Posted on 01/24/2019 5:58:12 PM PST by EdnaMode
Some kids make baking soda and vinegar volcanoes for their science fair projects. Others find a way to turn their passion into a science fair project.
Meet Ace Davis, a 10-year-old kid from Lexington, Kentucky who created a science fair project about Tom Brady. While kids in New England might be trying to figure out how to scientifically prove that Brady is the greatest quarterback who ever lived, Ace decided to go in a different direction. He created a science fair project that proves that Brady is a cheater.
Ace sought to prove that Brady was a cheater through science. He wanted to show that deflated footballs gave Brady a competitive advantage. On his poster, he included the results of experiments he did with his mom and sister. Each of them threw footballs of varying inflation, and he measured the distance of each one and calculated the average. He found that the least inflated football traveled the farthest, therefore giving Brady a competitive advantage.
(Excerpt) Read more at sports.yahoo.com ...
Does nobody remember the article by an actual working physicist showing that there was no deflation?
There was even a group of physicists from around the country, and they rolled it into a legal submission.
https://cbsboston.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/physics-professors-deflategate-filing.pdf
Note the graphs in ADDENDUM B.
There’s even a couple of papers which show exactly which gauge had to have been used pre-game for the NFL to have gotten the results they did. They’re quite open and shut.
“Really?”
Yes, really. I was not going by any scientific experiments. I was simply stating that I could throw a ball further when it was under-inflated. It is a simple matter of the ball not being as slippery and the grip was better for me which made it easier to throw further. It also had to do with, again, the point of the ball not being as slippery, hence I could throw it further by about 10 yards when I had my index finger on the point of the ball.....using an NFL Duke ball.
It is interesting to note, however, that prior to the merger, the American Football League ball was slimmer and slightly longer which made it much easier to throw and for those two reasons is could be thrown further.
Your results may vary.
Right.
Having the aptitude to read a defense, change the play on the fly, and throw darts to his receivers is a pretty good system.
This allegation would never happen again if the NFL provided the balls.
Now there was an example of illegal manipulation of ball pressure outside the “legal” range: During a Jets pre-game, the game official inflated many of the Patriots balls to around 16 PSI, which is high enough to start spreading the seams, and apparently what got Brady and the training staff to find out what the actual pressure rules were and start informing the Referees - so they’d get it right.
Why? Deflated balls are smaller diameter and these two women could get a better grip.
Other experiments show the effects of water on the football, and the change in relative humidity (RH) between outdoors and the 20% RH (NFL figure) where they measured the footballs can have up to about 0.95 PSI.
The NFL would be the one solely responsible for ensuring every ball was exactly the same.
Once all the balls were properly inflated based on their own rigorous guidelines you could put them in a bag and someone could randomly pull out a ball.
The balls should, if the NFL followed their own rules, all be exactly the same. Neither team could manipulate the air pressure.
If the problem is teams allegedly manipulating pressure to their advantage that problem would be eliminated once and for all.
You may be correct. Nevertheless, it is the drive to obtain repeatable results which constitute research. I would guess that most scientific experiments are failures. Some failures are detected easily and some take decades or centuries to detect.
True. If it gave him better range, he would be overthrowing receivers until he adjusted to it.
The total variance of game football pressure over the course of a season approaches 6 PSI. More than the pressure level, what the players notice is the hardness of the leather shell when it gets cold.
The “legal range” of pressures was just Wilsons recommended pressures for the care and use of a football, instituted at some unknown time before 1940. It was about giving players a ball they could use, not about anything else.
Starting with pre-game measurements at 72F indoors, the PSI of footballs varies by almost 6 PSI between the warmest games and the coldest games each year, and in the 50F range, *varies* up to an additional PSI according to how wet it is. Balls on top would also be notably different pressure than those on the bottom if hit by sunlight or near the warmers. Heck, balls held by the ball boy or ref would vary by more than the NFL was actually quibbling about, depending upon how long they held them.
None of that is actually in opposition to the Wells report data and formulas - they just were very dishonest about what they found, and what they were telling you that graphs represented.
