Okay I am going to start by saying I am a Giants fan and have no love for the Patriots and to apologize to any non-American who is reading this. Second if you don't know what deflategate (#shrinkage) is, well then climb out of your cave. You don't have to like football to know the Superbowl is the single biggest event in American culture and that this is such an over-hyped story because it is the lead-in for the Superbowl hype machine. Third REALLY? Are people really that concerned that someone might have let some air out of the footballs that the Patriots used for the AFC championship game? Just fine them and move on. Finally hearing sports commentators talk about balls everyday is kinda funny... Any thoughts? BALLS!
I've had no love for the patriots. Ever. Unless you've played football you don't know that deflating the football changes how every other team throws while giving the pats more of an advantage.
I quit watching pro football years ago, and I don't have a dog in this fight. Deflating footballs is cheating. If true, the Patriots should be disqualified (forfeit the game), and be fined as well.
The ball was under inflated and was not fit for league play. They deflated the ball to give their quarterback a better grip on the ball. Since it was under inflated it gave the other team a handicap.
The story is, they only used underinflated balls when the Pats were on offense, so only they had the advantage.
Yep, unlike a school yard game, each team provides and uses it's own balls. Those balls are required to be to certain specifications and are checked before the game by the refs. Both team's balls were checked and confirmed to be to specs before the game, then once the game started the Patriots balls were altered to be softer making them easier to grip (and throw, and catch).
My question is that well, since both teams have access to catching and throwing the ball, why would it benefit one team MORE than the other?
When the Patriots were on offense they were using their (deflated) balls, when the Colts were on offense they were using their (properly inflated) balls.
Link of the Day: Now, I may not be much of a sports fan, but I will NEVER turn my back on a current events story that lets me make lots of ball jokes.
Hmm so the you know in cold weather the balls shrink, and the quarterback for the Patriots, Brady, likes' em more shriveled cuz it's easier to grip, the cold shrunk the ball to below regulations. Meanwhile the other team's quarterback liked his balls more plump.
1. It's the referees' job to approve the game balls before the game. One of the most *basic* things to approve is the air pressure since no one else but them cares. They are the ones who should be in trouble here. 2. Both teams used the same balls, so regardless of the air pressure, nobody had any kind of advantage. Once the game starts going, the referees handle all of the balls. They don't use different balls for one team versus the other. It is incorrect to think that the Patriots only had the deflated balls. So did the Colts. No single player ever noticed the difference, including Andrew Luck. 3. The balls were switched for fully inflated balls in the second half. Tom Brady badly outplayed Andrew Luck in the second half. 4. I rather hate the Patriots, personally, but this is a non-issue that people are blowing out of proportion.
This is entirely incorrect. However, I do agree (as do any but the most blind and embittered fans) that "deflate-gate" had no bearing on who won that game.
Er ... not sure how you mean entirely incorrect. 1. The officials are the only ones to handle the balls once the game starts. (Do you contend with this?) 2. The two teams use the same set of balls. (Do you contend with this?) There were only 12 total game balls and 11/12 were deflated ... unless you think there were other game balls besides those 12? There were not. If there were, obviously they would have measured those, and seen if there was a discrepancy. This would be a much bigger story if the Colts had used fully inflated balls and the Patriots deflated balls. But that's not how it works ... Every pro game has exactly 12 game balls, for both teams, for the whole game. Happy to discuss if you think some part of what I've said is wrong. We agree on the important point anyway.
I was referring to #2. There are 12 balls per a team for a total of 24 balls. Each team uses their own balls. And the Colts balls were tested and still at full inflation at halftime when the Pats balls were under the mark after being checked and approved before the game. (However #1 is also incorrect as team's equipment managers are in possession of the balls throughout the games.) This info can be confirmed in any number of articles about the event, but if it helps here's a quote from a former ref who ESPN interviewed about the incident: Former NFL official Gerry Austin said he believes someone purposely let the air of out those footballs. "My understanding is all 12 balls were under the 13 pounds (per square inch), but 11 of them were more than two pounds under the 13 pounds," he said on the "Mike & Mike" show on ESPN Radio on Wednesday morning. "I take away from that, somebody has let some air out of the balls. Do I have knowledge of whether they did or not? Both teams balls were brought in at halftime to my understanding and all 24 balls were checked. The Colts balls were still up to 13 pounds and the Patriots balls were not."
Wow, really interesting, thank you for clarifying. My error was that I literally have always thought it was 12 balls, preceding this incident by a longshot. Maybe it's 12 in college games? I have no idea why I had that number in my head ... anyway given the way you laid it out, it's a bigger deal than I thought ...
Hey, no problem, if you knew there were 12 balls (in some form), you probably knew more than most die hard football fans before this all came out! College is the same as pro, at least for FBS (Div-I). I don't know about lower division programs. Yahoo! just re-ran an interesting article about ball tampering in the college game.
What makes this weird to me is that a few years ago the NFL changed the system for the balls used for kicking because it was standard for kickers to alter the inflation of balls to make them easier to kick. There is a 3rd set of footballs marked with a K that only the officials have access to, to prevent shenanigans like the Pats are accused of. In fact I think the total number of balls excluding the K balls is double that each team needs to have 24 balls but only select 12 of them for the game. Just lots and lots of balls. I was really surprised to hear that the game balls were not in the hands of the refs the whole time after being checked (turn your head and cough) after they made the rule for the special kicker balls. I mean it seems like a terrible chain of custody and would lead me to believe that the NFL would tolerate this type of behavior to make sure QBs are as comfortable as possible. Brady with his relatively normal sized hands (for his height) in theory would be more affected by the stiff balls in the cold weather and has stated he prefers when balls are not fully thick and tight, as opposed to Andrew (the giant) Luck with his 10 inch hands, who surely wants his balls as full as they are allowed. Right now there is no evidence that anyone tampered with the balls, just that they were significantly under-inflated when Colts balls were not. The logical conclusion is that someone did it intentionally since weather would not be enough to account for the change and should have effected each set of balls equally. In theory it could simply be a matter of someone tossing around the ball bag causing some deflation or the bag being kept in a older spot causing shrinkage. The latest update is there is tape of a "equipment manager" (ball boy) taking the bag into the bathroom for a period of 90 seconds which if you ask me is some pretty quick work if that is when they were tampered with. With 12 balls, 90 seconds is only 7.5 seconds per ball. Assuming you would need to stick an inflation needle into each of the balls, someone who was zen at finding the valve and sticking the needle in on the first try would have at most 4-5 second per ball of air being let out which doesn't seem like enough to obtain the significant deflation that is raising the ire of the media. Personally I think the NFL might just pin this scandal on this low ranking worker, just to wrap up the investigation even if at best this 90 seconds in the bathroom seems insufficient. But if anyone was hiding in the bathroom to tamper with the balls surely the Pats higher ups would know about it. We will likely never know what happened... BALLS #Shrinkage
On the subject of strangeness, the Superbowl halftime show had a dancing shark. It reminded me of another dancing shark:
