[Polar Bear]

The fuss-to-worth ratio (that's F/W...a very complex ratio arrive at through exhaustive, detailed calculations [emoji483][emoji483][emoji483]) is higher for this investigation than for any sports-related investigation ever previously recorded.

[CFrance]

Originally Posted by Paul & Elaine

The balls were all inflated at half and the Pats scored 28 points in the second half. So the weight of the balls did not make any difference in the outcome of this game.

I don't get this argument. It's the integrity of the game that is at issue. I also don't get the "everybody does it" argument. If it's illegal, than "everybody" should be disciplined.

I want to watch good football, and I expect it to be played on a level playing field. And I expect the NFL to insure that that happens. With all the $ they make, it's not an unrealistic expectation to hold them to.

[Rags123]

Originally Posted by CFrance

I don't get this argument. It's the integrity of the game that is at issue. I also don't get the "everybody does it" argument. If it's illegal, than "everybody" should be disciplined.

I want to watch good football, and I expect it to be played on a level playing field. And I expect the NFL to insure that that happens. With all the $ they make, it's not an unrealistic expectation to hold them to.

AMEN. Same with anything in life......because others did it or do it is NO excuse for you doing it !!!

How many times did you hear that as a kid !!!

A cheat is a cheat is a cheat...a liar is a liar is a liar

BUT they are not even claiming that everyone does it...they are just lying.

Remind anyone of Richard Nixon.....the cover up is what gets you !

[CFrance]

Originally Posted by Dr Winston O Boogie jr

1000% correct. This has gone way over the top. A big part of it is jealousy. People love to hate winners and the patriots have won more games, by a wide margin, in the past 14 years than any other team.

It's also true that if they were to take away all of the points that the Patriots scored with the illegal balls, they would have won the game by 21 points and beat the spread by 15.5 points.

I just saw a report, by the way, that said that the NFL is going to report that although the balls were under inflated, they could not find the cause of the under inflation and no punishment was going to be handed out. They may be covering up the fact that a faulty gauge was used or the referee didn't do his job.

I have heard no details about what the ref did when he checked the balls 2 hours and 15 minutes before the game. Did he check all of the balls? Did he use a proper gauge? Or did he maybe pick up a few, squeeze them and say, "Yeah, these seem OK"? If that were the case, the NFL would have to come out and try to cover it up.

Funny that the gauge was faulty for the Patriots' balls but not the Colts' balls.

All the Patriots fans will go out of their way to defend their team and cast doubts upon the allegations. That's understandable, but considering the team's history in this area, it's also understandable that non Patriots fans might view their arguments with a bit of skepticism.

[KeepingItReal]

Originally Posted by CFrance

I also don't get the "everybody does it" argument. If it's illegal, than "everybody" should be disciplined.

It's kinda like the same as a lot of stuff in the villages. It's not gonna change....

[Dr Winston O Boogie jr]

Originally Posted by CFrance

I don't get this argument. It's the integrity of the game that is at issue. I also don't get the "everybody does it" argument. If it's illegal, than "everybody" should be disciplined.

I want to watch good football, and I expect it to be played on a level playing field. And I expect the NFL to insure that that happens. With all the $ they make, it's not an unrealistic expectation to hold them to.

I almost all sports players are allowed to bend certain rules and the league looks the other way. It's sort of like an unwritten rule. You can argue whether this is right or wrong, but I don't think that anyone would argue that it's a good thing for a league to begin selectively enforcing a rule that has been let go for decades.

If they want to start enforcing it, then notice should be given to all the teams that they've been letting them get by with this, but as of a specified date they will no longer tolerate it.

That would be a reasonable approach. You don't allow one coach who knows and understands that this has been common practice to suddenly call another coach out on it.

[Dr Winston O Boogie jr]

Originally Posted by CFrance

Funny that the gauge was faulty for the Patriots' balls but not the Colts' balls.

All the Patriots fans will go out of their way to defend their team and cast doubts upon the allegations. That's understandable, but considering the team's history in this area, it's also understandable that non Patriots fans might view their arguments with a bit of skepticism.

I didn't say that the gauge was faulty. I said that it might have been. Do the referees use their own gauges or the teams gauge? Do they use the same gauge for both teams? Do they use a gauge at all?