No one cares except as a gotcha.
See Addendum B in the following for some nice graphs on historical pressures.
https://cbsboston.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/physics-professors-deflategate-filing.pdf
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The main professors that debunked the Wells adaptation of the Exponent report, as well as Exponents methodology beyond the basic equations, were an Eagles fan (Professor John Leonard) and a Steelers fan.
Did he go on to consider that both QBs were using the same footballs with the same amount of inflation, thereby giving both of them the same edge?
While both teams supplied 2 sets of 12 balls (and if the NFL followed their own rules, when they had a question they’d have gone to the second set which were kept locked up instead of altering the Patriots footballs), according to Colts players at one point the Patriots were fed a Colt football that got mixed in - which would also explain why 11+1+1 does not equal 12 - and why there is one outlier in the measurements of the Patriots football which is much higher pressure than all of the others.
The statistical analysis of the differences, which is done incorrectly in other ways as well and then misrepresented in the text, hinges on that 13th football being a Patriots ball and not a Colts ball.
The problem with decreasing pressure is due to balls being inflated indoor where it's warmer.
The solution:
Take the machine that inflates the balls and all the ball completely deflated; without any residual air.
You take the machine and you lay each ball on the turf at least 1 hr before the same so they all reach the game ambient outdoor temperature.
After 1 hour or two or three, just before the game when the inflating machine and the deflated balls are all at the same outdoor temperature you then inflate all the balls to regulation pressure.
The only minor questionable variable I see is that over time the inflating machine might get warmer the longer it is running.
OPTION 2:
If the NFL allows teams to use their own balls there's another solution.
Each team deflates their balls and leave them on the field with the inflating machine so they all reach the same outdoor temperature.
Each team takes turn alternating inflating their own ball. However, the opposing team then tests the pressure on each.
If the opposing team ball is found to be off the team checking the ball can inflate it to the proper level and then the other team can measure the pressure.
Each team would keep the other honest.
Once the balls are properly inflated a neutral party maintains possession of the balls until needed so no one can stick a inflating needle to release air (although that could be done ON the field DURING play by any player hiding an inflating needle on their person).
You did notice that the kid is 10, right? This isn't an experiment done by trained research scientists at a major research lab. What do you expect grade-schoolers to do? Build a cold fusion reactor? Create a new element? Clone an extinct specie?
Pressure in PSI is not the only factor, when it comes to temperature based effects. The material(s) the football is constructed of change properties considerably with temperature. Hardness, stiffness, and likely internal damping of the materials all increase with decreasing temperature, which would tend to (mostly) counteract the pressure drop. (The damping change might add to the pressure drop in creating a less “bouncy” ball.) I would not be surprised if “operationally” those “materials” factors are more significant than the effect of the pressure drop.
What’s always puzzled me about this is, if a QB can throw a football better with a little less air pressure, why not let all teams’ QBs use a ball inflated to grip and throw best for them?
Are the the NFL rules intended to make the QBs less effective and efficient?
see:
http://www.espn.com/video/clip?id=12221498&ex_cid=espnFB
It’s all about the texture of the ball. They’re even using power tools on the things to strip off the coating and rough up the surface. Note at the end where nobody measures the pressure.
The tighter restriction is on kicking balls, which are only allowed to be worked for 30 minutes under the eye of an official before the game - since working the balls makes them bouncier.
Pressure was never actually an issue until a *ref* overinflated a bunch of balls by 3 PSI so the balls were actually a different size and stretching at the seams.
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/24/sports/football/eli-mannings-footballs-are-months-in-making.html
Underinflated balls travel farther due to less resistance, (surface area per weight.)
And related to that, why is it that no refs EVER seemed to notice that the Patriots were under inflating their balls all those years? Officials handle the balls constantly.
He is a system quarterback.
Other than the vocabulary, the offense changes every season, and sometimes every game. His strength is that he can change from one offensive scheme to another at the drop of a hat, to exploit an opponent’s weakness.
They “system” is called game-planning.
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