As America gears up for the Super Bowl, there’s one thing that’s on every sports lovers mind—the current scandal that’s rocked the Patriots to their core. The Boston based team has been accused of deflating their equipment to allow for an advantage in their recent game against the Colts, thereby ensuring their victory of 45-7.
The NFL released a statement earlier this week that in fact 11 of the 12 balls that were provided by the Patriots were under-inflated. In fact, according to ESPN, the balls were under-inflated by two pounds per square inch than what is allowed by the NFL. Another report from ESPN revealed that the Colts reported that they believe the Patriots had under-inflated balls when they met during the regular season in November. This is on top of accusations coming from the Ravens who have come out and claimed that the kicking balls used were under-inflated during their game.
According to NFL rules, each team provides 12 primary balls and 12 back up balls that will be used by the offense during the game to the head referee. The balls will then be tested two hours and 15 minutes before kickoff. It has also been reported that the balls that were provided by the Patriots were fine during the pregame check.
Now the real question on everyone’s mind is should the Patriots be punished? Personally, I think they should be. Even if the Patriots would have won the game against the Colts by themselves, cheating is cheating. It doesn’t matter if it didn’t benefit the Patriots. However, in a way—it did.
According to a statistical analysis of the past decade for every team in the NFL, the Patriots have a fumble record of once every 187 offensive snaps. Compared to the league average of once every 105 snaps, that’s a significant outlier in the data. In fact, the odds of this statistical distribution are one in 16,233. That’s not a decimal by the way—it’s a comma. This is where deflating the football helps the Patriots big time.
Since the Patriots play in cold weather in an uncovered stadium, a deflated football creates different angles on the football that aren’t there when the ball is fully inflated. It creates new angles—the deflation reconfigures the ball to allow for a tighter grip from the runner, passer or quarterback. That eliminates the possibility of turnovers, which eliminates the possibility for the defense to grab the ball to make points off of the play. In an uncovered stadium like Gillette Stadium, an under-inflated football could decide a game just as easily as say the crowd at CenturyLink field in Seattle WA.
What’s also interesting to note is that it’s very difficult to tell the difference between a ball pumped to the 12.5 pounds of pressure that is regulated by the NFL and the Patriots balls that were pumped to 10.5 pounds of pressure by just holding the 10.5-pound ball.
According to Mike Pereira, the expert referee for Fox Sports, the only way the difference is noticeable would be if you were holding the correct ball in one hand and the tampered ball with the other.
With the fact that the Patriots have been accused and found guilty of cheating in the past with 2007’s Spy-gate, shouldn’t the NFL be taking this a lot more seriously than it is? In press interviews this past week, Bill Belichick stated that during practice the team practices with under-inflated balls since that’s what they’re used to.
However, this is not about Belichick. This is about Tom Brady and the equipment manager. Brady has thrown hundreds of footballs during his time in the NFL and since they practice with under-inflated balls, he should know what they feel like. He’s been in the NFL long enough to know the rules front, back and sideways.
Some Patriots fans are still claiming though that it wasn’t the team who tampered with the equipment, but that the cold air caused the pressure to change the air pressure. While that could be a valid reason for why one ball changed so drastically, it would not explain the other ten balls. Also, the starting temperature at Foxbrough was 51 degrees and did not get significantly colder as the game progressed. There was not enough time for the cold air to decrease the air pressure in the football by two pounds—even if it was slammed into the ground repeatedly.
So with all of the evidence, why hasn’t the NFL done anything yet? Could it be a ratings ploy for the Superbowl? If it is, why? The fans of the teams would watch to support their team and everyone else who watches will just watch to see if the commercials are up to par no matter what.
If the NFL is going to do something, it should be soon. Otherwise, ‘protecting the shield’ might be the last thing they have to worry about.
