Deflate-gate

[Enhance]

Good stuff, Enhance.

 

It seems like some wanted the NFL to have to find a "smoking gun." That was never going to happen. Still, circumstantial evidence, such as the text message logs and timeline of the ballboy in "bathroom," is still admissible evidence.

 

I also believe Brady cheated, and this ruling certainly doesn't rule that he did not.

Hit the nail on the head. I think the NFL, even if they didn't fumble their way through investigations like this, would've had a hard time proving dead to rights that Brady did something wrong. But, who knows.

 

I find myself in the difficult position of wanting players to see punishment but also making sure the NFL goes about it in a fair way. I don't hate Brady like a lot of people do; but, as we both believe, he cheated. It's all in hindsight now but things just weren't as slam dunk as the Spygate was, or as slam dunk as something like "Pacman" Jones slamming Amari Cooper's head into his helmet.

 

I gotta say though - for months, people were saying this wasn't going to tarnish Brady's legacy much. Fair or not, every time I think about him or see him in a game, Deflategate comes to mind. It has tarnished him in my eyes. Some may blame the media as people often do in highly publicized legal matters, but, I just think there's so many shady things that happened that it's hard to believe he's innocent. Impossible to believe he's innocent.

 

It's not like it was with Spygate where people focused on administration and Belichick. I didn't really associate that with Brady too much. But, I completely associate Brady and Deflategate together now, but maybe time will diminish this correlation.

[Mavric]

[Omaha-Husker]

The "scandal" that won't die.

[Bigred_inSD]

They just said this could be appealed to the supreme Court?? Seriously, of all the issues this could go to SCOTUS

[TonyStalloni]

If nothing else, ESPN has something new to obsess about for a few days. They'll run it in the ground till we all tire of it and move on to the next big deal.

[zoogs]

http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/15703982/professors-back-tom-brady-rehearing-name-science

 

This is nice, but this case is probably a lot more about arbitration and collective bargaining than it has ever been about science.

[Mavric]

http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/15703982/professors-back-tom-brady-rehearing-name-science

 

This is nice, but this case is probably a lot more about arbitration and collective bargaining than it has ever been about science.

 

It will definitely lose pressure but the question is how much.

 

According to the Official Deflategate Wikipedia page, 12.5 to 13.5 psi is standard. It appears that it was about 50 degrees F outside that day during the game. That would be approx. 20 degrees F different than the inside temp where the pressure was tested (about 11 degrees K). My Ideal Gas Law math is a bit fuzzy but assuming the same amount of air was still inside the football, the pressure should have still been at least 12.0 psi, even if it started at the minimum 12.5 psi. According to the Wiki page, only one of the footballs was still above that number and a couple were over a pound under it (more than three times what the ideal gas law would show).

 

Plus, from the same page, that assumes the pressure was tested outside. Once the balls were brought back inside they would work back to their initial pressure over some (seemingly short) period of time:

 

The Wells report physics argument, based on multiple experiments as well as theoretical modeling, runs as follows.[9]:Appendix 1, 63–68 Several conjectured sources of variability (differences in game use, alleged "vigorous rubbing" by the Patriots before play, leakage during the game, and variations in football volume) can be set aside as they have no discernable effect. Based on documented habit, as well as the recollections of referee Walt Anderson, the Patriots balls were (as usual) set around 12.5 psi, and the Colts balls around 13.0 psi, before their games. The ideal gas law shows that footballs inflated in a warm environment will drop in pressure in a cold environment; however, a football is not a thermos, and the footballs would have rapidly started to re-inflate when taken to the officials' locker room for halftime testing. (Wells estimates that the Patriots balls had 2–4 minutes to repressurize before measurements began; the measurements themselves spanned an estimated 4–5 minutes.[9]:70) Most or all of the Patriots and Colts footballs should have mostly warmed up to room temperature and substantially reinflated by the time each measurement occurred. In addition, there is a minor problem of variability: to give one example, it is hard for a temperature-based theory to explain why Patriots ball #2 tested fully 0.6 psi lower than Patriots ball #1, when both ball #1 and #2 started before the game at the same psi. If temperature is the major factor, the Patriots psi should stay roughly the same, or gradually increase, as subsequent balls are tested; instead, the psi of the footballs changed substantially from one ball to the next. (However, Wells acknowledges that the variability test does not, on its own, reach the level of statistical significance; therefore the conclusion is based on the magnitude of the drop, rather than the variability.)

Besides temperature-based deflation and the timing of the measurements, the condition of a ball's surface (wet vs. dry) also has a small but detectable effect on the measured pressure; there can also be minor measurement error caused by the gauges. During halftime, the referees used two gauges on each ball: the same Non-Logo Gauge that Wells believes to have been used by Anderson before the game to confirm the pre-game pressure, and an additional Logo Gauge. The Logo Gauge appears to consistently run at least 0.35 psi above the (accurately calibrated)[9]:Appendix 1, 45 non-Logo gauge, but both were determined to be extremely consistent and precise. In particular, the Logo gauge is inaccurate (it runs high) but is precise (it consistently runs high by the same amount every time), and therefore can be used as additional confirmation that the non-Logo measurement is correct (with the exception of Colts ball #3, below). Wells believes that Blakeman and Prioleau used the Non-Logo and Logo gauges respectively in the Patriots halftime tests, and that the two of them switched gauges with each other for the Colts halftime test.

 

So, it would seem to me, that this is a nice argument to try to put forward to baffle people with b******t, especially when you can talk in generalities. Not sure it really holds up when you put numbers to it.

[Mavric]

[Mavric]

[Mavric]

Just in case you have 20 minutes with absolutely nothing else to do.