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Inflate-gate?
Martel
Posts: 3,306 ✭✭✭✭
Your thoughts? Colts got spanked. I have no doubt the Pats would have won anyway, but I'm the kind of guy who hates it when my wife tries to catch a glimpse of the kids' cards when playing go fish (she grew up in a family of playful cheaters; I was taught to respect the rules). Something about this rubs me really wrong. Part of that is because my Colts lost, so I want to know what some non-Pats and non-Colts fans think. Pretty much all my friends other than you guys live in Indy, New England, or in the South where SEC football is the only thing that matters.
Intelligence is knowing that a tomato is a fruit; wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad.
I like Oliva and Quesada (including Regius) a lot. I will smoke anything, though.
I like Oliva and Quesada (including Regius) a lot. I will smoke anything, though.
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for a laugh
I like Oliva and Quesada (including Regius) a lot. I will smoke anything, though.
There's only one other sport where garbage like this slides: pro wrestling. The NFL feels more like the WWE every day.
But certainly these footballs didn't give any boost to Brady during the Colts game. He was 23 for 35, with only 226 yards. Most of the touchdowns were running scores. The running game--plus outstanding defense--won it for them, not an overinflated football. This doesn't excuse the use of these footballs by any means, but the point is in the end they gave no real edge of any kind.
And referees do allow teams to either over and under inflate a ball by a certain amount, and they allow teams to "rub" the balls with dirt before a game. And referees handle every single "new" ball provided by the offense before they go into play, so it's their job to do the "inflation policing"; it shouldn't have needed to have been a Colts player who discovered the "under-inflation."
Teams aren't allowed to heat up the balls during cold weather, but the sideline attendants did this during the Panters/Vikings game in December. Was there an investigation then? During the season Aaron Rodgers admitted he likes to playing with illegally overinflated footballs, so one can assume that the Packers were doing this as well.Yet, there was no investigation of the footballs the Packers were using during the season.
If the Pats win the Super Bowl, will this scandal taint the victory? Absolutely. But the Pats have been hated for so long by everybody outside of New England that it's just fuel for the fire.
But the stupidest comments out of all of this come--naturally--from the Ravens, who claimed that their kicking unit were using under-inflated footballs during the Pats/Raven playoff game and that affected their punts and kickoffs. Well, here's the news: Teams provide their OWN footballs on offense--so, essentially, the Ravens are accusing themselves of underinflating their own footballs LOL!
Two points...teams don't use their own balls; they're provided by both teams to the refs before the game and then randomly split to equipment guys provided by the home team on each side of the field. Second, I don't like it when Rodgers over-inflates or anyone else. The "everyone does it" excuse isn't an excuse. It doesn't excuse Rodgers or the Pats.
I like Oliva and Quesada (including Regius) a lot. I will smoke anything, though.
That's only partially correct. The teams "own" theiir own league-sanctioned footballs, which usually carry the name of the team on it. Twelve footballs are provided by each team to refs before the game, and the refs inspect them to make sure they're in spec. The footballs are then returned to the line attendants for each team, who are supposed to watch over them. Assuming that all 12 of the Pats' footballs were properly inflated before the game (and this can't be proven; maybe the refs didn't notice this), the deflation--or substitution of the "official" footballs with deflated footballs--would have had to occur during the game itself. If this did occur, one should expect to see video footage of this come out at some point. I have a feeling that interviews of sideline attendants will reveal no confessions of any kind.
When a team goes on offense, the line attendant gives their own branded football to the referee, who, again, has the right to inspect it before it's given to the offense. If 11 of the 12 balls were underinflated, how come the refs didn't notice this during the game?
Again, you're right that the fact that "everyone does it" is no excuse, and the Pats should be penalized to the full extent of the NFL rules if it's proven that the deflation was a deliberate act.
What were the below average conditions? Temperature was around 50 degrees. Yes, it was raining, but the Pats are used to playing--and winning handily--in bad weather, especially at home. Plus, how do you know that an underinflated ball is easier for a running back to carry? Only NFL running backs would be qualified to opine on that, and chances are, just as some quarterbacks prefer overinflated footballs and some underinflated, you'd never get honest consensus. And, frankly, your attribution of an outstanding performance by Blount to an underinflated ball is the REAL madness. MADNESS! MADNESS, I TELL YA!
If the Pats deliberately underinflated the footballs (and other than the balls themselves, there's no evidence that's come to light showing attendants deflating them on the sidelines, although there may be soon--who knows?), they did cheat and should be penalized to the full extent of the rules. But forfeit the game? PUHLEEZE! If the Pats had stolen the Colts' playbook or were monitoring their huddle talk or dropped melatonin into Luck's Gatorade you might have a case, given the way they Colts played. But, as far as I know, there's never been a single situation in sports where a discovered doctored piece of equipment, whether it's an ace's spitball or a corked bat, has ever caused the forfeiture of a professional sports game of any kind.
And all cheating should result in forfeit IMO. What's a meaningless fine going to do? Here, sir, this will win you the AFC championship, but it'll cost you $25,000. Oh, no thanks, maybe fore 10k, but that's a bit too steep. Crazy.
As a Colts fan, I wouldn't want it. Maybe if they made us play the Ravens for the right to go, but not just as a gift.
I like Oliva and Quesada (including Regius) a lot. I will smoke anything, though.
I disagree with you. Any running back would say that an underinflated ball, because it's smaller, has less mass to hold onto, and is therefore less solid in the grip, and its squishiness therefore would make it easier to knock out of a running back's hands.
Do you see the absurdity of both our arguments? We're not NFL running backs, and are therefore not qualified to say what kind of ball would be best for anyone. Anymore than you could say that an underinflated ball is better for a quarterback, given that Aaron Rodgers says that an overinflated ball is better for him.
