Cheating or Gamesmanship

I'm sure it boils down to knowledge (of alleged foul-play) and intent (to benefit)...

But yeah, they're gonna fire the poor sap with the bike pump filling up all those game balls.

And how did they find out? Did a referee find the ball to be

squishy

?

Was their proper

chain of custody

from the ball used to the person who accurately measured the pressure?

the chain of custody of footballs in any NFL game is loose. The refs get them a couple of hours before game time and they check them out for pressure, scuffs, etc. They then give them back to the team's equipment managers some time before the game starts. Each team supplies 12 balls that their own team will use (which seems like it sets this kind of thing up).

When the Colts played them earlier this year they lodged a formal complaint with the NFL about how they believed the Patriots were under-inflating their balls (joke on). It seems that one of their DBs had an opportunity to get his hands on a couple of balls (interceptions...keep you minds at altitude) and he handed them over to their equipment manager complaining that they seemed a little soft.

So...if it's true that it was a normal thing for those guys then, yup...cheating. I do find it astonishing that both teams don't play with the same set of balls (seriously, stop it).

A Tampa Bay QB recently disclosed that he paid some equipment guys $7,500 to scuff up 12 of his balls (sigh) in their superbowl appearance .

My Take..... being an ol fart..

Bellicheck looked like Sargent Shultz (Hogans Heroes) I know nothing!

Brady looked like Eddie Haskel (Leave it to Beaver)

And of course... Brady moved all responsibility down to the peons (I don't know mrs cleaver what the staff guys who take care of the balls for those two hours did ...)

Who of course KNOW how Brady likes his balls....It just like the Bridge fubar by Christie in NJ.... OF Course i know nothing about the bridge lanes closing down for 4 days... I am the govener..... my point.... EXACTLY!.

Oh and PV = nRT ie cold temps are not going to depressurize the ball 2 lbs.

i think (if found guilty of cheating in a playoff game)

they should have *'s in the record books
lose the first round draft picks for 4 years
and 1 year total suspension for the entire team, coaches, popcorn sales guys, et al - HUGE economic loss for team/city/owner

IT is unbelievable that each team a. has their own ball for offence, and b, gets to hold on to their own ball pre/during the game

The NFL doesn't seem to be taking this too seriously. They haven't even interviewed Brady and they apparently didn't do anything after the Colts made a complaint earlier in the season about the same thing.

I'm from here and was a Pats fan since growing up, well before winning (at all) was a normal occurance.

While I think a lot of this gets blown way out of proportion, I've been irritated by this team and their antics for a very long time. Winning by cheating, or even putting yourself in a position (time and again) to be credibly accused of cheating, is just unacceptable and unnecessary.

They crushed the Colts 45-7, which had nothing to do with the ball PSI, but the only numbers we are hearing is 11/12 (balls tested under pressure). I don't believe that no one, and certainly not at least the QB, knows the amount of air (or at least the feel).

The only real solution to this problem is to put the officials in charge of the balls, and stop having team-specific, quarterback-preference, balls in the first place. Or, just get rid of the rule altogether and let them set them up any way they like.

During the game, I'm sure this is the last thing on anyone's mind, including the officials who touch the balls between every play.

And, forget this asterisk crap. Either give them the win, or take it away. Again, the league needs to have some balls here. Of course, the league is run by the owners...

Mike

I think 1/12 in change of pressure MIGHT have a small advantage in cold weather -not sure

I think knowing you have a slight advantage is even a bigger factor... - pretty sure

the league allowing each team to manage their own ball is ludicrous

- if they altered the equipment and had a physical and psychological advantage .... I would think it may have had something to do with it .

As far as whether or not it makes a difference, is was apparently enough of a difference for a Colts DB to notice it after catching one interception and take it to his equipment staff.

Mn3

In a game where HONOR the rules is part of the culture.... then you get cheating.
In a game where you play until the ref calls a foul... you get rule breaking and penalties.

The Ravens lost to NE because NE drew up a play that was novel and the ravens did not call time out to figure it out... so they scored a TD. IMO... part of the game. both teams had a fair shot using the rules.

To me... this deflate ball issue is a choice between honor the rule and its intent... OR push the edge of the rule and seeing what you get away with?

Brady pushed the rule and counted on the officials not catching him. In fact he was caught and they re-inflated the balls for the second half. No PENALTY was charged since it is not part of the rule book. as Brady said... we won the game fair and square... Game is over.
The culture of football is Win. See what you can get away with... its part of the game. There is no HONOR in football... so there is no cheating.

The upset is that we believe that there is OR SHOULD BE a spirit of honor the rule... because football is the all american sport and as Americans, our mythology is all about honor and we give lip service to Honor the game and its rules ....

