Posted on 01/23/2015 1:50:05 PM PST by Colofornian
Under his oversized ski cap, Tom Brady could not hide from the fact he was convicting himself in the court of public opinion. The quarterback of the New England Patriots admitted that footballs pumped up to 12.5 pounds per square inch are "a perfect fit for me," yet swore he did not notice a difference in the AFC Championship Game when most of the balls had significantly less pressure.
Brady's story Thursday was harder to believe than the story of the 199th pick in the NFL draft becoming one of the greatest players of all time...
"I would never do anything outside of the rules of play," Brady said.
But his own words told a different tale, and as soon as he was done talking, a 17-year veteran of the quarterback position, Mark Brunell, said on ESPN that he was among those who didn't believe Brady. Earlier Thursday, even before Bill Belichick seemed to be throwing his franchise player under a triple-decker bus in his own news conference, Hall of Famer Troy Aikman said on a Dallas radio station the following:
"It's obvious that Tom Brady had something to do with this."...
(Excerpt) Read more at espn.go.com ...
I disagree and calling people haters is akin to playing the race card IMHO. But I will say the Pats proven history of cheating does bring them into the limelight a bit more. But they brought it on themselves.
#1 In wet conditions, it's often more about the receivers retaining the ball than even Q's throwing it...because "everyone knows" the passes are likely to be shorter anyway.
#2 The HUGE assumption here is that Brady wasn't tossing around 11-psi footballs from Tuesday thru pre-game Sunday.
IoW, we already know New England cheated here. What we don't know is who the personal culprit(s) were.
So why do the apologists operating on behalf of the cheaters on this thread assume that cheating is done always on a moment's impulse, as if this all came up suddenly on a whim Sunday afternoon?
For all we know, Brady has his equipment manager ready up 11 psi footballs all week...which carried into pre-game Sunday...
And if you've been tossing 11 psi footballs all week as a professional QB, believe me, it won't be much less accurate than a 13 psi.
If the team cheated, then you do not reward them with the Super Bowl.
All it will do is encourage more cheating from other teams.
If the NFL really wants to send a message, then tell the Patriots they just forfeited their game and send the Colts to the Super Bowl.
The NFL refs need to be investigated too.
Although I’m starting to believe the NFL is a fixed game. Just like boxing, pro wrestling, etc... Hopefully, I’m wrong.
And I don't believe there is any NFL team out there that hasn't deflated or prepped their balls outside the ridiculous NFL standards to accomodate their own quarterbacks...........
The sports world and the entire MSM so want this to be the "Watergate" of pro football............
What a Frickin' joke this is turning out to be.........
Rush put it all into perspective today, the NFL has no intentions whatsoever to delve into who, what and where was responsible for the balls being deflated until AFTER THE SUPER BOWL........
“So if an offensive lineman holds, but doesn’t get called for holding, is he still cheating?”
If a DB holds but doen’t get called for holding is he still holding?
“IoW, we already know New England cheated here.”
Source? Duh .... There is no source. Just reporting that “If the report is accurate ...”
The Colts didn’t. Their balls checked out fine. The Pats got caught.
I support cheating, too.
That will be good by me. I will be able to catch up on some reading that night by the fireplace.
“Their balls checked out fine.”
I missed that report. Was that from the NFL, the refs or the Colts?
Are you serious? Indy didn't have the "luxury" of throwing short yardage passes because they were down 10 points with more than a half of football left to play? Your entire "argument" on this point is based on the absurd notion that an NFL team would go into desperation mode and start heaving the ball downfield in the second quarter because they're down 10 points. Nonsense.
“It was reported by a ref “
One of the official Colts/Pats game refs?
It is a real shame that the study of alternative lifestyles has apparently replaced the study of PHYSICS in high schools. But let me try to explain...
The NFL allows a RANGE of air inflation pressures within the footballs accepted for play. As we all know now, this range is between 12.5 and 13.5 psi. As Brady has stated, he likes balls that in the lower end of this range - whether for the “feel” of the ball, his ability to grip, whatever.
The 24 balls submitted by the Patriots to the refs 2 1/4 hours before game time are WEIGHED and MEASURED by the refs before being allowed for use in the game. ALL WERE ACCEPTED, meaning that they met the requirements of inflation between 12.5 and 13.5 psi. The Colts also submitted 12 balls for use in the game and they were also accepted. What we do not know is WHAT THE INFLATION OF THE COLTS OR PATRIOT BALLS WERE PRIOR TO THE GAME except that they all were approved.
The testing of the game balls is done indoors, in “controlled” conditions - say 75 degrees.
We have already established that the Patriot QB liked his footballs to be at the lower end of the acceptable inflation range. For the sake of this discussion, let’s say that they were all at 12.5 psi exactly.
Moving forward, the APPROVED BALLS are held by the refs until just before game time - I read that the game balls are distributed to the ball boys approximately 10 minutes before the game.
The game time temperature was approximately 49 degrees and fell throughout the evening to approximately 45 degrees.
Falling back on my high school physics, the balls that were measured and approved under indoor temperatures would by necessity LOSE AIR PRESSURE under the game conditions. If Tom Brady started out with footballs at 12.5 psi, the game time conditions would quickly reduce the internal pressure to approximately 11.8 psi.
As for the Colts footballs “passing” the subsequent halftime test by the referees, had they been originally inflated to 13.5 psi, they would have DEFLATED by a proportional amount - namely 0.7 psi. So 13.5 minus 0.7 equals 12.8 psi - STILL WITHIN THE NFL APPROVED RANGE.
So, before the world castigates the Patriots for some nefarious plot to reduce air pressure, we need more information. Namely, what was the measured pressure in the “illegal” balls tested at halftime? If it was between 11.8 and 12.4 psi, welcome to the world of Newtonian physics. If it is, as has been reported, greater than that, then we might look further into the reasons.
If the internal pressure did not fall proportionally with the fall in temperature, that would be a huge story because the laws of physics apparently do not exist as we know them in the NFL or in Foxboro.
I will now don my asbestos suit.
Flame on, fellow Freepers.
Do you honestly believe that this is the first time ever that a football team under inflated their balls due to the sub freezing temperatures on the field?
If so, then do you believe that Gaylord Perry was the only MLB pitcher to throw a spitball?.......
Go ahead Michael, try and turn this into another Watergate.......It ain't gonna happen.........
Doesn’t matter. They got caught.
Nope. This report could certainly fall apart. But I’d think the Pats would be out there going crazy if nobody checked the Colts.
Yep, and????????????
come on, finish the question.
The head of physics at MIT said weather could not have been the factor in this case. And he’s in Mass. I’ll trust his physics on this one.
They should be punished. I predict they lose at least one draft pick and pay a fine. Outside odds that Belichick gets suspended for at least one game in 2015-2016.
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