It was like watching Master Sergeant Hans Georg Schultz suddenly appear in back-to-back performances in the New England Patriots headquarters. Coach Bill Belichick insisted that he not only had no idea how the balls in the game with the Colts were deflated, he claimed utter ignorance about virtually anything to do with the subject of air pressure and footballs. He was followed by quarterback Tom Brady who, despite previously saying that he preferred underinflated balls, said that he could not tell that the balls were deflated (even when a Colts employee could immediately feel the difference and report it). It is the immaculate deflation. It just happened by some cosmic coincidence over(1) and over(2) and over(3) and over(4) and over(5) and over(6) and over(7) and over(8) and over(9) and over(10) and over(11) again.
In the law, there is a certain thing called circumstantial evidence and it reads like this. First, the Patriots were playing on a rainy day when deflating a ball can help a QB throw and a receiver catch in the conditions of play. Second, Brady previously said that he preferred under-inflated balls.. Third, 11 out of 12 balls were deflated. Fourth, it appears that the Colts did not have deflated balls. (I will not include a suggestion of modus operandi or prior conduct evidence involving the Patriots in prior allegations of cheating).
What appears clear is that such deflation is not accidental. The New York Times includes a quote from Kevin Murphy, who runs the American football division at Wilson that such deflation could not be the result of colder weather or spiking the ball.
No one is of course coming forward to admit any knowledge of the cheating. However, that does not mean that the NFL should then just walk away in frustration without a designated defendant. In the absence of some notion of a crazed, rogue ball-inflating employee, the team is still accountable for another violation of NFL rules. There has been no plausible explanation offered thus far for the evidence. If the NFL walks away or simply issues some rhetorical sanction, it sends a message that rules cannot be broken unless there is no one caught in the act or willing to confess in the aftermath. As noted earlier, deterrence is accomplished through the relative adjustments between detection rates and sanctions. The lower the detection rate, the higher sanctions must be to achieve deterrence.
Under the rules, the organization could be fined $25,000. Even if you multiply that by the balls, it would still only be $275,000 — a small fine for giving Brady his preferred under-inflated balls. The most serious penalty may be the loss again of a draft pick, which would seem more than justified in this circumstance. My problem is that, if the NFL believes this was intentional, there is a continuing pattern of dishonesty.
There may be some challenge in terms of causation with reluctant witnesses, a problem often encountered in the medical area. This is a standard problem in the medical field where there is often multiple actors and sketchy records. Indeed, the court in Ybarra v. Spangard faced such a problem in terms of causation when no doctor or nurse came forward to identify the responsible party or parties in a case of malpractice. The court allowed the case to continue on the basis of the staff as a whole — a response to what is sometimes called the “conspiracy of silence” in the profession.
There is also a doctrine of joint and several liability that would seem analogous. This is a team working in concert for a common end. Regardless of which agent of the team committed the violations (if the NFL determines it was likely an intentional act), it was done on behalf of the team. There is a rogue employee defense but the team itself is responsible for the balls and compliance with the rules.
I am also curious how Brady was not questioned by the NFL, which insists that it is doing a thorough investigation. Brady said that he has not spoken with NFL investigators. I must also confess that I fail to see how a seasoned NFL quarterback had no inkling that the ball were deflated as Brady says. Brady simply insisted “I have no knowledge of anything. I have no knowledge of wrongdoing. I have no problem saying that – as far as I know.” Belichick also insisted that he knows very little about pressure and footballs period: “I had no knowledge of the various steps involved in the game balls and the process it went through and what happened.”
It all seemed strangely familiar:
Before convicting Brady and company with so-called evidence, provided by the player who intercepted Brady’s pass, it should be noted that the the player actually couldn’t tell the difference:
PHOENIX — Indianapolis Colts linebacker D’Qwell Jackson said it wasn’t him who raised the concerns about New England’s footballs being underinflated during Sunday’s AFC Championship Game.
After Thursday’s Pro Bowl practice at Luke Air Force Base in Glendale, Arizona, Jackson said he couldn’t tell whether the ball he intercepted in the second quarter of a 45-7 loss to the New England Patriots was or wasn’t deflated below the threshold allowed by the NFL.
“I’m a linebacker, I’m a defensive guy,” Jackson said. “If anybody recognized anything it definitely wouldn’t come from me.”
http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/12213533/dqwell-jackson-indianapolis-colts-says-one-noticed-ball-was-inflated
Before this legally inspired blog convicts on hearsay and inuenbdo evidence, it should get all the facts first.
The Onion: Nation Can’t Wait To Hear Patriots Fans’ Excuses This Time
Hey, it’s still a heck of a lot more fun and interesting than the Pro Bowl.
I think Chip S asks the right questions. I asked for more information about how the referee, umpire, and/or linesmen do their examination before sequestering the game balls they are given. I’d also wonder about how that deflated ball was handled by the Colt’s equipment staff after the Colts’ Jackson gave it to them. I find it odd that the umpire never noticed deflation in the balls they handled (removing the balls from the game if that is the case) on virtually every play of the game. Apparently a 2 lb psi difference isn’t that easy to detect even by the umpires who handle the ball regularly….e.g., just when did the ball reported by the Colts equipment staff get deflated and by whom? 11 out of 12 is a strange coincidence no doubt, so I get back to my questions about how the referee and/or umpires handle & “measure” those balls once they have control of them.
As I have said before, I think NFL pro football is an entertainment business…and they are sure providing a lot of it this week.
Joel, There is a history and tacit approval of gamesmanship in the much more elevated and superior sport of baseball. The more Teutonic sport of football has little tolerance for “creativity.”
