America thinks the New England Patriots are naughty.
Americans think the Patriots cheated in the AFC Championship game- and they’re rooting for the Seahawks on Sunday- but in some ways their poll numbers haven’t fallen that far because the Patriots weren’t all that popular to begin with.
Overall 41% of voters think the Patriots cheated last week to only 27% who think they didn’t, and among self described NFL fans- still 64% of voters even after this tumultuous season- it’s a 50/28 spread that think the Pats cheated. Democrats (46/23) overwhelmingly think New England cheated while Republicans (36/33) are much more divided on the matter. Bill Belichick has a 28/41 favorability rating among NFL fans, compared to 37/16 for Pete Carroll. And the Patriots as a team overall have a 36/43 favorability rating with fans, making them one of only two teams we tested (the Cowboys at 40/42 being the other) with a net negative rating.
And no, that partisan split doesn’t surprise me in the least.
Open thread.
lol
Surprisingly, Pete Carroll himself believes Belichick, noting that “Jet fuel can’t deflate balls”.
Roger Moore
There’s that number again.
Xantar
@Roger Moore:
Damn! Beat me to it!
John M. Burt
I made up that same name, “Deflater-maus”, as the answer to, “Who let the air out of the Batmobile’s tires?”
DougJ
@lol:
Thermalite can though.
Just to geek out, if when they ran an experiment simulating game conditions, they got the balls to deflate by 1.8 lbs, it seems impossible they can conclude Pats did anything to the ball, unless someone squeals.
Liquid
So, Douglas Adams was wrong.
MoeLarryAndJesus
I’m a liberal who thinks Deflategate is just more proof that the American public is poorly educated. The NFL doesn’t have a case here. The Patriots have the best coach/QB combo in the history of the game and have been amazingly successful for a very long time. Jealousy abounds outside of New England.
Just Some Fuckhead
@lol: Pete Carroll clearly knows a lot about footballs than Belichick. In Belichick’s press conference he said he didn’t even know how the footballs held air.
Cacti
@MoeLarryAndJesus:
I suppose that’s true if “the history of the game” begins for you circa 1999.
MoeLarryAndJesus
@Just Some Fuckhead: Jeezus, you’re dumb enough to be Erick Erickson’s hemorrhoid.
MoeLarryAndJesus
@Cacti: It goes back as far as you want to go, chuckles.
Punchy
@MoeLarryAndJesus: Really? So all the balls save the kicker’s ball on one side were ALL underinflated by chance? Care to run the probability of that? Or was that snark?
And if I hear “weather/cold temps” as an excuse one more time….weird how Indy played the game in the same temps and whose balls never lost pressure. Must have magic insulated balls, they do.
Pats fans are nothing if not insufferable whiners trying to dismiss the obvious. Their team cheats. Regularly.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I’ve only half followed this story, but as I understand it the balls were only deflated (allegedly) in the first half?
are we assuming there was some other form of cheating in the third quarter? also, too, how did Brady’s balls affect the Colts’ offense?
Not that I’m not going to enjoy what should be some epic trolling of Brady et al on the field Sunday.
JPL
Don’t all balls deflate in cold weather? I have no idea if the Pats cheated but Marduk had this comment below
You’re making the same mistake Neil Degrasse Tyson made. You’re using gauge pressure. You need to use absolute pressure, which is about 27.2 PSI (14.7 atmospheric and 12.5 gauge). So the contribution from temperature alone by the ideal gas law, all else being equal, would be 1.428 PSI. That would leave the balls close to 11 PSI. Add in the effect of water on the ball (and on atmospheric pressure for that matter) and the amount of abuse the balls were getting from the Pats offense (run it again!) and 2 full PSI would be well within expected deflation.
Villago Delenda Est
@Cacti: Given that they were not to be seen in last years Superbowl, one has to wonder how brilliant they are.
JPL
@Punchy: I heard that the Indy balls were within the pressure guidelines, not that they didn’t deflate. Were they exactly the same as the first measurement
Cacti
@MoeLarryAndJesus:
At this point, Belichick and Brady are tied for second with Walsh/Montana as the second most successful QB/Coach combo of the Super Bowl era.
Lombardi/Starr won 5 Championships together in the pre and post-merger NFL.
Brown/Graham won 7 Championships in the AAFC and NFL.
Should we continue?
Judge Crater
What was the NE ball boy doing in the pisser for 90 seconds? And where was Colonel Mustard? In the library with Belichick?
Violet
Wow. That probably shouldn’t amaze me but it does.
vtr
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I’m a Patriots fan. I heard Terry Bradshaw interviewed on WFAN last week. Asked do you thing N. E. cheated, he replied, “Well, the score was 45-7”, (Patriots.) If they cheated, they cheated, whether it affected the game or not. By the way, why, besides the fact that Belichick is obnoxious, does everyone hat the Patriots?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
OT: guess who…?
