Should all of Brady's stats have an asterisk next to them for using illegal football?

[LambeauLegs]

We all know the Patriot coach would not lower the air pressure in the balls unless his QB told him he likes them that way.

Should all of Brady's stats have an asterisk after them because they were obtained in an illegal manner?

 

[BusSport]

Should all of Rodgers's stats have an asterisk next to them for using illegal football?

 

[Used 2 B Hu]

No, but he should probably have this happen to him:

 

[jarntt]

All of his stats are now in question?

 

[R.J. MacReady]

The question has not been proven to be true.

 

[GoreRush]

Just how much do we even know about the extent of the cheating?

 

[LambeauLegs]

Should all of Rodgers's stats have an asterisk next to them for using illegal football?

The fact is all footballs are inspected and checked for air pressure before each game. The Refs have the balls 2 hours before the game, they are then checked and after all are approved and stamped given to the ball boys 15 minutes before the start of the game.

If Rodgers likes extra air in the balls then he can try to put extra air in the balls but when the balls are checked by the refs to get approved they let the air out as Rodgers says. What he is referring too is that the air allowed in the balls has a range of one pound from the top limit to the bottom limit.

If there are filled to only the bottom limit that is not what Rodgers likes he likes it at the top limit.

In Brady's case he prefers it 2 pounds under the legal limit.

So in the Patriots case after the balls were approved by the refs and stamped as legal then once the balls were on the sidelines then we have someone letting air out of the balls to make them illegal.

There is a big difference between the 2 situations as Rodgers does not have someone after the balls are checked adding any extra air.

 

[TheRobotDevil]

All of his stats are now in question?

Yes

 

[jarntt]

The fact is all footballs are inspected and checked for air pressure before each game. The Refs have the balls 2 hours before the game, they are then checked and after all are approved and stamped given to the ball boys 15 minutes before the start of the game.

If Rodgers likes extra air in the balls then he can try to put extra air in the balls but when the balls are checked by the refs to get approved they let the air out as Rodgers says. What he is referring too is that the air allowed in the balls has a range of one pound from the top limit to the bottom limit.

If there are filled to only the bottom limit that is not what Rodgers likes he likes it at the top limit.

In Brady's case he prefers it 2 pounds under the legal limit.

So in the Patriots case after the balls were approved by the refs and stamped as legal then once the balls were on the sidelines then we have someone letting air out of the balls to make them illegal.

There is a big difference between the 2 situations as Rodgers does not have someone after the balls are checked adding any extra air.

That's not how I read this. I like Rodgers, but it seems he admitted to purposely and knowingly filling them above what the rules allow, no?

"I like to push the limit to how much air we can put in the football, even go over what they allow you to do and see if the officials take air out of it"

 

[LambeauLegs]

I am just passing on what is out there being talked about the article is maybe to long for many on here to read:

Why Tom Brady should be at the center of Deflate-gate


Why Tom Brady should be at the center of Deflate-gate - Yahoo Sports

Through the years, Tom Brady has always been able to remain above whatever the latest fray that engulfed the New England Patriots.

Brady was the quarterback, perhaps teased for his fashion or footwear or occasionally awkward celebrations, but never much on issues of substance. He was the underdog turned megastar, likable and respectable and just oh so good.

Bill Belichick played the villain, the supposed win-at-all-costs genius under the ratty hoodie. When allegations of underhandedness or unsportsmanlike play or anything else hit, it was all assumed to be Belichick’s orders, not Brady’s.

Now comes the so-called Deflate-gate scandal however. The NFL, according to ESPN, found 11 of the 12 footballs New England provided for Sunday’s blowout of the Indianapolis Colts in the AFC Championship Game were underinflated by as much as two pounds per square inch of pressure.
And now this is a Tom Brady situation. Now these are questions for Tom Brady to answer, once the NFL’s investigation is complete, likely this week. After all these years, he’s earned the right to be heard.

It’s not uncommon for teams to try to rig the football to the preference of their quarterbacks. Some, most notably players with bigger hands, want the ball inflated as much as possible to allow for better spirals. Others want a softer ball that’s easier to grip and, on the other end, catch. Some of it changes by the weather and game conditions. Some of it is just psychological.

