NFL reportedly found 11 of Patriots' 12 footballs under-inflated

[jimnyc]

So it appears they may have in fact cheated. I hope they lose every last draft pick.

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Eleven? Eleven.

Eleven footballs the New England Patriots brought to Sunday's AFC championship game have now been determined by the NFL to be under-inflated – by 2 full pounds – according to ESPN, which cited the preliminary findings of a league investigation.

Eleven.

The home team in an NFL game is required to provide 12 footballs (plus 12 backups). Yet almost all of them came in at the same, illegal level, 2 pounds lighter? The ball is supposed to be inflated to between 12.5 pounds and 13.5 pounds per square inch, so 16 percent below the legal minimum.

That's not a little. Not the number of under-inflated balls, not the amount they are under-inflated. Some gamesmanship of trying to pump up or down a ball is understood. Everyone is always trying to gain an edge. This isn't that. This isn't a coincidence. And, because it's the Patriots and because it's in the run-up to the Super Bowl at the end of a season when the NFL has been consumed by scandals, it's a huge story. Fair or not, that's life in the big city. Bill Belichick and company will have to deal with it.

Unless there is a reasonable explanation, and neither New England nor the NFL has offered one yet, the Patriots should worry about losing draft picks as punishment. Their reputation may never be fully recovered.

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/on-scal...070254658.html

[Jeff]

So it appears they may have in fact cheated. I hope they lose every last draft pick.

---

Eleven? Eleven.

Eleven footballs the New England Patriots brought to Sunday's AFC championship game have now been determined by the NFL to be under-inflated – by 2 full pounds – according to ESPN, which cited the preliminary findings of a league investigation.

Eleven.

The home team in an NFL game is required to provide 12 footballs (plus 12 backups). Yet almost all of them came in at the same, illegal level, 2 pounds lighter? The ball is supposed to be inflated to between 12.5 pounds and 13.5 pounds per square inch, so 16 percent below the legal minimum.

That's not a little. Not the number of under-inflated balls, not the amount they are under-inflated. Some gamesmanship of trying to pump up or down a ball is understood. Everyone is always trying to gain an edge. This isn't that. This isn't a coincidence. And, because it's the Patriots and because it's in the run-up to the Super Bowl at the end of a season when the NFL has been consumed by scandals, it's a huge story. Fair or not, that's life in the big city. Bill Belichick and company will have to deal with it.

Unless there is a reasonable explanation, and neither New England nor the NFL has offered one yet, the Patriots should worry about losing draft picks as punishment. Their reputation may never be fully recovered.

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/on-scal...070254658.html

This is a bunch of trash and to listen to Sapp ( the fat pig ) talk about how it's no big deal is the icing on the cake. Further on into the article it says that forget about them taking the game from the Patriots, that is exactly what should happen, the rules says 12.5 to 13.5 period, they are saying it was a full 2 ilbs light which is a tremendous difference.


[QUOTE]Forget overturning the victory over the Indianapolis Colts. It's not happening per NFL rules. It'll be New England-Seattle on Feb. 1 in Arizona • but not before Belichick's sure-to-be-legendary Media Day session on Tuesday. And Tom Brady's, too, because if anyone would know about this, it's the quarterback[QUOTE]

[darin]

It's cheating. Patriots should suffer THIS season. Don't keep their coach out of the SB; if they do, Seattle has NO chance because of the anger the players would have - dont want them fired up.

Maybe give them only 3 downs for the first half of the game?

[Bilgerat]

[Little-Acorn]

Remember the "Pine Tar Game" in major league baseball, when the Kansas City Royals played the New York Yankees many years ago?

Apparently MLB rules said you can't have a "foreign substance" on a bat extending more than 18" from the handle end. And I guess that includes pine tar, since MLB's wooden bats are made of ash wood (or some other wood), not pine wood.

Apparently Yankees manager Billy Martin had known for a long time that one of Royals slugger George Brett's favorite bats, had pine tar that extended from the handle end, eighteen and a half inches up the bat. So the bat was illegal, by half an inch.

But Martin kept quiet about it for months, even as New York played a number of games against KC and their star hitter Brett.

Then at one point, Brett came to bat in one game, using that particular bat, and blasted a 2-run home run into the stands putting the Royals ahead, with 2 out in the 9th inning. Only then did Martin approach the umpire and complain that Brett had used a bat that was technically illegal. The umpire examined the bat, looked in the rule book, and agreed that the bat was illegal. He disallowed the home run and declared Brett was out. With two out in the 9th, this ended the game, with a Yankees win instead of putting Kansas City ahead as the home run would have done.

When Brett heard what was going on and realized what Martin had done, he came tearing out of the dugout with absolute murder written all over his face. His teammates grabbed him and dragged him away before he could get to Martin.

Martin had clearly bided his time, ignoring the "violations" every time that bat was used. It's reasonable to assume that no one (including George Brett) knew the bat was technically illegal. And it's equally unlikely that an extra half inch of pine tar made any difference in how the bat performed, how Brett gripped it, how it drove the ball etc. But when manager Martin saw a situation where he could actually undo something the other team had done to win a game, he then made his move and used the information.

Could it be that the NFL football Colts' head coach knew for a long time that New England was using underinflated footballs, but never said a word, until he found a situation where his team could possibly benefit from officials ruling against the usage of those balls? Was he hoping that, when he complained at the end of last week's playoff game against New England, the officials would disallow any passes Tom Brady threw with those balls (including touchdown passes), take points off the scoreboard against New England, and possibly help Baltimore to win a game they had otherwise lost?

[aboutime]

It appears. The NFL has become the ironic, muscular, brainless, identical cheating collection of Big, Familiar names as the UNITED STATES CONGRESS.

We are no longer able...as citizens, to BELIEVE anything we may hear, see, or wish for when it comes to PLAYING A GAME that creates, and spends BILLIONS of American dollars to present a Facade of False Honor our children can NO LONGER look up to.

So, we have the AFL ( House of Representatives), and the NFL (The U.S. Senate). And there are only two judges or Referee's for all of the games. Named OBAMA, and HOLDER.

Anybody see the strange resemblance here?