“If the Supreme Court rules that same-sex marriage bans are unconstitutional — that it violates the Constitution to try to limit marriage between a man and a woman, that’s clearly the law of the land unless there’s a constitutional amendment to change it — what legal rationale would be in play that would prohibit polygamy?” [Mystery Senator] asked. “What’s the legal difference between a state ban on same-sex marriage being unconstitutional but a ban on polygamy being constitutional?”
from Loretta Lynch’s confirmation hearing
JPL
@Judge Crater: Did the ball boy have time to wash his hands?
indycat32
In all the discussion in the past week, I’ve never seen/heard anyone ask: does it make sense that for the AFC championship game, Belichick would say to himself, I wonder what would happen if we deflate the footballs. Let’s experiment!! So either it wasn’t deliberate, or this wasn’t the first time the Pats did it. I say this isn’t the first time. And yes, I am a Colts fan, why do you ask? And yes, we got out butts kicked. Looks like Andrew Luck really is the next Peyton Mannning,
Punchy
@JPL: What’s the diff? If Indy’s balls started at 13.5 (the max), they had to drop less than 1 PSI to stay in spec. If NE’s balls started at 12.5 (the min), they somehow dropped a full 2 PSI. If they started at the max like Indy’s, they dropped >3 PSI.
The weather is the worst possible excuse, as there was a built-in positive control (Indy’s balls) that showed NE’s balls’ deviations to be significant. Why not blame it on the fact that Brady’s hands are softer, or their balls were facing North, or some other such bullshit? The control was in place; their shit was out of spec, out of trend, and significantly different. Save one ball for the kicker. Imagine that.
JPL
@vtr: Spygate has tainted the Pats forever. Also is it possible that the Pats beat other teams that one might like better?
Face
@Violet: Reality based demographics vs. Wishful Thinking demographics.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
The only reason I have any idea who’s even playing in this year’s Super Bowl is this “scandal,” so I’m calling publicity stunt on this one.
scav
I’m having ever so much fun giggling at the temperature and physics based explanations as so many always seem to implicitly assume that temperature and physics only go after the cute balls. The increasingly jargon-laden explanation of same only increases same, probably at a rate that could be approximated by some mathematical equation, metric-flinging and hand-waving.
JPL
@Punchy: I think it might be important to know. BTW.. I’m of the opinion that I don’t know. murdak explained below how it could have worked but the other is the pats could have deflated the balls. At this time, I really don’t know.
Indy certainly didn’t lose the game because of the balls cuz they like their balls inflated to the max.
Kylroy
@Punchy: This this this. A team can be *both* exceptionally capable and cheaters. I seriously doubt that their blowout of the Colts would have been altered by playing fairly, but the reflexive urge to flout rules just irks me.
JPL
@scav: this. that stuff is so ahead of my pay grade.
Mike J
My own guess is that they inflated to the absolute lowest legal limit, and knowing about the difference heat makes may have even taken steps to maximize the difference and still come in legal. In other words, I suspect they did follow the letter of the law, but stretched it as far as they could for advantage. That may be slimy, but not cheating.
All of this silliness is easily avoided by simply moving the testing time from 2.5 hours before kickoff to 10 minutes before.
Lee
@Punchy:
Every time I hear someone trying to rationalize that it was not cheating I think “So why wasn’t Indy’s footballs effected the same way?”
So far no one has come up with anything other than hand waving and ‘because reasons’.
Villago Delenda Est
@Lee:
Well, case closed, then!
JPL
@Lee: That’s not true. The measurements were not released, to my knowledge. Indy’s balls could have deflated but since they were pumped to a higher psi, they still were within limits.
JPL
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: What did she say?
Villago Delenda Est
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): DING DING DING DING DING DING
Ballgate kept one of the Superbowl teams in the news for the dead week of pre-Superbowl hype. Mission accomplished!
shelley
I haven’t followed this story or football in general, so can somebody explain Deflater-gate to me? What difference would it make in a game?
lamh36
Guess yall won’t have Sully to kick around anymore?
Lee
@JPL:
If the numbers were not released how do we know this?
Honestly I have not followed this much at all.
Lee
@shelley:
Deflated footballs are easier to throw, catch & hold. Gives teams an edge.
Lee
@lamh36:
Wow it is sunny and warm here today and the day got just a bit better.
NonyNony
@vtr:
Mostly because of the Patriots fans.
I used to think that the Yankees had the most obnoxious, most over-entitled, most horrible fans on the Internet (and often in real life). Over the past few years the Patriots fans have started to edge them out in my estimation. (Red Sox fans are starting to also come close).
Villago Delenda Est
@lamh36: Sorry, but it doesn’t count unless Sully throws his worthless Tory ass off the top of the Empire State Building.
