Deflategate – The Plot Thickens

NFL Officials
Last week, I talked about the New England Patriots and the scandal that the media has eloquently (or not so eloquently) entitled Deflategate. However, a lot has changed in a week, and I decided that this particular topic has garnered so much attention that it might deserve a follow-up. In fact, now that the Patriots have won the Super Bowl, the NFL has begun to release a fair number of interesting facts about their investigation. Of course, as I admitted last week, I am definitely a Patriots Fan, but the information that the NFL released right before and after the Super Bowl may have debunked more of the scandal than any of the information released in the two weeks leading up to Super Bowl Sunday. Here’s why:

Shortly after the AFC Championship Game, ESPN reported that 11 out of the 12 footballs that the Patriots used on offense were found to be 2 PSI below the league minimum. This claim is actually the basis for most of the scandal, and the reason that so many people have been preparing their torches and pitchforks. There’s just one problem. It’s not true. According to the NFL, only one of the 12 footballs tested at halftime was actually 2 PSI below the league minimum. The other 10 footballs were only a “tick” below the 12.5 minimum PSI set by the league, which means that 11 of the 12 footballs were actually above the league minimum at the beginning of the game and for most of the first half (until they lost some of their air due to the cold.) In fact, after testing the footballs, the officials felt that 11 of the 12 footballs were close enough to the league minimum that they didn’t warrant any further investigation. As a result, they just added some air to the footballs and didn’t record the PSI of any of the footballs except for the ball that was 2 PSI below the minimum.

Now, you might ask, why was one football 2 PSI below the league minimum? Well, there are a lot of possibilities. The football may have been closer to the league minimum at the beginning of the game than the other footballs were (and, therefore, had less air to lose before it was significantly below the minimum), the ball may have been underinflated by accident (because an official misread the pressure gauge before the game for example), or the ball may have been underinflated on purpose. It is, of course, this last possibility that so many football fans are concerned with. However, there is one important thing to remember. The one and only ball that was 2 PSI below the league minimum was the ball that the Colts intercepted during the AFC Championship Game and turned over to the officials after it spent a number of plays on their sideline. If this is indeed the case (and it certainly appears to be), then can anyone tell me with certainty that it was the Patriots that tampered with the football and not the Colts?

I realize that all of the Colts fans out there are probably reading this and shaking their computer screen as they scream “But the Ravens told us! The Patriots cheat!” Unfortunately, there’s a problem with this particular defense as well. It’s not true either. According to Ravens’ head coach, John Harbaugh, the Ravens never actually told the Colts anything because there wasn’t anything to tell. They didn’t know anything about the Patriots using underinflated footballs until the Colts brought it up. As a result, the only thing backing up the Colts’ claim is a single football that spent a lot of time with both teams.

Photo credit: Keith Allison / Foter / CC BY-SA

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