Can someone please explain how it helps only one team to play with a slightly deflated football. Aren't BOTH teams playing with the same ball?

Some people prefer soft rather than hard boiled eggs.

Maybe because the one team is used to it, and the other has to adjust first.
When you are used to a ball that handles harder, you have trained to compensate for that.
Then you get a ball that handles “easier” and that automatic compensation now becomes a disadvantage.

Each team is required to bring their own footballs and use them when they are on offense. Only the kicking balls are provided by the referees.

The day of this particular game is was raining and an underinflated ball is easier to hold, throw and catch.

The refs are supposed to spot check balls throughout the games and it is not yet clear if and when this was discovered during the game. Regardless, it was a complete blowout and you could give Brady a bowling ball and he will still throw touchdown passes.

On a side note Aaron Rodgers quarterback of the Packers loves his balls to be overinflated as he can throw them farther and more accurately.

@Buttonstc : Thanks for asking this. I also have wondered. Seems a bit odd to me, but then so does the love of football. ;-)

They should use the ball on top of the Vince Lombardi trophy for the Greatdish final game, that would be fun to watch.

@Cruiser

But don’t plays get overturned frequently so that the other team now has the ball?

Or does it get switched out then by the other team each time a play is overturned?

@canidmajor

Well, like you, I’m obviously not a big football fan or I would know this kind of stuff :)

@Buttonstc Watch closely and you will see balls getting switched out by the referees. One would think they could squeeze and feel that the ball is not filled to spec pressure and demand it be replaced. Plus it can go both ways as an underinflated ball is also easier to intercept.

We realize that the coach is a cheater (remember the videotaping scandal that the Patriots took part in a couple years ago?).

But “ballgate” means that the 22+ players on the field were all in on the cheating conspiracy.

Shame shame shame.

@elbanditoroso This stuff and all sorts of other cheating has been going on since football was created and the NFL has kept a blind eye to these shenanigans. Belichick or Brady must have really pissed someone off for ESPN to have pursued their investigation into this matter.

@Cruiser – I’ll buy that. Although I find it humorous that New England seems to be right smack in the middle of the more notorious ones. Did they cheat their way through the season, too?

@elbanditoroso I have not information to back it up but I would say all the teams in the NFL have some angle they are playing each and every game. But I can say that one of my vendors played for the Rams for three years and he said it was brutal on the field with all the cheap shots and dirty tricks all the players would engage in. He told me some really funny stories.

@Cruiser

“Plus it can go both ways as an underinflated ball is also easier to intercept.”

That was my point exactly. An underinflated ball is not necessarily a unilateral advantage or disadvantage. So why bother to begin with?

But I gather from the further discussion that this is just part of business as usual?

It just struck me as a bit strange that there is so much fuss being made over it when it’s not at all clear to me that one side benefitted greatly (or the reverse.)

@Buttonstc – Cheating balls or not, New England was still going to beat the crap out of the Colts. There was no serious effect on the outcome of this game.

But it’s an ethics thing. Similar, if I might say, to players taking performance enhancing drugs. But this was on a team level, not an individual level.

@Buttonstc It would be a wholly different discussion if NE won by a touchdown pass in overtime.

Paid-off officials.

What is curious to me is that the ball is handled by two officials on every play. And the playoffs are supposed to be the best, most experienced officials. But they couldn’t tell the balls were under inflated? This whole thing blew up because of an interception by D’Qwell Jackson. He told his equipment manager, who reported up the chain and the officials were told to investigate at half time.

I guess Patriots owner Robert Kraft checked with Jerry Jones of the Cowboys on what the effective rate was to pay off officials. Jones paid for his win over Detroit, but didn’t pay enough to win over Green Bay.

Now they are reporting that the Raven’s who lost to the Pat’s in the divisional playoff tipped off the Colts that they noticed deflated balls when they intercepted Brady twice. The Raven’s apparently kept the balls to verify the under inflation.

Now the spotlight is shining brightly on the officials and the NFL as to who is doing what when this happens and IMO won’t bode well if it comes out that those in charge are simply turning a blind eye to this sort of activity. Plus it is sending a signal out to all the Pee Wee and High school football players that it is OK to cheat when you can get away with it.

Since this seems to be such a ridiculously huge issue, why are the teams themselves responsible for the inflation of the balls? Why aren’t the balls all inflated by a neutral third party and then kept in one big ol’ pile so no one knows who brought which balls?

heh, balls.

Here is the official rules governing the NFL footballs

The Ball must be a “Wilson,” hand selected, bearing the signature of the Commissioner of the League, Roger Goodell.