In any case, at the moment any number of factors could have results in the balls being underinflated. Keep in mind that ALL balls passed the refs' inspection at the start of the game, and all balls used during the game also passed inspection when the ballboy handed a ball to a ref to give to the Pats on offense. Given that the footballs were tested long after the game was over, it's always possible that the balls naturally deflated for other reasons--such as atmospheric conditions or natural deflation caused by two thousand pounds of football players landing on them play after play. The only way to verify this would be to test the Colts "used" and "unused" footballs as well. Is the NFL doing this?
The fact that 11 out of 12 balls were deflated by 2 PSI is more than just a coincidence. It's unlikely environmental factors would account for that kind of PSI loss and be consistent through 11 footballs. Short of any video of someone tampering with the balls, I don't see anything coming out of this.
Lastly, unfortunately the Patriots have been caught cheating in the past. Whether fair or not, it's hard to overlook that when addressing the recent allegations.
When I was teaching university, I had a zero tolerance policy for cheating. If you cheated and I caught you, you failed the class. I would tell my class this policy at the start of every quarter and I still caught someone cheating nearly every class.
1. There hasn't been a single stated fact from the NFL other than there is an investigation. No where have I nor anyone else I've seen/heard has been able to find anything with any factual evidence at all. All this, "11/12 balls" "pats vs colts balls were this.." is unfounded since there aren't any actual sourced quotes or documents stating this. Quite simply, it's bullshit.
2. Anyone with any physical knowledge or common sense at all should be able to step back from this and realize it's just not very likely that this occurred. Cold temps decrease air pressure in confined spaces. Fatigue can decrease ball's abilities to hold air, fatigue being normal football activities. Consider the chain of events, the number of people who touch the ball, and who "figured it out". Anyone who thinks they can definitively refute these facts or treats these considerations as "excuses" is either just blinded by 'sports fan' type arguments, or is bluntly, a moron.
3. There are so many other little reasons this is all so stupid, but they are largely not able to be empirically proven. But, the entirety of the "Inflate Gate" soapbox preacher's unsubstantiated claims are all just as subjective. Seriously, show ANY proof at all. Any.
This all being said, if it comes out that factually they've found to have cheated then I'll recant. I'll be angry at my team, and I think they should be punished fully for it. But right now, the NFL is letting this get blown up way too much too quickly such that it's a "Guilty until proven innocent" situation. Again I hope you see I have been objective here and logical, I'm not interested in a stupid argument here.
Also I'd like to add that maybe I've been duped by the media, but I thought the report of 11/12 balls underweight was from the investigation.
And to your second comment, you may not have been duped. It could be true. But every single quote I see is this, "The NFL has found that 11 of the New England Patriots' 12 game balls were inflated significantly below the NFL's requirements, league sources involved and familiar with the investigation..."
Sources involved and familiar with the investigation.... that's not fact. Sources can be correct, sources can be bold-face liars, and everything in between. It means nothing until there's actual proof. Again, I won't argue if there's proof, but for now I'm very skeptical.
1. It does appear that 1) the Pats footballs were fine at the start of the game (since they passed the refs inspection), but somewhere between the start of the game and halftime (when they were checked again), 11 of the 12 were found to be deflated. I wasn't aware that this had detected during the game, as opposed to after the game. The question is: Once the officlals discovered they were underinflated at halftime, what happened then? Did the balls become inflated up to spec? If so, then all the "now properly inflated" Pats balls used in the second half (when the Pats scored most of their points) were up to spec. Therefore, no "beneficial" edge for the Pats when they played their best.
2. Do we know at this point whether the Colts footballs were also tested at halftime using the same level of scrutiny as the Pats footballs? If they were, and the Colts' footballs passed the inflation test, then we can safety say that weather had no effect on the pressure of the footballs on either side--tampering must have occurred with the Pats' footballs during the first half half.
3. If tampering occurred in the first half, the question must be 1) Who did it and 2) Were they ordered to do so by Belichik or Brady? From my understanding, game balls are kept in a bag that is not accessible by coaches or players. The only people who would have had access were line attendants and ball boys or some mysterious deflation bandit. One would think with all the cameras out there that someone would have footage of a deflator grabbing a ball and sticking a pin into the hole to let air out. Unless the Pats hired former 3-card monte players as their ball boys.
4. Obviously, every single person who was within a country mile of the footballs during the game is going to be put into "the box" for interrogation. My guess is that Two scenarios will come out of this: 1) Everyone will honor the code of silence and, short of video footage proving tampering, no one will be able to "prove" that this was deliberately done. Or 2) One teary-eyed line attendant will confess that he deflated the footballs, but did it purely on his own volition, because he had read the interview when Brady jokes that he liked deflated footballs so he did it himself with no orders from anyone, but because he's just a poor li'l ball boy and doesn't really know the rules he didn't really know that he was deflating it beyond league specifications (which do allow for a little leeway in inflation). The kid will be a media darling for a few weeks and then will be banned from football for life. A short time later, a large bag of $100 bills will anonymously appear on his doorstep as a payoff for falling on the sword.
In any case, if deliberate tampering is proven, the whole book should be thrown at the Pats. I'd suspend Belichek for three regular season games, fine him $500K, fine the team $1 million and take away the Pats first round draft picks for two years. But forfeiture? Get real. When major league baseball starts making teams forfeit games when pitchers are caught throwing spitballs or batters used corked bats, and if the MLB takes away 200 of Barry Bonds' home runs and 100 of Roger Clemens' wins because of their steroid use, then maybe there would a slight--SLIGHT--case for harsher treatments.