...now I try to be amused
@JPL:
You beat me to it. The Patriots notoriously seek every edge they can, big or small, legal or illegal (if they think they can get away with it). I suspect there would be no PSI CSI if it wasn’t for Spygate. I’ll also bet other franchises wish they had thought of the stuff Belichick and the Pats did.
The Pats are a smart franchise, and I respect that.
scav
@…now I try to be amused: So they’re sort of the hedge fund managers and bankers of the NFL?
Amir Khalid
I’ve never heard of anything like this in association football; as Richard Mayhew noted, there the referee is in charge of the match ball which is inflated to his satisfaction within the limits prescribed by the laws of the game. He alone decides if and when to replace it.
(Link goes to FIFA’s downloadable PDF file.)
Mike J
@scav:
Good example. The things they do are easily preventable by changing the laws, but you can’t punish them for doing something that’s not illegal.
And it happens for the same reason. The owners write the rules, and they want a good spectacle They are not the least bit concerned about the PSI in the ball, but they have to make it look like they have *some* rules.
JPL
@Lee: INDY specifies their psi number.
JPL
@Lee: If that’s true , why wouldn’t all teams specify the lower psi? Aaron Rodgers likes a firmer ball or so he said. I’m curious.
Tree With Water
When the Niners were flying high during their golden era, critics consistently took pot shots that boiled down to #1: ease of schedule. Their division was more or less weak back then- Rams, New Orleans, Atlanta- and some fans attributed the Niners winning ways to it (even after San Francisco had won their first couple of Super Bowls).. #2: the Niners offensive line habitually “leg kicked”, i.e., attempted to trip up defensive lineman with their legs… #3: The Sid Gilman/Bill Walsh west coast offense amounted to dink-and-dunk football, a bastardization of smash mouth football. In frustration, Mike Ditka even once threw his gum at the taunting fans of Candlestick, calling them a bunch of cheese eating wine sippers (or something like that). He did that, when all he was really upset about was consistently losing to Walsh. There was a lot more penny ante stuff thrown at them, too, and all because other fans and teams were jealous of their success. Stuff like that goes with the territory when a team is a consistent winner. Believe me, that’s all this idiot story, about idiot deflated balls, boils down to- jealousy.
JDM
Watch the Australian Open going on right now. The balls used are under the control of officials until used. Watch some Major League Baseball; same thing. Rinse and repeat for pretty much every sport at high levels. Why should the NFL be so radically, stupidly, different?
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
So can it be said that the team with the biggest balls lost?
Roger Moore
@JPL:
The problem is that this is assuming constant volume, which is not a safe assumption. Real world balls increase in volume as you increase the pressure and decrease in volume as you decrease the pressure. That’s why we use the word “deflate” to describe removing air from the ball rather than “depressurize”. The effect of this is that a change in temperature will produce a mixture of reduced pressure and reduced volume rather than a simple reduction in pressure. You need to test with a real football in order to determine what the pressure/volume curve looks like.
Haydnseek
@JDM: This plus infinity. Try using your own dice in a Vegas casino.
Tree With Water
Posted at Deadspin.com yesterday: “Comedian Louis C.K. is a Boston native and a Patriots fan, and so he was of course asked about the scandal while a guest on the Late Show last night. His perspective—”Why not? It’s a stupid football game. Deflate the balls, poke a guy in the eye or whatever, it’s football.”
scav
@Amir Khalid: I’m also rather amused thinking back to the great time-measurement fracas of the world cup. Time-control of the AmFoot game must be micro-managed at all times and WorldFoot was stupid and illogical not to do same, forget all the arguements of game-culture and mere rules and other goals behind the larger decision. So this is nearly the exact flip: PSI of the ball is not to be micromanaged and under strong control and all’s well with the game as that’s just how it is. Well, it fills up hours on the Media so whee.
MCA1
@Kylroy: Nicely stated. The successes of the Pats over the last 15 years are not to be denied, but increasingly both the way in which they appear to have achieved those successes and the arrogance with which they’ve operated, will leave them forever dishonored and tainted. They’ve become the Barry Bonds of the NFL.
Haydnseek
If my harmless comment will be in moderation until the thread dies, fine. Just delete it.
Grumpy Code Monkey
@Violet: I’d be curious to see numbers on fans by political party. If Dems favor one of NE’s rivals, then I can see why more Dems would be predisposed to assume NE cheated.
As for Indy’s balls, all I’m hearing is that the balls were still in spec, not that they weren’t affected at all. They may have lost pressure as well, just not enough to fall below the minimum. That would depend on the initial pressure, how they were handled prior to the game (were they kept in the relatively warm locker room or on the sidelines, stuff like that).
Bob In Portland
Tsarnaev.
