the ball during the game which is illegal.

All QB can work on their balls during the week but the refs will make sure they are 12.5 - 13.5 PSI before the game and during the game

Originally posted by splitter24
1) Some quarterbacks are having footballs over/underinflated to their liking and the balls aren't really being checked by any officials.

Says who? They are checked. That's why the officials deflate Rodgers' balls sometimes, because they check them. It was confirmed that the air pressure of NE's balls were checked before the game.

Originally posted by splitter24
2) Some quarterbacks are having footballs over/underinflated to their liking by someone from their team after the balls are initially checked, but no one is really checking them after.

Who has been suspected of doing this besides NE? Who has admitted to doing this? (No one that I have heard.)

Originally posted by splitter24
3) Some quarterbacks are having footballs over/underinflated to their liking. At least some of the referee crews are catching it, fixing or replacing the illegal footballs, but not letting the NFL know about.

4) Some quarterbacks are having footballs over/underinflated to their liking. At least some of the referee crews are catching it, fixing or replacing the illegal footballs, and letting the NFL know about. But the NFL isn't doing anything about it.

5) Some quarterbacks are having footballs over/underinflated to their liking. At least some of the referee crews are catching it, fixing or replacing the illegal footballs, and letting the NFL know about. Then the NFL has contacted the teams and told them to knock it off or face the penalty.

If balls are under or over inflated prior to inspection it is the job of the guy doing the inspection to adjust the inflation. I don't believe there is any requirement for pre-inspection inflation issues to be reported to the league.

Originally posted by ghuffman
I'm pretty sure the ball boy is going to take all the blame unless we are to believe the game balls magically deflated themselves.

Equipment manager is on deck......

Originally posted by ghuffman
I'm pretty sure the ball boy is going to take all the blame unless we are to believe the game balls magically deflated themselves.

doesn't cold weather change the air pressure and weight of an inflated object?

Originally posted by F00tballJunkie
doesn't cold weather change the air pressure and weight of an inflated object?

Yup can have a little effect something like 1 PSI per 10 celcius degree

But Colts ball were ok and not NE balls tahts why there's an investigation. Both teams balls were tested before the game... were alright and at halftime 11/12 NE balls deflated. 12/12 COlts balls alright

Originally posted by Kboum
Yup can have a little effect something like 1 PSI per 10 celcius degree

But Colts ball were ok and not NE balls tahts why there's an investigation. Both teams balls were tested before the game... were alright and at halftime 11/12 NE balls deflated. 12/12 COlts balls alright

Which would be an issue if both sets of balls were inflated to the same starting pressure. If so, then that's fishy. If the Colts' footballs were at the higher end of the range and the Patriots' footballs were at the lower end at the beginning, then I suppose it's theoretically possible for the Pats' balls to drop below the limit while the Colts' balls could stay within the limit. But since anything more than a 1 PSI drop would make a ball illegal, a 2 psi drop that the Patriots' footballs had sounds sketchy.

Though I did read a pretty interesting article from a physics professor that said if you inflated footballs in a room at 80 degrees and measured their PSI in the same temperature room, then brought them outside in 50 degree weather, they could lose 1.5 to 2 PSI in a half hour. But I'm guessing the Patriots would have mentioned that if they knew that's how it worked.

Also it was like 50 degrees at game time despite the rain

Issues I have so far. #1, asking various players if they would notice the difference if 2 PSI between footballs, most saying they would not. Yet, Brady and most QB's saying they PERSONALLY select the gameballs because 'of the way they feel' and that if anyone tampered with that, they would be pissed. This leads me to believe the QB WOULD know if there was a difference. I already know kickers do... that horse has been rode many times. So... if the balls were significantly deflated, why didn't Brady know during the game? And also, if deflating the balls had a NEGATIVE effect (according to the QB's who say they want their footballs EXACTLY as they desire them to be), then why isn't Brady (and company) pissed as hell that someone tampered with their equipment? Wouldn't that HURT the Patriots if such was the truth? Which leads me to #2 issue. If someone tampered with my teams equipment without my knowledge or approval, I would be mad as hell and want whoever it was caught, tortured, and banned from football and my team. I'd be walking around with a hatchet in one hand and a noose in the other, posting reward money for the apprehension of this criminal. I mean, I'd be feeling MY TEAM was the victim of sabotage... not my opponent. I mean, who cares about the Colts... someone is trying to sabotage MY DAMN TEAM! Yet this point of view seems lacking from the organization... from the very top to the bottom.
Anyone wanna bet Harbaugh would be destroying the locker room and ranting like a maniac if HIS team was similarly sabotaged??? Or Peyton? Or Gruden? Or Shula? Or..... ect, ect, ect. This might turn out to be nothing more than someone, without approval or consent... for good or bad reasons, changing the PSI of the footballs for either gain or sabotage... but the reactions, so far, of the Patriots organization, seems sorely lacking in it's approach.