These are questions that I have not heard addressed. Until all of these kind of questions are answered we have to assume that this was simply some kind of error.

It's only the jealous fans of other teams that are making a big deal of this. People love to hate winners. It goes with the territory. And the Patriots have won more games, by a huge margin, since 2000 than any other team in the NFL. All of the other teams fans hate that fact. They are jealous of The Patriots and their fans. They are looking for some excuse as to why their team hasn't done this.

And as far as considering the teams history, what happened was that ten years ago, a low level employee videoed an opponents from an area where videoing was not allowed. Had the kid been thirty yards from where he was it would have been perfectly legal. The league decided to make an example of the team. The media made a big deal out of it just like they're making a big deal out of this. Is that this criminal history your talking about?

The media doesn't like Bill Belichick because he doesn't give them any stories. He doesn't tolerate their crap and they don't like that. So anytime they can make a push to get him in trouble they will.

Like I said, fans of other teams hate them because they are jealous of their winning record and the media hates them because they don't cooperate with them. Those two things combine to create issues like this.

[CFrance]

Originally Posted by Dr Winston O Boogie jr

I didn't say that the gauge was faulty. I said that it might have been. Do the referees use their own gauges or the teams gauge? Do they use the same gauge for both teams? Do they use a gauge at all?

These are questions that I have not heard addressed. Until all of these kind of questions are answered we have to assume that this was simply some kind of error.

It's only the jealous fans of other teams that are making a big deal of this. People love to hate winners. It goes with the territory. And the Patriots have won more games, by a huge margin, since 2000 than any other team in the NFL. All of the other teams fans hate that fact. They are jealous of The Patriots and their fans. They are looking for some excuse as to why their team hasn't done this.

Really have to disagree with this. And as to the Patriots winning games, take a look at this study. Sharp Football Analysis

[Dr Winston O Boogie jr]

Originally Posted by CFrance

Really have to disagree with this. And as to the Patriots winning games, take a look at this study. Sharp Football Analysis

Your little fumble study doesn't take into consideration that Belichick makes The Patriots work hard on holding onto the ball. And when they do have some that fumbles, they bench him. A perfect example was their star running bacl Stephen Ridley who had fumble problems. He was benched, brought back after he had worked on holding onto the ball and now I don't even think he's with the team anymore. They don't let players who fumble play. If they don't improve quickly, they get rid of them. Just another example of the genius of Bill Belichick.

Your study also talks about how they never fumble at home and then mentions that visiting teams bring their own balls when on the road. So what does home and away have to do with it?

They didn't win 174 games in the past 14 years because the ball was a little under inflated. Joe Theisman said that he never thought about ball inflation until this controversy came about. So, he went out and threw some balls that were correctly inflated and under inflated. He said that to him the harder ball is easier to handle.

This whole thing is going to turn out to be nothing. People have so much hate in them for winners that they are calling for the Patriots to be banned from the Super Bowl based on an allegation. There is still not one scintilla of evidence that these balls were under inflated deliberately and intentionally. Barring such evidence the league has to conclude that there was some kind of innocent error, the referees did not do their job, or the weather caused the balls to deflate.

[CFrance]

Originally Posted by Dr Winston O Boogie jr

Your little fumble study doesn't take into consideration that Belichick makes The Patriots work hard on holding onto the ball. And when they do have some that fumbles, they bench him. A perfect example was their star running bacl Stephen Ridley who had fumble problems. He was benched, brought back after he had worked on holding onto the ball and now I don't even think he's with the team anymore. They don't let players who fumble play. If they don't improve quickly, they get rid of them. Just another example of the genius of Bill Belichick.

Your study also talks about how they never fumble at home and then mentions that visiting teams bring their own balls when on the road. So what does home and away have to do with it?

They didn't win 174 games in the past 14 years because the ball was a little under inflated. Joe Theisman said that he never thought about ball inflation until this controversy came about. So, he went out and threw some balls that were correctly inflated and under inflated. He said that to him the harder ball is easier to handle.