Well... Brady did not honor the rule.. So he

cheated

...

But..is honor the rule spirit part of the game of pro football. Is that part of the game?
Football is caught between the all American hype (honor etc) and the mundane... See what you can get away with because this is an entertainment business.

In boat racing..... we call fouls on ourselves.. if you touch the mark.... you do a turn. No refs needed... No competitor needed to charge you with a foul. I argue that honoring the spirit of the rule is the foundation of sailing rules..

When the underlying philosophy of a game like football (play and see what you can get away with) is used by sailors in sailboat racing.. That's when you fundamentally change the sport of sailboat racing...for the worse.

Don't forget... the sport USED to DSQ your butt if you did not honor the rule... No penalty turns... etc... A very bright line was used to make sure racers HONORED the rules because the risk was DSQ and the reward was made trivial.

Today... I will push my advantage on the port starbord cross and see what I can get away with... If I am called on the foul... I have a new risk reward... take it to the protest room OR do my turns.. Turns are just a cost of the risk reward of not honoring a rule.. Its part of the

new

game of sailboat racing..

Hmm... A slippery slope indeed!

Do you mean you will cross close in-front of another cat (or even in his way) while on port tack and wait for him to yell

starboard

at you to make you give way?

me?... no... have I seen this on the course?.. yes. Have I screwed up and misjudged?... absolutely! Why did I get so close to a foul in the first place?... because I get sucked into the mindset of competing.... push the line...

Everyone parses their language here... On the one hand... they know the rules... on the other hand... they know the game as its played today of push the edge of the rule. Its the prevailing culture in America. It's OK in our culture to push the rules... its not ok to cheat.. We mythologize our fealty to honor and code.... but ...

I wanted to contrast the big football controversy with our sport.

My point.. The NFL is an entertainment business and there is NO HONOR culture in the business... So Brady did not cheat... he broke a rule...and the consequence was they re inflated the balls at half time...No other penalty meted out. The consequence is that more people will watch the Superbowl to hope that moral justice is dealt to the cheaters aka... the Patriots. (umm... we are confused or just fuzzy thinkers)... Bottom line. That is a win win $$$... but unintentional I am sure...

In our sport.... the consequence of not honoring the rules is that Organizing Authorities REQUIRE a million bucks in liability coverage to allow you to compete and we have prescriptions to the ISAF rules of sailing that can't be discarded and spell out your responsibly and liability.
So... the slippery slope here has consequences.

Guess the rules have changed.. I was under the impression that the home team supplies the 36 balls for outdoor and 24 ball for indoor fields... these balls are given to the refs for inspection etc... like you noted and then given to the linemen (guys on the chains)to be circulated during the game... I believe they have one guy and this is all he does...

That aside, my take.. the refs spot the ball after each play... would be a hard thing to get away with... I am sure they would notice an under inflated ball..

Anyway the Pats kicked their butts... a non issue... I am sure we'll see some pressure gauges on the sidelines next Sunday

Absolutely not. You're assuming a giant conspiracy. They set up the balls to feel like they wanted. I'm sure they didn't sit around the room chanting about this. Even the Colts admitted that they got trounced, and no amount of air in the balls would have changed that.

Again, not defending these guys, because they irritate hell out of me with this kind of crap, but it's not why they won the game 45-7...

As for the sailing stuff, the rules gurus (and coaches) teach you to look at what the rules don't say for your tactical advantage. If you just look at what the rules say you can't do, you'll probably miss some prime opportunities.

Mike

11 balls out of 12 with almost an exact amount of under-pressurization was not intentional? (or, at least, a mistake)

No i'm not, but i am saying IF they cheated it would be hard to believe only 1 person knew about it ( i dont think for a second that Brady was on the sidelines with a pressure gauge and deflation device)

and it only takes 1 person talking to 1 other person and it is a conspiracy

- agreed

do you think it is a possibility that All the balls were inflated to the lower part of the allowed range and all had slight change in pressure (decrease) after sitting around in a different temp/environment as to where they were filled

(although i would think the cold would shrink the ball, thus increasing the internal pressure)

i would also think any ball that is being used (and held closely by big sweaty athletes) is gonna warm up and have a slight change in pressure...

Jake, my point was that the team wasn't getting some giant psychological boost over this. Do I think for half of one second that Brady and at least one other person didn't know? Not for half of a nanosecond. But saying that this caused a psychological advantage is too much of a stretch.

No one will ever convince me that this caused a 45-7 score. The Colts ran out of gas one game short of the Super Bowl, plain and simple.