Whatever it is, it always comes down to the QB.

You don’t just use random footballs in the NFL, or even major college football. They are never brand new. A coach doesn't just decide "try that one." They’ve been selected, and prepared, specifically for a certain QB, and in New England that means Brady and Brady only.

They can take weeks to get exactly right. They get scuffed and buffed to remove the slippery wax veneer. They get soaked in water to help make them less susceptible to moisture during actual in-game weather. Some teams rub dirt all over them. Others sand the laces just so.

In general around the league, almost every football has been thrown in practice by the starting quarterback prior to seeing game action. If he likes it, it gets promoted to Sunday. It’d be surprising if Brady didn’t follow that trend. After a decade and a half with the franchise, Brady’s precise desires would be well known.

So if New England purposefully deflated 11 footballs after pregame measurements by the referees, then it was done to benefit Tom Brady.

There is no equipment man or sideline attendant or anyone at all in Foxborough (not even Belichick) who would mess with Brady’s footballs without his knowledge, if not active participation. That’s just how it works. You don’t go rogue on the greatest player in team history, particularly with a trip to the Super Bowl on the line. And if they did, Brady would just order them to fix it immediately.

Brady’s only comments on the scandal thus far were of dismissive shock. In his weekly appearance on WEEI’s “Dennis and Callahan Show” early Monday morning, he claimed surprise a deflated ball was even an issue.

But the gamesmanship of tinkering with the pressure of the ball is hardly new. It’s done often. There’s a reason, after all, the NFL has such strict rules on ball pressure and detailed protocol to measure and protect the integrity of game balls. The rules were long ago needed.


Even then players work angles, trying to come as close as they like, high or low, to the acceptable limit of 12.5 pounds to 13.5 pounds of pressure per square inch. Or they’d go just outside it. It was reported this week, for instance, that Green Bay’s Aaron Rodgers says he likes his footballs inflated more than normal.


It’s all an open secret. To suggest it’s some new phenomenon would be like a baseball pitcher saying he never heard of someone doctoring a ball, or a hitter not knowing about finely tuned bats. It doesn’t mean they participate, but they’re aware it’s done.


Maybe the Patriots just pushed the envelope too far this time. Maybe this is standard operating procedure and they figured no one cared because everyone in the league is doing something. Maybe it took a bitter Colts team to be the first to challenge them. Maybe there is a more benign explanation. We’ll see.


It doesn’t matter how or why this became a big deal. It just has. You can suggest the Pats would have won anyway. (And they certainly would have.) You can argue it doesn't aid a talent such as Brady that much. (Of course, if it doesn’t matter then why deflate the ball in the first place?)


The reality here is that a rule violation involving the Patriots, with their history, occurring during the run-up to a Super Bowl, is going to be a major story. To think otherwise is naive. To wish it away is silly.


Whatever happened, Brady is the central figure, even more so than Belichick. The coach isn't throwing the ball. He likely assumes that as long as Brady is happy with the football, then all is good.


And Tom Brady looked happy with the footballs Sunday – the footballs the NFL has deemed outside acceptable standards.


This time, the QB may not be able to just slip away. This time, he's the one in the middle of it all.

 

[LambeauLegs]

That's not how I read this. I like Rodgers, but it seems he admitted to purposely and knowingly filling them above what the rules allow, no?

"I like to push the limit to how much air we can put in the football, even go over what they allow you to do and see if the officials take air out of it"

Did you see the last words there? " AND SEE IF THE OFFICIALS TAKE AIR OUT OF IT"

so as I stated fill them more than is legal and then let the refs take air out. Once the refs are done they are approved. If the refs dont take air out he benefits but at least they went through the process and are approved and not adjusted after the refs approval


Sure why not put 14 pounds in each ball before they are checked by the refs? Rodgers knows that air will be let out. He just hopes or tries by having more air in them that when the refs approve them that they will be near the higher limit of 13.5 pounds of air rather than the lower limit of 12.5 pounds.

If you like a higher pressure that is the only way to try and get what you want but in the end all balls have to be approved by the refs and stamped and after that it is illegal to change them.