Ok.

I was less ready to chop their heads off than almost all of you, until I heard the report that this has been happening throughout the season. Any kind of weird shit can happen in an isolated case. Could have been Colts personnel. Could have been an hourly employee who works at/around equipment at the stadium with an axe to grind hoping this would blow up into the story it is. Could have been someone associated with the player who brought it to the refs' attention, who knows. And you couldn't have even definitively said that Brady knew about it because even though he's so detail-oriented, it's more the type of thing that if you brought him two balls and said "hey does one feel different" sure he'd say yeah but during a game I bet you've got plenty of other things on your mind and even if you feel it you don't think about it.

But because it was happening in other games, earlier in the season, that means it WAS the Pats, and someone has to get hit, and hard. Can already tell that they are NEVER going to find out who was the mastermind or involved, so they will probably punish the organization as a whole with fines/draft picks.

Today I went from being able to confidently say that Tom Brady was the only possible one who was innocent here, to the only one who can be possibly be punished as an individual. Because given the prior games that it happened in, he's literally the only person who you can't say didn't know about it.




The NFL is tricky. You CAN'T just be punished for knowing and not revealing something regardless of how personally involved you are with it. There's a CBA and Union and shit and punishments can not (err at least aren't supposed to) be came up with on the fly like in the NCAA. This is why it's almost certainly going to turn into "X # of unknown people + Tom Brady knew about it, but it's going to be impossible to get a punishment for an individual to stand, so the team's getting fined." Can one of you lawyer-types who actually knows this stuff weigh in on this? I'm only dating a law student

Depending on how much they've yet to uncover, that they do uncover, about this pattern throughout the years - if it's just the Pats and not every team systematically doing the same thing - I would support a fine for the organization's ownership on the scale of $50 million and years of draft picks (or to make a statement, for one year, EVERY draft pick), and (i can't believe I'm saying this) even some silly "forfeiture" of their division/super bowl title should they win it. Not even kidding. Integrity of the game is bigger than any one team. Spygate's punishment was appropriate for its impact/magnitude/nature. With that, you're talking about essentially breaking an off-the-field rule. This was physically altering part of the game on the field. That just can't happen.

Originally posted by splitter24
Which would be an issue if both sets of balls were inflated to the same starting pressure. If so, then that's fishy. If the Colts' footballs were at the higher end of the range and the Patriots' footballs were at the lower end at the beginning, then I suppose it's theoretically possible for the Pats' balls to drop below the limit while the Colts' balls could stay within the limit. But since anything more than a 1 PSI drop would make a ball illegal, a 2 psi drop that the Patriots' footballs had sounds sketchy.

Though I did read a pretty interesting article from a physics professor that said if you inflated footballs in a room at 80 degrees and measured their PSI in the same temperature room, then brought them outside in 50 degree weather, they could lose 1.5 to 2 PSI in a half hour. But I'm guessing the Patriots would have mentioned that if they knew that's how it worked.

The allowed range is a 1 psi difference between minimum and maximum (12.5 to 13.5). The Patriots balls were "more than 2 psi below the 13" which means more than 1.5 psi below the minimum. That means they that if both balls deflated the same amount due to cooling, they can't have both been within the 1 psi allowable range at inspection time.

Originally posted by Theo Wizzago
Issues I have so far. #1, asking various players if they would notice the difference if 2 PSI between footballs, most saying they would not. Yet, Brady and most QB's saying they PERSONALLY select the gameballs because 'of the way they feel' and that if anyone tampered with that, they would be pissed. This leads me to believe the QB WOULD know if there was a difference. I already know kickers do... that horse has been rode many times. So... if the balls were significantly deflated, why didn't Brady know during the game?

A QB or kicker would definitely notice. A LB, maybe not. Defenders generally only touch the ball in practice, and even then not as much as a QB does during each game, and who knows how careful teams are to properly inflate each practice ball.