Super bowl

[Jonathan]

I love sports.

[Christian Fox]

Totally agree. Seems weird.
Also seems weird that Brady would have such an advantage when both teams were using the same balls - ?

huh?

Each team supplies and uses their own balls. Very strange, but true. And the balls used by the kickers are supplied directly from the manufacturer. I guess if the NFL was super worried about ball manipulation, all games balls would come from the manufacturer. This would be a non-story if it weren't the Pats, who, unfortunately, bring higher scrutiny onto themselves (rightly so). Teams regularly heat balls during cold games, which is prohibited, but no one ever does anything about it.

I really hope this is some sort of weird screw up, because otherwise it just reeks. It would take a very sneaky, coordinated effort on the part of the equipment staff in order to pull this off. And why would you deliberately cheat this way when the refs handle the ball 70-80 times a game? That doesn't make sense to me.

[GrantM]

I find all the outrage response about "cheating" to be a more than just a little bit
willfully blind on the part of most football fans. Nobody really fives a shit,
and the league is a role model for cheating.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/17/sp...affs.html?_r=0

[monadnocky]

Now there are journalists - Boston's Eric Wilbur among them - who are claiming that the ball was 2 pounds lighter because 2 psi of air was let out of them (a football weighs 15 oz) and the refs should have noticed the significant weight difference of the ball...
Wilbur also stated that the officials "weigh" the ball to determine the psi.
Others are saying stuff like this as well...

oh this is gonna be so good

[SteveP]

its awesome to have a scientist in the trade.
i notice how heavy my bikes feel when i ride them at 100 psi.

damn, 2 wheels 100 psi... damn thing weighs over 200 pounds.
and thats only per sq inch.. many inches on the bike. damn, never knew
no wonder i climb so badly.

[bcm119]

No allegiance to either team, but I hope the Pats win. I like it when the team everyone hates wins.

[Mike Marley]

As a partisan Colts fan, I think its no big thang. Maybe pump their Super balls up to 15 psi and call it even.

[SteveP]

i wonder if they weighed the colts balls?
they seemed lacking in the balls dept during the actual game.

[davids]

It is ironic to read cycling fans' shock at the possibility of cheating in a professional athletic contest.

[Mike Marley]

Its like Mark Furman tossing the bloody gloves over the fence. Whachya so worried about?

[Saab2000]

New England Cheatriots has a nice ring to it!

[SteveP]

"without this advantage the game would have been really close... like 38-10 or something"
unnamed embittered colts fan

[Corso]

640px-Much_Ado_Quarto.JPG

[Jonathan]

I found the Madden interview interesting. He says it was most likely Brady if anyone but he doesn't see how there could have been an issue since the refs touch the ball twice every play. Who knows. It's good sport. Go Pats.

[SteveP]

They should check Flacco balls
I bet they are filled with helium.
Otherwise how could he throw that long?

[Saab2000]

I suspect that a +/- of 2 psi has little appreciable effect on the the ball other than to let someone grip it ever so slightly better. It's probably similar to a 120 lb climber running 85 psi on his tubulars and a 185 lb powerhouse sprinter running 105 psi on his tubulars.

If this is a huge deal then the NFL needs to control the pumping of the footballs before the game and access to them during the game. It can't be that hard. This idea of teams bringing their own footballs seems decades outdated.

There was an article on Yahoo! the other day and the writer said that dropping the pressure didn't, to him at least, make much, if any, difference in how he gripped the ball. He admitted he was an amateur but personally didn't think it was a huge deal. That was my takeaway after reading the article.

[Tom]

I think that the amount of air in the balls is why nobody could tackle Blount.

[AJPM44]

NFL to remind teams not to warm footballs - NFL.com

Where is the outrage???!!!!??!!!

[Corso]

The media is running away with this, I guess it’s a pleasant distraction to “real” news.
I have to believe if this was so important to the outcome of a game, the NFL would have an official handle all the balls for both team, and not let each team do this.

So, I’m assuming it’s not that big a deal in a game situation.

I guess what grinds my gears, is the PRO football players, retired or active, who are calling the Pats “cheaters". Including spy gate, the Pats don’t do anything differently than other NFL programs, or even high school teams for Merckx sake!

I call the distractors sore losers. If the Colts won, do you think this would have received anyone covering the story?

[pdxmech13]

I think it is time to go direct to the source.
The media should ask Gisele how Brady likes his balls handled
Only then will we all know the real truth to Inflatagate