Does it say anywhere or do you have a link that states Rodgers footballs had over 13.5pounds of air in them during a half time of a game or after a game. All I can see is that he likes as much air as possible in them?

 

[TheRobotDevil]

To be fair he should probably keep his losses

 

[Used 2 B Hu]

I get non-plussed when these kinds of discussions come up. We're talking about real miniscule differences that are almost impossible to detect. Granted, players that handle the football all the time can tell if there's a difference in feel, just like an average duffer can pick up a new golf club and go, "yeah, I like this one." But how much difference in performance is there going to be?

Ted Williams once sent back a shipment of bats because he said "they felt too skinny." They were, but it was by thousandths of an inch. Donald Trump once looked at a ledge on a new building and said, "it looks crooked." Again, it was, but only by thousandths of an inch, which would not only be undetectable to the naked eye but would also be virtually meaningless when dealing with such a small difference.

As much as I hate the Bradiots, I think this is a ridiculous issue.

 

[LambeauLegs]

How serious is deflate-gate? Yahoo Sports does its own ball-deflating test | Shutdown Corner - Yahoo Sports

How serious is deflate-gate? Yahoo Sports does its own ball-deflating test

Join us as we investigate the most enduring mystery of this week.

With that in mind, we sought to answer several questions:

• Is there a difference in feel between regulation psi and regulation-minus-2 pounds?
• Is there a grip and/or kick advantage?
• Is there a visual or weight difference between two pressure levels?
• How hard would such a scheme be to pull off?

Feel: Not as different as you'd think

You have no idea what a properly inflated football feels like. I guarantee it. If you grab a football, squeeze it, and think, hey, that could use a little air, chances are it's less than half its regulation pressure level. If you squeeze it and say, that's good, it's probably still three to four psi low. You cannot squeeze a football inflated to regulation pressure to any more than the tiniest degree, and some of that depends on the sponginess of the football's outer layer.

Ah, but what about a deflated football? I started at 13 psi, midpoint of the NFL's legal pressure window, and deflated the ball to 11 psi. Here's the thing: football squeezeability (scientific term) doesn't descend in a straight line as psi drops. The difference between 13 psi and 11 psi is not nearly as sharp as, say, the difference between 7 psi (mushy but still fine for a backyard game) and 5 psi (lumpy in your hand).

Again, I'm not an NFL quarterback, and I'm certain they can tell the degree of difference between psi with a far greater degree of certainty than I can. But, and this is key, once you get into double-digit psi, you really have to squeeze the ball hard to tell the difference. In other words, referees, particularly in a Gillette Stadium downpour, would have to be actively squeezing the balls, not just picking them up and tossing them to the sideline, to sense a pressure differential.

Verdict: There's a definite change in feel, but it's not nearly as sharp as you'd expect. And in game conditions ... I can't believe I'm saying this, but given the Biblical downpour and the presumption of previous checking, I'm letting the refs off the hook for not noticing the pressure differential once the game had already begun

Weight: Negligible

A football weighs 14.5 ounces, discounting air. At 13 psi, the air inside the ball weighs about one-third of an ounce, or about the weight of two sheets of paper. At 11 psi, the air weighs about one-fourth of an ounce.

Verdict: If you can tell the difference between one-third and one-fourth of an ounce of air inside a one-pound football, you are lying.

Appearance: Also negligible

It's a football. It looks exactly the same at 13 or 11 psi. Take two pounds out of a regulation-inflated ball and it doesn't suddenly become a Salvador Dali-esque melting chunk of leather.

Verdict: Either way, it's a football,

Performance: Definitely improved by deflation

Now, this is tricky, because as noted above, I'm not an NFL quarterback, and presumably neither are you. (If you are, get in touch and tell me how wrong I am.) I noticed a slight grip improvement on the deflated ball, and my throwing distance was ... well, let's just say I won't be turning heads at the combine, but there's a measurable distance improvement when you're able to get slightly more grip on the ball. But kicking a properly inflated ball is definitely a bit harder than the slightly deflated one, though that could be confirmation bias on my part.

Verdict: If a sportswriter decades past his athletic prime can notice a difference in performance, an elite NFL athlete certainly can.