The ball shall be made up of an inflated (12½ to 13½ pounds) urethane bladder enclosed in a pebble grained, leather case (natural tan color) without corrugations of any kind. It shall have the form of a prolate spheroid and the size and weight shall be: long axis, 11 to 11¼ inches; long circumference, 28 to 28½ inches; short circumference, 21 to 21¼ inches; weight, 14 to 15 ounces.

The Referee shall be the sole judge as to whether all balls offered for play comply with these specifications. A pump is to be furnished by the home club, and the balls shall remain under the supervision of the Referee until they are delivered to the ball attendant just prior to the start of the game.

Each team will make 12 primary balls available for testing by the Referee two hours and 15 minutes prior to the starting time of the game to meet League requirements. The home team will also make 12 backup balls available for testing in all stadiums. In addition, the visitors, at their discretion, may bring 12 backup balls to be tested by the Referee for games held in outdoor stadiums. For all games, eight new footballs, sealed in a special box and shipped by the manufacturer to the Referee, will be opened in the officials’ locker room two hours and 15 minutes prior to the starting time of the game.

These balls are to be specially marked by the Referee and used exclusively for the kicking game.

In the event a home team ball does not conform to specifications, or its supply is exhausted, the Referee shall secure a proper ball from the visitors and, failing that, use the best available ball. Any such circumstances must be reported to the Commissioner.

In case of rain or a wet, muddy, or slippery field, a playable ball shall be used at the request of the offensive team’s center.

The Game Clock shall not stop for such action (unless undue delay occurs).

Note: It is the responsibility of the home team to furnish playable balls at all times by attendants from either side of the playing field.

Now seeing that the game balls are in the possession of the referee before the start of the game the onus is now solely on the Officials and the question is now what if anything did the do or in this apparently not do to address this issue. Plus did they report this to the Commissioner as they are required to? This could get real interesting as this investigation continues.

I’ll offer one more point here. We know that air pressure goes down as the temperature declines. That means that if a ball was filled to the minimum pressure in the locker room, it would be below the minimum pressure once it was moved out to the field on a cold January day. Is it enough to account for the difference, I don’t know. If they were trying to play it close to the margin it might.

It would take a 40+ degree difference to lower the pressure a full 2 PSI. Game time temperature was around 50, so they would have had to have been at the minimum pressure in 90+ degree temperatures. Obviously if they were anything more than the minimum, it would have had to been filled somewhere even warmer.

It was only brought up at this game because the Colts and other teams had noticed a pattern of the balls being under inflated. Brady likes an under inflated ball.

No one thinks the Patriots won because of the balls, it’s only a problem because they keep getting caught doing a number of slightly shady things on both sides of the rules. If they’re taping signals and doctoring the balls, and it took full seasons to catch them at each, what else are they doing, or have done? I don’t love or hate the Patriots, and like how they go against the thinking that individual superstars make a team great. You just have to think there’s probably at least a couple other things they use that can’t be proven.

Also, this.

Brady after “creative” formations helped the Patriots beat the Ravens

“Maybe those guys gotta study the rule book and figure it out. We obviously knew what we were doing and we made some pretty important plays. It was a real good weapon for us. Maybe we’ll have something in store next week.”

Can’t answer your question.
Odd, that both teams bring balls to the game.
I have wondered where and at what temperature the balls were initially filled. If one team filled their cold balls in a cool room and then the balls were taken out onto a cool field, the pressure would remain the same. If the other team filled their warm balls in a warm room and then took them out onto a cool field, the balls would lose pressure because the air inside would condense when the balls were cooled to the outside ambient temp and the pressure would drop, perhaps by 2 PSI,

I knew it wouldn’t be long before the parody videos came out! lmao

(Heard this on the radio today)

It was actually a small rodent that got into the locker room and chewed tiny holes in the footballs.

They called it…

drum roll please

Deflator-mouse

@elbanditoroso Operatic puns don’t quite fit the tenor of this thread.

@elbanditoroso : I actually laughed out loud. Good on yer!

@zenvelo

Well, I think it’s adorable (and funny).

That’s why I didn’t put this Q in General. Any opportunity for puns is fine by me.

Besides, this Q doesn’t have a tenor ‘cause…

” it’s all about that bass, ‘bout that bass, ‘bout that bass.”
Ba doom boomp !

:D

I think this whole brouhaha is one big joke. I mean, how stupid is it to risk being caught cheating if the method of cheating doesn’t produce a clear cut advantage for your team?

If deflating balls makes them easier to handle for EVERYONE on either team to touch them, then somebody clearly didn’t think this whole thing out too well, did they?

So, whatever penalty is assessed is richly deserved, if for nothing else then for sheer stupidity :)