Deflation-gate

This statement of yours irked me a bit. Apparently I'm a stodgy old coot. But what you actually said was that even assuming tampering, 0.65 psi hardly seems worth worrying about. I don't find that to be similar at all to what you meant to say.If you misspoke or want to recant, that's fine. But what I thought you said is exactly what you did say. I reproduce your statement below. Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Absolutely correct. And perhaps Brady's four game suspension is too long. But isn't the real problem that you are pointing out the fact that a piddly two game suspension for punching out your wife absurd?Ray Rice ended up getting an indefinite suspension that has since been overturned. He has not actually played any football since he was suspended.ABE:As for the big market theory. I don't know about that, but in this case I'd point out that Ray Rice plays for Baltimore. Not exactly a big market.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Wrong Percy.I was very careful not to make that accusation. In fact, I corrected a sentence that made that accusation because I accept that you did not mean what you wrote.Your statement was that "You [Nonukes] thought I [Percy] said". Well you did say exactly what I accused you of saying. I accept that you did not mean it, but the words you have cannot reasonably be interpreted as you meant them. But I don't accept any role in your error.

I disagree. The details of my scenario are wrong because they don't match what we know about initial pressure of the balls. I made my numbers up. But as for the ideal gas law, you simply don't have the information needed to apply that law accurately.Your Ideal Gas Law scenario makes a bunch of assumptions that you cannot verify. True, balls don't warm up instantly, but we don't know how long they were given to warm up. All of the measured balls might well have been at equilibrium or close to it by the time the first Patriot ball was measured. It is your assumption that the time difference between measuring the Patriot's balls and the Colts balls had a significant effect. A violation is any tampering with the football regardless of magnitude. It does not even matter if the balls were still in spec after a slight deflation. Your position is contrary to that. Further, a violation occurred before the footballs even got to the bathroom. McNally had no business even removing them from the referee's locker room at the point where they did so.Finally every bit of evidence is indirect and it all counts. You've admitted only looking at ball pressures. That's not enough. Preponderance of the evidence (or more likely than not) also happens to be exactly the same standard that gets used daily in civil trials throughout the US. It is the same standard used to find OJ responsible for the wrongful death of his wife. So no it is not an excuse for anything. The choice to use the standard was made well before this incident.

Here I will accuse you of lying. I did not make the accusation. I acknowledged that you did not say what you meant and that acknowledgement was in my post. But I am not accepting any blame for misinterpreting you. You simply did not write what you meant. I've told you my exact objection to your post, and it isn't that I don't like your position. How about you stop making up bogus motivations for me and focus on the topic?My opinion of your position is that it is wrong. I don't find it offensive in any way. I did find your accusation offensive.

Why don't you follow your own advice. Stop taking my disagreement with you as something personal and drop the psychoanalysis.

Sure Percy. Just stop tasking shots and focus on the topic.Or just pull rank.

I disagree that Percy has shown any such thing. I think I've indicated where I think his analysis is overly optimistic.ABE:To summarize my position. In my view the evidence suggests that the balls were tampered with, but there are some possible explanations that covered some and maybe even most of the differences between the way the different teams balls measured at half time. Even Percy's best explanation does not cover the gap left by the worst three of four Patriot balls by either measurement. In my view the best explanation is that those four balls were lowered more than the others.At best, the evidence from ball pressure is inconclusive, and at worst it is quite damning. But the evidence is in no way exculpatory. That's why Percy tries to close the gap by denying motives for letting out small amounts of air (less than say 0.5# or less than 0.65psi). I believe I've argued successfully that the Percy's motivation argument does not carry the day by suggesting at least one motive he admits is plausible And besides that there is some evidence that small amounts of pressure (say between 12.5 and 13.0 psi) do matter to Brady.So in the face of the state of the pressure evidence, does it make sense not to look at the other evidence? Which person here is so in love with his own hypothesis that he does not think the other evidence matters?Not me.Which person tries to label standard measures of adjudication 'excuses to make decisions with flimsy evidence'Not me.Which person makes personal attacks while complaining about the same thing from the other side.Well, yeah that would include me. But that class would also include Percy who I would argue started it, and then tried to insist that I was the one who needed to focus on the topic.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Maybe.It does not necessarily follow that because there is a standard for inflating the balls and that there are rules against tampering, that we must also strive preserve that standardization as the weather changes. NFL footballs also come with a standard surface and finish, but we don't try to compensate for wet weather conditions by putting tacky stuff on the ball, and there are rules against sticky stuff on your hands as well.Football games in Green Bay or Foxboro during the dead of winter are different in lots of ways from games in Atlanta or Miami in early August. Little to no effort is made in the rules to make any adjustments for that. If the ball is flatter in February in GB because the rules and procedures have the balls inflated in an indoor room, maybe that's yet another weather related difference that you just have to live with. At least it is the same for both participating teams. Similarly, if the football carries a little better in Denver that in New Orleans, so be it.Of course the NFL could make the change you suggest, but there is no reason based on fairness or consistency with their policy on non-tampering that they have to do it.