Scheme: Not exactly a diamond heist

So how hard is it to pull two psi out of a ball? Even easier than you'd expect. Pop a needle into the ball and you can drop two psi faster than you can say "two psi." Granted, there are some chain-of-custody issues here; someone looking to do this would have to gain access to the balls, which are supposed to be under the referees' control prior to the game.

Verdict: If someone were to do a Mission: Impossible-style break-in of the football vault, they could deflate all 12 footballs inside of 30 seconds ... or miss one, if they're sloppy.

So what have we learned? This: deflating footballs is a perfect cut-the-corners gambit. It's an advantage that's simple to execute, not easily detectable, but with measurably positive results. Also, throwing around footballs on company time is pretty sweet. Enjoy Deflate-gate, everyone!

 

[Tin Man]

I don't have a dog in this hunt, but, Giselle's tush jiggles, and that tells me Brady likes 'em soft and yielding.

 

[PatsFan2003]

It's official. The Raiders win SB XXXVI

Brad Johnson paid $7,500 for altered balls in Bucs-Raiders Super Bowl - CBSSports.com

 

[LambeauLegs]

It's official. The Raiders win SB XXXVI

Brad Johnson paid $7,500 for altered balls in Bucs-Raiders Super Bowl - CBSSports.com

That is a bit different though as he was not affecting the air pressure inside the ball but just scuffing up the balls. As mentioned above the balls the teams choose to use in games are all broken in and approved by the QB before the refs check them over before the game. The balls used in the Super Bowl are maybe all new and were not scuffed up




"You don’t just use random footballs in the NFL, or even major college football. They are never brand new. A coach doesn't just decide "try that one." They’ve been selected, and prepared, specifically for a certain QB, and in New England that means Brady and Brady only.

They can take weeks to get exactly right. They get scuffed and buffed to remove the slippery wax veneer. They get soaked in water to help make them less susceptible to moisture during actual in-game weather. Some teams rub dirt all over them. Others sand the laces just so."

 

[Used 2 B Hu]

Thanks for that, LL...

So, slight change in PSI doesn't change look, feel, or weight significantly enough, but it DOES provide an avantage to a QB in terms of grip and throwing distance...which would NOT be a detriment to Andrew Luck or the Colts at all, but rather an advantage?

So why would the Pats do it?

 

[LambeauLegs]

Thanks for that, LL...

So, slight change in PSI doesn't change look, feel, or weight significantly enough, but it DOES provide an avantage to a QB in terms of grip and throwing distance...which would NOT be a detriment to Andrew Luck or the Colts at all, but rather an advantage?

So why would the Pats do it?

Each QB is different. Brady likes the ball under inflated. Only Brady uses the under inflated balls. Each team uses their own footballs when on offense and the balls are marked who's is who's when approved by the refs

The Colts have their own footballs that Luck uses.

So Brady had an advantage for who knows how long over the years as we cant assume this was just done for this game of being able to get a better grip in the ball making it easier for him to throw than he would have been able to have all these years if he had to actually throw a legal football.

Thus the question should his stats have an asterick since we dont know just how good they would be if he had to use a legal football all these years?

 

[jarntt]

Did you see the last words there? " AND SEE IF THE OFFICIALS TAKE AIR OUT OF IT"

so as I stated fill them more than is legal and then let the refs take air out. Once the refs are done they are approved. If the refs dont take air out he benefits but at least they went through the process and are approved and not adjusted after the refs approval


Sure why not put 14 pounds in each ball before they are checked by the refs? Rodgers knows that air will be let out. He just hopes or tries by having more air in them that when the refs approve them that they will be near the higher limit of 13.5 pounds of air rather than the lower limit of 12.5 pounds.

If you like a higher pressure that is the only way to try and get what you want but in the end all balls have to be approved by the refs and stamped and after that it is illegal to change them.

Does it say anywhere or do you have a link that states Rodgers footballs had over 13.5pounds of air in them during a half time of a game or after a game. All I can see is that he likes as much air as possible in them?

Everything you are talking about is cheating. So if I am a defensive player and I purposely punch the QB right in the face and the ref doesn't see it I didn't do anything wrong?

Yes, he himself said he purposely puts in more than the rules allow: "even go over what they allow you to do"