Mike

Aaaa..gotcha. Yeah, that isn't exactly the kind of thing you would tell everybody about if you were doing it. And, I agree, while it might put

an asterisk

on the win, it's a really, really, tiny asterisk.

I don't know all the facts, but air pressure can change a lot with temperature and not all gauges read the same. I can put air in my truck tires in the am and go check them later without even driving and the pressure will be different up or down and also different between several gauges. If it was such a big deal you would think the ref would have said something or at least checked the pressure.

The ref does check the air pressure - they get the balls from each team about 2 hours before game time and inspect them for pressure and any other issues (scuffing, etc.). The teams can have used them previously but they have to be in

new condition

. They apparently checked them again at half time after the colts complained about it and that's when it was found and corrected.

I'm a little confused that you thought it good idea after just recently establishing that a political thread chased people away from this forum to start this thread. IMO, this doesn't belong on a sailing forum.
This whole thing has been completely rediculous. That Pats admit when they cheat! But seriously, I hope you all saw the press conference yesterday as Belicheck said

this is the end of this subject for a long time for me

.
Now for you real football fans... Bring on Seattle!

Billecheck still isn't convinced that

Spygate

was cheating, or that no one else was doing it (see presser over the weekend).

The SNL skit was completely predictable. Could have been much funnier. The part about Billecheck throwing Brady under the bus was spot-on from earlier in the week, and absolutely hilarious.

I can't wait for him/them to be gone...

Mike

Back to the PV=nRT, I think the gas (air) inside the ball would change more dramatically than the tension of the

pigskin

(actually cowhide, but whatever).

So the ball is filled by pumping air into it (generating some heat within the ball) under

ambient conditions

(78 deg F./ 60% RH).

We will assume that the air volume (amount of air originally introduced) remains constant. In addition, we'll assume the ball exterior remains constant (if it were horribly deflated, someone would have noticed)

Ball then goes to playing field which is quite cold (compared to 78 degrees ambient temp). Temperature of air inside ball is reduced.

Since we're assuming the volume of the ball remains (somewhat) constant, the Ideal Gas law above would indicate that the pressure is reduced according to the formula, proportional to the temperature reduction.

What are you talking about?
During Saturday's press conference he basically said We got caught red handed for spygate, they have our guy on film, we did our penalty, it's over.

There was more to it. He kept saying that everyone makes hand signals viewed by

80,000 people every week

and that they didn't think taping that would be wrong (I think he even added a

but whatever

showing what he really thinks about that). I didn't see that on the first news blip, either.

Mike

I think that they were pumped up in the sauna and then put into play. <img src="<>/grin.gif" alt="grin" title="grin" height="15" width="15" />

How much of a difference would it make for the balls to be slightly deflated? At some point they would become harder to throw. Everyone is acting like it makes a giant improvement to have them slightly deflated.

And of course the Colts balls were properly inflated; you'd better check that before you complained!

Bellicheck is very clear ... he is playing a game with rules... and the name of the game is to win and the point of rules is for them to be bent or break them for your advantage... They have refs to catch this... if caught... you pay your fine and move on... IT AIN'T CHEATING.. This is not about honor or good versus evil or right versus wrong.. . its about playing with rules and around them...

He was not cheating by his actions in spygate either... no rules in play... anyone could have taped that stuff... How it gets spun ... even after the fine leveled and well after the fact ... is

whatever

to him... just a SANFU ...the NFL pretense of defending honor was just BS to him. (Hey... the NFL had to deal with What seemed

WRONG

... just like they decided to dock Ray Rice two games... and then took another bite of the apple with a year suspension because it seemed WRONG again...

Whatever..

For Bellicheck... the integrity of the game is not in question... Indy had their own balls, prepped as they liked to make the tradoffs that the Indy team liked... At half time... the ref did not like his teams balls after the INdy guys complained and so they inflated them more... OK the fine of 25k is the cost.... whatever.
This is just the American way of doing business..

Sorry if you thought of your NFL football team as noble warriors defending your town's honor and contesting who played better that day...

It comes down to the SNL guys being correct... Will the equip manager rat out his quarterback and team? It's too bad that the US took all of the torture techniques off the books... What better way to get at something that bothers American's sense of honor and fair play. (GRIN)

THIS is the funniest thing I've seen in a while. While the Pats disappoint me, this guys really irritates me...

Mike

So... the verdict is in...

The equipment manager did it. ... (who would have thunk)

Brady refused to give up his text messages... So, the report concludes that circumstantial evidence is that he knew.

Still the question... cheating or gamesmanship?...
How different is this from an O line coach teaching lineman how to Hold without getting caught?

What should be the PENALTY for gamesmanship?

Does he deserve an asterik in the record book?