He’s getting close to blaming Climate Change, which would serve him well in both Boston and Seattle.
It was 45 F at half time when they were checked.
They would need to have filled and checked their balls at 50 F hotter. So a 95 F room.
The amount of ignorance on this thread is staggering.
First, disclaimer: I’m a Redskins fan and can’t stand the Patriots.
Secondly, I thought Free Republic didn’t trust the media? Then why are some of you taking the MSM’s version of the press conference rather than watching it yourselves? Oh, I guess being informed is hard work...
So, to the actual press conference:
Belichek said that the equipment managers rough up the footballs before they are handed to the referees in order to create the texture that Brandy likes. This is perfectly within the rules, and every team does it. Belichek says that he had the equipment managers perform the same process on multiple balls, which in some way involves rubbing or scraping the balls. This resulted in an average of a 1.5 PSI elevation in the balls (because friction causes heat). This normalized down by .5 PSI (in their tests) in the time that it would take for the balls to be given to the refs.
The balls were then GIVEN TO THE REFS TO INFLATE. The team asked the refs to inflate the balls to the minimum 12.5 PSI. There is no released information on how much the refs inflated the balls, how they measured the inflation, or how careful they were. None. If the refs did as asked, the refs inflated the balls in a 70+ degree climate-controlled room in the stadium to the minimum pressure, without knowing that the air in the balls was already heated by the previous “preparation” of the balls.
Once outside, the balls could be expected to lose about 1 PSI due to temperature differences and 1 PSI due to the loss of the heat generated by rubbing down the balls, which would explain the low readings at halftime. This is assuming that the refs did inflate the balls to 12.5 as asked.
Depending on how the refs were instructed by the Colts to inflate their balls, if the Colts’ balls were not rubbed down and were inflated to the maximum (13.5 PSI), they could have read a legal 12.5 at halftime, despite undergoing the same thermal compression as the Patriots’ footballs.
At this point I have not seen a single published story with any of the following information (links to this info would be appreciated):
- What pressure the refs inflated the Patriots’ balls to.
- What pressure the refs inflated the Colts’ balls to.
- What pressure the Colts balls were at halftime.
- What method or gauge was used to measure the pressure.
- How much time had elapsed between the footballs being brought inside and their being tested.
At this point, people declaring that this is a clear case of cheating are doing so based purely on prejudice. Which is disappointing, but not surprising...
The climate certainly changes when you walk from indoors to outdoors in the winter.