It seems there is a vocal minority of uninformed fans out there who still think Tom Brady did something wrong in the Deflate Gate scandal. None of the known facts are on their side. Here are the known facts right now. IF I've inadvertently said something wrong, please point it out to me with proper documentation. Unlike the NFL, I'll gladly admit to mistakes in my handling of the information. I've established these facts in previous posts, you're free to read them as they are still on this blog:
1) Deflation was never proven to have occurred.
That's right, through all of this, no ball tampering was ever proven. It's been established that Tom Brady likes his footballs on the low end of the acceptable inflation scale. Since he's entered the league he has worked with the commissioner's office trying to change the standard stating that the QB should determine the proper inflation rate of balls. Fellow QBs like Aaron Rodgers and Andrew Luck would rather have balls on the over-inflated side of the scale. They prefer a firmer ball.
All Patriot game balls submitted to officials before the game are going to have lower (but acceptable levels) of inflation. Both Brady and the Patriot coaching staff are always aware of that. The league is, too. Andrew Luck and the Colts in the AFC championship game submitted balls on the HIGHER end of the acceptable inflation scale. Those different groups of balls could have varied by as much as 1 PSI at the start of the game. That's normal and acceptable.
There were TWO gauges used by officials before and during the game, a generic one and a brand name one. The officials who did the measuring were not sure which gauge was used for each group of balls, though the OFFICIAL report was REWRITTEN by the league to make it seem like the officials were sure they used the brand name one. It was discovered later that the gauges varied by 1/2 PSI. According to manufacturers, that's normal and common. That means that the two groups of balls could have been off by as much as 1 1/2 psi at the start of the game! At this point, there is no way to confirm the what actual psi of the game balls really was.
That should have ended the investigation right there. If no real evidence of tampering occurred, there should have been no investigation.
But there's more:
2) Expert physicists testified that both the wet and cold game time conditions could have easily deflated the balls. Original reports, leaked by the league immediately following the game, were FALSE. The physicists they consulted did some basic math errors to come up with the wrong numbers. THE LEAGUE NEVER CORRECTED THIS MISTAKE PUBLICLY and that is the primary reason most fans still think Brady did something. This was a deliberate act by the league to manipulate public opinion. If it was not deliberate, they would have corrected their mistake.
3) These same expert physicists confirmed that heavy play with the balls would deflate them further. Every time you catch or land on a ball it deflates a little bit more. The Patriot offense was on the field running roughshod over the Colts the entire first half, while the Colts barely got to use their balls. In effect, that possible 1 1/2 PSI gap at the beginning of the game most likely widened.
4) Though the Patriot balls were inspected at halftime and found to no longer meet the league standard, the league could not prove that this was not in any way anything but normal. Nor could they say, with any certainty, WHICH gauge was used to check the balls. We were told after the game in information once more LEAKED by the league that all the Colts balls were fine. When, in point of fact, they never had time to check all the Colts balls! The league never publicly corrected that statement either.
Once more the investigation should have ended right there.
It didn't
3) The Welles' team was HIRED by the league to find something since the only facts in the case showed New England's innocence in the matter. The entire report was conjecture and speculation on what may have happened. The league then took the report and rewrote it as if to say this IS what happened. The NFL refused to testify as to why they did this. Welles was paid even more money to stand by "his" report.
4) A real judge saw the real evidence and chastised the NFL and their cronies.
5) The NFL says they'll appeal.
No comments:
Post a Comment