Re: “Isn’t this a bit like throwing a spitball or corking a bat?”
Exactly like that - except baseball players have been doing that for at least 100 years.
My point - if a deflated ball really does help the offense, how come the team on defense is not constantly asking the ref to check the pressure?
And, from personal experience, I think it’s much harder to throw a tight spiral with a deflated ball, but catching it might be easier.
Yeah, if the ball is too deflated, throwing a spiral is harder.
But we’re not talking about too deflated here.
From my understanding most QBs like it on the softer side; some, on the fuller side.
The QBs probably regularly try to get slightly under-inflated balls through, and the refs may be used to them being used. But that’s different than a team deflating them after they’ve been checked and held by the refs.
If the Pats ball boys have been deflating them on the elevator ride from the refs’ office to the field in Foxboro, there supposedly should be video of that. Yeah, Tom Brady would have known about that and that the NFL had confiscated the security video from the elevator. So presumably that either didn’t happen or, quite unlikely, they knew the ball boy would be caught—and would take the fall for Tom.
If they can’t come up with any hard evidence, they may just bury the issue with a combination of Tom choosing slightly underinflated balls to submit to the refs and the cool and wet conditions during the game.
That’s pretty much my conclusion, whether it makes a big difference or not, there could just be wink-wink nod say-no-more between teams. And the refs won’t get interested unless someone complains. If every quarterback has their own sometimes wildly different preference, it could just be every team is scared to ask the refs to check because they know the other team will ask in retaliation back at them. That happens in baseball when someone complains to an ump about loaded or scuffed balls, sometimes they know something is up but they probably have a pitcher on their team that does the same thing. Also no one wants 90+ some time later down the season.
It would be interesting to know exactly how this came to the attention to the refs. 11 of 12 altered kinda makes me think no one even considered getting caught.
Freegards
If all of these whiners who want to punish Brady and Belichek for maybe doing something bad with a minimal penalty attaced to it, they'll get the chance. Everybody should just SHUT UP and let Brady and Belichek prove (or disprove) their skills in the SuperBowl. If as the critics are contending, the Pats win because of cheating, well, they should be just awful in a highly scrutinized SuperBowl.
Football players and commentators being so offended and all that is embarrassing to listen to. "Big Boys Don't Cry" and all that.