Yes, the 'Mike Tyson' defense. "Of course she consented. I'm a known bully and no woman would go to my room expected not to get raped if she said no."It is not necessary to believe any of the stuff you say is required.I accept the word of people who say that the difference in pressure between a 12.5 and 12.0 is insignificant in terms of providing any advantage. That still does not mean that a professional football player does not want the ball set at 12.5 and will tolerate pressures even lower than 12.0. Maybe as low as 10.5. But not 13.0 and not 12.5.It is entirely possible that the balls were deflated 'by ear' rather than doing a calibrated deflation using a pressure gauge. Given the available time, that's what seems to make sense. Whether or not that is an idiotic thing to do, is beside the point. Tampering with the footballs at all is pretty stupid.And nothing would be more stupid than deflating the footballs without some idea that Brady wanted to ball pressure to be lowered. I'm not believing that, and I doubt that anyone would. If the balls were deflated, it was almost certainly done to match an expectation of Brady's.

'By ear' means listening for the hiss as a start indicator and then replacing the needle some time shortly after based on sound/timing. It is my name for the procedure you used in your experiment.If McNally believed he could reliably remove the air from all twelve balls and get completely consistent results doing it in exactly the way you did it, then he was mistaken. I'll let you form your conclusion about whether he was an idiot. I'll just call him mistaken.However, those results were good enough to meet what were thought to be Brady's needs. But what was done was clearly not perfect because it had aroused some suspicion prior to the game.If you want to promote the idea that the deflation as it must have been conducted was so stupid that the Patriots would never have tried it, then you are essentially using the 'Tyson defense'. I don't buy it.

No shit. But let's pretend that such a thing is not useful so that we can ridicule No Nuke's position.

I did not read the second article, but I think the title of the first article really overstates what Borges actually said in the article

quote:

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"Belichick never believed his story, from what I was told," said Borges. "Because they all know. Why do you think all those retired quarterbacks, the Troy Aikmans of the world ....

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In short, Borges is not quoting people telling him that the Patriot's owner did not believe his quarterback. Borges reaches his conclusion because he believes that the conclusion that Brady knew is inescapable.In short 'from what I was told' by other people and not 'I was told that Beli never believed Brady'. I'd consider this story just more fluff.I decided to read the second story before postin, and guess what? same spin on the same quote from Borges. Nothing much there IMO.

I'm not even complaining about Borges remarks. Borges drew an inference that many others have drawn; namely that any attempt to tamper with the footballs without some indication that the quarterback wanted that is extremely unlikely.What I am objecting to is reports, that do not appear to be authored by Borges that spin his remarks to say something quite different. Those reports make it appear that Borges is claiming to have some inside information on what the coach is thinking. I don't see any evidence that Borges claimed any such thing.It's the same kind of BS reporting that has marked the coverage of the entire issue. I doubt that anybody who actually knows has shared any inside negative information about what the coach thinks of Brady.

Let's note here that this part of the discussion is solely about the verdict and not the punishment. So it does not back up your statements about whether I let punishment fit the evidence. This is exactly the complaint I raised about your statement in the other thread.My disagreement amount the standard for evidence is simply that I believe the preponderance of the evidence is a sufficient standard for deciding any civil matter. You don't. But given that the same standard is used for civil matters involving more egregious matters and more serious potential punishments, I don't see a particular reason why the NFL cannot use it in this case. In fact the agreement with the players spells out the standard. If the case is appealed, a court will apply the same standard.You disagree, but I don't see anything particularly principled in your disagreement or that there is anything black or white in my saying that the standard is fine. Your claim as I recall was that preponderance of the evidence is an excuse for making decisions on shoddy evidence.It's also quite obvious that we also disagree about the state of the evidence, but that is nothing to complain about either. It is instead the point of the debate.Have you got anything better to back up your accusation?Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.