Superb legal analysis by JT, something we gentiles tend to overlook sometimes. When I started working med malpractice defense cases a wise attorney had me read some case law, Ybarra v Spangard, being one of them.
I seem to recall evidence of my beloved White Sox building up the foul lines with chalk back in the bunt-happy days of Nellie Fox.
Tempest in a teapot. If this were any other coach, it would not be so played. Belichick is a convicted cheater. He is quite unlikeable. He hates the press, w. good cause, and they hate him, w/ equally good cause. Belichick has achieved what I consider to be one of the greatest liberations one can achieve. He doesn’t give a rat’s ass what people think of him. He has a small circle of people who know him for whom he does care what they think. He is an iconoclast. But, he is not a smiling iconoclast. That makes him a pariah in our culture.
I love the Sgt. Schultz reference. I use it often. Folks old enough remember his “I know nothing, I see nooothing.” There is a lot of that w/ cultists, which is where I sometimes use the analogy.
There’s more than circumstantial evidence. There’s science-y statistical evidence.
http://www.sharpfootballanalysis.com/blog/?p=2932
Perhaps it’s time to revisit professional sports. These guys get paid millions of dollars a year to play a game they love. They are gods in their own worlds. Yet athletically they are questionable. Every time a player makes a run he gets to sit out a play while he recuperates. They are swaddled in padding and protected by a plethora of don’ts and cant’s. Watch a rugby game sometime. The fields are immaculate with the grass measured by the centimeter. There may be some finesse and some hard hits but all and all the players are a joke.
I propose that the team that has the ball should be able to inflate or deflate it however they wish. Every player should have to play every down until they either lose the ball or are injured and carried off the field by hand on a stretcher, not an electric cart. The fields should be strewn with obstacles such as potholes, old tires, and perhaps broken glass. There should be no communication whatsoever from the sidelines. Watch a soccer game sometimes-the players are on their own for 90 minutes.
Football has turned into a joke. It is less a sport and more a circus, with hours of waiting for someone to catch a rung or fall into a net. Take away the nets. If players want a five, ten, or twenty million dollar salary each year then they should have to put out. Let’s call a spade a spade and get on with it.
The defensive guy felt the ball and knew the difference.
That is simply not true:
http://blog.masslive.com/patriots/2015/01/deflategate_colts_lb_dqwell_ja.html
Explain how the other team’s balls, in the same environment, for the same length of time, did not deflate.
Explain to me how the Colts’ balls were exempt from the laws of physics.
Of course they deflated, unless they were tested outdoors. Presumably they started out at higher psi, but of course since we have no actual evidence about the “testing” that was done by the refs, we have no way to know what psi the Colts’ balls were initially inflated to.
And Of course. The fact that the Indianapolis Colts, that were loosing heavily, and the player who caught, the supposed deflated ball , had no reason, to lie despite the fact that they were loosing the game and very embarrassingly. Really!
Was he lying Rex? The defensive guy felt the ball and knew the difference. and they were different. Brady felt all eleven balls and didn’t feel the difference and they were different. Both have made statements about their discovery Seems who is lying is obvious.
Here is the deal. Brady touches 1000 balls a week, so many that if you have seen one you have seen then all. The intercepting Colts player gets so few he actually knows the difference. There has already been a report by a physicist on how this could happen so I would not take the word of anyone from professional football.
A dog cannot bite a football which has too much air in it.
[music to the tune of the Armour Hot Dog Song]
Footballs, watchin footballs!
What kind of kids are watching footballs?
Fat kids, skinny kids, kids who climb on rocks.
Dumbschmucks, weeny runts, even kids with chicken pox..
Watch footballs, dumb airball footballs.
The balls, dogs like ….
To BITE!
The New York Times includes a quote from Kevin Murphy, who runs the American football division at Wilson that such deflation could not be the result of colder weather or spiking the ball.
Is Murphy a physicist or an MBA? ‘Cause I’ve got an MIT postdoc right here behind this movie-lobby poster who says:
If the ball was sitting outside in the cold for an hour,” he said, “it is likely that the temperature of the air inside the ball would end up being the same temperature as the air outside of the ball — and if that is the case, you would see between a 1.5 and a 1.6 difference in PSI.
So the only mystery is what psi the balls were at when “inspected” by the refs. I use the ironic quotes to remind you that at the moment there’s no direct evidence that the refs actually checked the balls w/ a pressure gauge as opposed to a squeeze.
Occam’s razor says that this is a rule that nobody really gave a sh!t about, not unlike the old George Brett pine tar incident.
As for the “integrity of the game” (lol), read this:
http://www.theczabe.com/the-post/mark-zero-belichick/
Explain how the other team’s balls, in the same environment, for the same length of time, did not deflate.
I guess the officials never touched the balls either so they had NO knowledge of the under inflation. Then I guess the Colts never had the balls enough to figure out that they were underinflated and you forget that such balls also helped them as well.
So in JT’s world of justice for crimes that go unsolved and have no evidence pointing to a particular person, we should just grab anyone who lives in that area and accuse them and throw them in jail.
I’m not a Pat’s fan and I’m trying to avoid football all together since the sport is more about this kind of …. than the game, but this whole thing is so idiotic. Brady should get an award for keeping a straight face through this whole stupid press conference.
JT also says he all about the “rules” but then wants to throw out what the real penalty is and wants to make up what the punishment should be on the fly.
And as far as “the integrity of the game”. It’s amazing how it has survived all these years when players used to put itching powder in their jerseys or metal rods in their casts or the Giants opening up the end of the stadium when the other team had the ball.
Played the referees, played the NFL, played the media, and played the American people for fools.
Implausible deniability.