This whole thing is going to turn out to be nothing. People have so much hate in them for winners that they are calling for the Patriots to be banned from the Super Bowl based on an allegation. There is still not one scintilla of evidence that these balls were under inflated deliberately and intentionally. Barring such evidence the league has to conclude that there was some kind of innocent error, the referees did not do their job, or the weather caused the balls to deflate.

Uh, it wasn't "my little fumble study." I understand how you will stick up to your team to the end. It makes for a good fan. But you do have to wonder why there aren't very many other teams in the limelight for this kind of thing. The Saints and...

[DonH57]

If you watch any football game on any given day and pay attention to all the replays on all the games you can see so much cheating that the officials didn't catch or had absolutely nothing to do with the outcome of the game. Tom Brady got kicked in the helmet by a Raven's defender after he had went down and it wasn't an accident. The Patriots are hated for the reason's listed earlier. Bill Parcells was another coach hated by the media because he did the same thing only sometimes being nasty toward them. Quite frankly all this deflate gate talk is only helping the Patriots prep for the bowl. Whether you hate their guts or not they are one team you don't want to pi** before a game.

[Dr Winston O Boogie jr]

Originally Posted by CFrance

Uh, it wasn't "my little fumble study." I understand how you will stick up to your team to the end. It makes for a good fan. But you do have to wonder why there aren't very many other teams in the limelight for this kind of thing. The Saints and...

OK, to be more accurate, "the little fumble study that you posted."

Other teams haven't been in the limelight for it because they don't win as much as The Patriots. It has never been brought up by an opposing coach before because they all know that it's common practice and their teams could be penalized as well if a real investigation was done.

Don't you find it a bit odd that Jim Harbaugh found balls to be soft in the Ravens game against The Patriots and instead of filing an official complaint with the league, he goes and tell Pagano to look out for it? If I were a coach and found a problem I would call it to the referee's attention right then and there. The ref could then check the balls at halftime just like they did in The Colts games. Instead, he goes to the coach of the team that they're about to play and "warns" him to look for it.

So far what we know is that 11 of 12 balls were under inflated, some up to 2 PSI.

We have no idea how they got that way. We don't know if they were under inflated when the ref checked them before the game. We don't know what procedure the ref used to check them. Did he use a gauge or did he just squeeze them and say they felt OK? if a gauge was used, could it have been a faulty gauge? Was the same method and/or gauge used on The Colts balls? Is it possible that the temperature change led to a loss of pressure? Remember, Tom Brady asks for his footballs to be at "exactly" 12.5 PSI. If they were at that pressure and the cold made them lose any pressure at all, they would have been illegal. What was the exact pressure of all of The Colts 12 footballs? Were the tested in the same room or different rooms? Were the temperatures of the two rooms the same?

All I'm saying is that there is a lot of information that we don't have and people are screaming to suspend Belichick, ban The Patriots from the Super Bowl or bench Brady for the Super Bowl. What I'm saying is like in any other case we should wait until all of the evidence is in before making any judgement. It sounds like that's exactly what the NFL is doing.

Until then we should just enjoy two great football teams going at each other in the greatest game of the season.

[Happydaz]

This is the United States of America Where a person is presumed innocent until proven guilty. The title of this thread is indicative of a judgement. The media loves stories like this and they get everyone all excited and emotional, but there has been no results yet from the NFL investigation. Let's wait for that instead of slandering the reputations of Tom Brady and Bill Belichick.

[DonH57]

I would say the reason any balls were deflated was because Gronk spiked them but he gets to keep all those afterward. Seriously the NFL needs to pick a system of enforcement and stick with it across the board. I for one do find it odd if even a coach chooses not to inform officials but sidelines it he is part of the problem. At best all allegations.

[l2ridehd]

They are nothing but allegations by a team who lost and was looking for excuses. The Ravens and Indianapolis were beaten by a better football team. Every quarterback, every pitcher, every basketball player every golfer who has ever played the game has something he seems to think makes his game just a bit better. Pitchers like to rough up the ball before every pitch, golfers will only play with ball XXX, it's been around since the lions and Christians were in the arena. And it will be around for as long as there are pro sports.

I hope all this media hype only propels them to win the Super Bowl. There are a lot more important things to worry about in this world than a pound of hot air.