Brady didn’t do it. For those of you following such things, or care, John Lott (of “More guns less crime”) examines a study (yup, a real study!) that seems to deflate deflate gate.
Why Tom Brady may have a strong case for a lawsuit against the NFL
If a new study from the American Enterprise Institute is correct, the Patriots and their quarterback Tom Brady are going to sue the NFL for defamation in the so-called “Deflate gate” scandal. The accusation that the Patriots had broken the rules during their playoff game earlier this year with the Indianapolis Colts permanently tarnished Tom Brady’s stellar football career, but it looks as the NFL hid importance evidence and misinterpreted what they did report.
Brady not only looks set to win his appeal of the NFL’s four game suspension, but he has a good chance to win a defamation suit against the league.
The NFL’s evidence against the Patriots seemed straightforward: when referees measured the air pressure at halftime, the eleven Patriot footballs had experienced a significantly larger air pressure drop than the four Colts balls that were measured. Before the game, the referee had measured the air pressure in the footballs at 12.5 PSI (pounds per square inch) for the Patriots and 13.1 PSI for the Colts. At half time, the Patriots had fallen to 11.3 PSI but only down to 12.53 for the Colts.
The difference was statistically significant. The pressure in the Patriot balls had fallen by more than those for the Colts. Case closed, right? Not so fast.
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2015/06/23/why-tom-brady-may-have-strong-case-for-lawsuit-against-nfl.html
One of the more tedious tasks I’m responsible for at work is keeping our special tools calibrated.
I can assure you, if those gauges were not calibrated recently and by the same lab, the odds of them being off by lets say 10% aren’t unlikely at all. The pressure deviations due to temperature change and the time on the field could also be a variable.
To me, it’s a lot of drama for a ball game, but I’m not a fan of the NFL.
Cool. As soon as I read the psi I thought about that, as I’ve never seen raw numbers before. Winning with science, classic.
It really doesn’t matter. Tom Brady was dishonest, and lied to the NFL and that is why he is being punished. He will still go down in history as the greatest Quarterback of all time, he’ earned that, but he was deceitful about this topic. It shouldn’t tarnish his legacy at all. Belichick though is an absolute cheater.
The best part about all of this though, is seeing Kraft and Goodell’s buttbuddy love affair end in tragedy. No more preferential treatment to his boo. Christmas dinners will sure be awkward from here on in.
I applaud them for using actual science, and not junk science to explain this. I’m surprised this hasn’t become an issue before, given the apparent inaccuracies of their testing methods. I still think it’s a mountain out of a molehill, and the way Belichick threw Brady under the bus is despicable. He has never, in his football career, brought up air pressure? Give me a break…
All footballs should be inflated to 35psi. Man up Tommy BOY! 