The big game is this weekend, and it’s definitely looking like it will be a game to remember even though the Patriots aren’t in it (I know. I feel your pain.) In fact, even if the Panthers/Broncos matchup doesn’t live up to all of the hype, it certainly appears that all of the performances and commercials that the NFL has lined up for Super Bowl 50 will make it a spectacle for the ages. However, if you have a loved one who isn’t really into football and you want to do something with them before the big game (perhaps so you can drag them to a Super Bowl party without feeling guilty), you may want to head over to Salem this weekend (especially if your loved one is a fan of sweets.)
This is because the 14th Annual Salem’s So Sweet Festival is scheduled to begin at 6:30 P.M. tonight (Friday, February 5, 2016). This festival, which runs until Sunday evening (February 7, 2016), will feature 23 ice sculptures (weather permitting), discounted trolley rides (also weather permitting), and discounts at a number of locations throughout downtown Salem. As a result, if you’re looking for a great way to check out Salem or you’re just looking for a way to take your significant other out for the night without breaking the bank, the Salem So Sweet Festival is definitely the way to go. For more information on the 14th Annual Salem’s So Sweet Festival, please visit Salem’s So Sweet on Facebook or visit the Salem Main Streets website.
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.
If we were talking about footballs this deflated, I would be calling foul too…
If you’ve been following my posts for a while, you may have realized that every so often I like to change things up a bit and talk about some football. And, since this Sunday is Super Bowl Sunday, there probably is no better time to talk about some football than now. However, unless you’ve been living in a hole, under a rock, in a cave on the moon, you’ve probably heard about the shadow that is hanging over the big game this weekend, Deflategate. Now, I will admit outright that I am a Patriots fan, but I think there’s a lot more going on with the whole Deflategate scandal than what is apparent on the surface (and I don’t think it has anything to do with cheating.)
To explain what I mean, let’s start by framing the scandal for anyone that’s a little fuzzy on the details. During the AFC Championship game between the Indianapolis Colts and the New England Patriots, 11 out of the 12 footballs that the Patriots used on offense were found to be 2 PSI below the minimum limit established by the NFL. This, of course, led to an uproar because many people felt that the Patriots must have deliberately underinflated their footballs to gain some sort of advantage.
There are a couple of fundamental flaws with this notion, however. First, there’s actually no evidence that an underinflated ball would give a team’s offense any significant advantage at all. In fact, according to ESPN, an underinflated ball would fly a little slower, which would actually be more likely to help a defender reach the ball before it reached its intended target. The only advantage that an underinflated ball might give an offensive player is a slightly better grip, but the difference would be hardly noticeable.
The second flaw is that there’s a large number of physics professors that will happily tell you that it’s completely possible that the footballs deflated on their own. This is because of a physics law known as Charles’ Law, which states that the volume of a gas is directly proportional to the absolute temperature when the pressure is constant. This means that the amount of gas (in, this case, air) within an object will decrease as the temperature decreases, so a football inflated just above the league’s minimum in a warm room prior to the game may have had significantly less air in it (and, therefore, a significantly lower PSI) after it spent a couple hours out in the cold. The reason that one of the Patriots footballs and all of the Colt’s footballs were above the minimum when they were tested at halftime is most likely because they were inflated to a higher PSI before the game actually started and, therefore, had more air to lose before they fell below the league minimum.
Now, this brings about an important question: if there was no advantage to using underinflated footballs and there is a logical explanation for how the footballs may have ended up underinflated even though they had the correct pressure at the beginning of the game, why has this become such an issue? The answer is money. Scandals make news outlets, TV stations, and the league itself more money because more people will not only pickup newspapers and watch broadcasts to keep up with the scandal, but will also watch the Super Bowl to root against the alleged “cheaters.” As a result, the reason that most of the news outlets are more than happy to paint the Patriots as cheaters (and the league is more than willing to let them) is that everyone loves a good villain, and a good villain will make more people watch.
