An Independent Patriots Blog
So to give you one example, the report had spotlighted that Tom had autographed items for members of the equipment team. That’s a common practice. Unless you’re Rachel Nichols and you’ve been around sports your entire life and you know that’s a common practice, as opposed to being outside the sport of football and the culture of football, it’s not a distinction that people can easily grasp.
https://www.patspropaganda.com/so-to-give-you-one-example-the-report-had/
Hurley: Wells Report Doesn’t Have Enough Information To Condemn Tom Brady
Great job by Mike Hurley summing this whole thing up much better than I could.
Though Ted Wells theorizes a conspiracy to depressurize balls, measurements by NFL referees on the majority of the Patriots balls read precisely where the scientific firm employed by the investigators said a ball inflated to 12.5 psi–the NFL minimum–would fall to (between 11.52 and 11.32) as a result of game-time conditions.
Since the psi measurements of the two referees varied somewhat, the opposite–that a majority of the balls failed to meet the expected level–is also true. Remarkably, the report chooses to interpret the data exclusively in a manner that suggests malfeasance.
https://www.patspropaganda.com/though-ted-wells-theorizes-a-conspiracy-to/
It’s the Wells Deflategate Report!
If you feel like reading it, here it is in its entire 250-page glory. How perfect that it comes out right after the draft when the dead period of the NFL offseason begins!
I was about to whip up this whole long post about it after trudging through it, but I realized what does it matter? Everyone is already in their corners, falling somewhere between “Suspend Tom Brady” to “The Pats were framed!”.
The truth is somewhere in the middle, and while I do think Jim McNally did let some air out of the balls after they were measured, I just can’t get by how ridiculous this whole thing is. We’re talking about an undetectable amount of pressure in a football.
Why is there an acceptable range? It’s not like underinflated balls are magically better. Easier to grip? Yes. Harder to throw with velocity? That too. It’s a tradeoff and as everyone can agree: HAD NO EFFECT ON THE AFC CHAMPIONSHIP.
So yeah, that’s what this is ultimately all about… less than a pound of PSI in footballs.
This is a football blog. I like football. I don’t like pouring through investigative reports and then trying to defend or condemn the football team I write about.
Now I don’t think it’s out of the question Brady gets suspended a game and personally I would kind of welcome it. Give Garoppolo a start while Brady stews watching the Pats raise the Super Bowl banner.
That has another revenge tour ala 2007 written all over it, whether it’s what Brady truly deserves or not.
Otherwise I’m just ready to put this whole episode behind us and move on to 2015.
NFL Integrity Takes Another Hit — Boston Sports Media Watch
This thing just keeps on getting worse and worse for the NFL. I’m just glad the Patriots won the Super Bowl. Imagine how you’d feel if they’d lost and then get cleared of any wrongdoing after the full two weeks of outrage leading up to the Super Bowl?
My only hope now is that the “us against the world” feeling carries into next season and keeps the fire lit under a Patriots team facing an underwhelming schedule.
In case you missed it, Deflategate was back in the news last night thanks to this piece from ESPN. There’s more contradictory nonsense in it, but what was most interesting to me is that the big “reveal” of this one is that a Patriots worker was caught trying to put a “K” ball, or the balls the kickers use, into play.
If true, this totally undercuts the entire deflategate nontroversy. Why? All the uproar was because the Patriots were allegedly trying to cheat by using balls that were underinflated, thus easier to catch in cold weather. Nevermind that the difference from a legal ball and an illegal ball is imperceptible and literally has no real effect making things easier to execute on offense.
But if it was a K ball that’s something completely different. K balls are essentially brand new, and often inflated to the higher end of the the spectrum. Tom Brady would’ve known instantly if he gripped a K ball because he would’ve never had a chance to break it in and rough it up to his liking.
So this means using a K ball would be a DISADVANTAGE if it were to be put into play. Not only would it be harder but it wouldn’t be broken in AT ALL.
The report goes on to say that the NFL’s Mike Kensil then went and tested the rest of the Patriots’ balls and found them to be “1-2 pounds” underinflated, much different than Chris Mortensen’s report that 11 of the 12 balls were two pounds underinflated. These new numbers would seem to support the Patriots’ story that they filled them near the low end of the legal spectrum and they simply lost pressure over the course of the first half.
So the NFL continues to handle this whole thing horribly as we’ve become accustomed to. If this latest report is accurate, it’s looking more and more like a mistake by a part time employee started this whole thing and it’s spun out of control thanks to the NFL.