Whoops. Bad communication again!
MCA1
@JDM: Short answer: Peyton Manning. He argued successfully to the league about a decade ago that, since each QB prefers a slightly different feel to the balls they throw, that the teams should bring their own balls. So they each get to show up with a bag of balls, pre-used to wash off the new ball slipperiness, and filled to the QB’s liking within specified limits. Whether that system generally goes the way of the Dodo in the upcoming offseason remains to be seen, but no doubt at minimum a change is implemented to ensure that once the footballs have passed inspection, they’re in the exclusive control of the officiating crew until the game’s over. Why that hasn’t been the case up until now, when every QB who’s spoken on the issue in the last 10 days has said that shenanigans w/r/t the inflation rate of footballs has been going on forever, is beyond me.
Cacti
@Tree With Water:
Actually, San Francisco got caught in some pretty egregious salary cap cheating during the Steve Young era, but also got off with a comparative slap on the wrist.
Villago Delenda Est
@Grumpy Code Monkey: Seahawks country is deep blue.
So there’s that.
Bob In Portland
Prescient.
marduk
@Roger Moore:
Yes, this has been done. The actual loss of pressure exceeds what would be predicted by the ideal gas law alone.
Edmund Dantes
Any this is the thing. It’s the sanctimony of all these fans. The Pats are horrible horrible cheaters.
Football was a pristine virginal sport until the Pats came along.
The worst are guys like Shula trotting out all high and mighty while neglecting his own cheating ways. Look up tarp, monsoon, jets playoff game. Good ole Don wasn’t above breaking the rules.
Broncos caught breaking rules on Salary cap for their two under Elway. Etc.
We could go on and on.
Plus everyone convicting the Pats of this before the actual evidence is in? You’re falling for the very confirmation bias we loathe in conservatives and other reactionaries.
Not to mention that this is such a serious offense that two teams that altered footballs on live TV this very year, breaking this very rule, weren’t even sanctioned for it.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
Belichick and the Pats are are John “Muggsy” McGraw and the New York (baseball) Giants of 100-years ago. The coach is an evil genius who takes advantage of the rules, and the squad is made of one real star and a lot of interchangeable parts. Outside of Manhattan, the Giants were roundly hated.
the Conster
@Edmund Dantes:
Also, don’t forget Bill Polian changing the rules to benefit Peyton Manning year after year. Even the overtime rules were changed after he lost to San Diego a few years ago, but hey, THAT’s not cheating. If anyone thinks that the Pats’ success of coaching up a bunch of nobodies year after year is because they’re cheating, then that tells me it’s all about jealousy.
Another Holocene Human
I’ve been holding my breath. You see, I hate the Pats. Always have. Figured that when this whole thing started that the other shoe would drop and people would pop up defending them and my Schadenfreude would be taken away.
How wonderful to find out how many people ALSO hate the Pats.
Tree With Water
@Cacti: God bless Eddie DeBartolo, my favorite owner of all time because he spent money on the Niners like a drunken sailor. I can even tell you the day I realized what a great man he was in that regard- it was the day San Diego handed the Niners THE key to their first Super Bowl, the day in mid-season when the Chargers dealt Fred Dean to the Niners. “Click”, the last piece had fallen into place.. Eddie did the same thing a dozen years later, when he recruited Deion Sanders- “click”, and the Niners last Lombardi trophy was as good as assured.
dedc79
Maybe I’ve just missed it skimming the comments, but did nobody comment on the opera pun in the post title?
opiejeanne
@Cacti: how do you cheat at salary caps? Pay the player under the table?
opiejeanne
@Villago Delenda Est: part of Seahawks territory is deep blue, the western part, but there are a lot of fans in the deep red part of the state as well as Idaho.
Rex
@Villago Delenda Est:
Whereas the Patriots are located in the deep sea of Red States that comprise New England.
Doug r
@the Conster: That overtime rule change was a smart move actually. Of course the CFL did it first.
fubs
@marduk:
“The actual loss of pressure”
What actual loss of pressure?
the Conster
@Doug r:
It makes overtime better for sure, but that wasn’t why the rules were changed.
Indianapolis Colts president Bill Polian is the biggest cheater in the NFL
Tree With Water
@opiejeanne: Years ago when I drove across western Idaho and crossed the Oregon border, I likened it to a moonscape. Potato fields everywhere. Don’t get me wrong, god bless the simple potato… but people thereabouts seemed a bit tubular, too. Or do I mean insular?
marduk
@fubs: The reduction in measured PSI as demonstrated experimentally? What exactly are you asking me?
the Conster
Also, too:
10 things that prove the Patriots are cheaters
BRADY GOES TO 6 SUPER BOWLS – THAT’S NOT A THING THAT HAPPENS AND I REFUSE TO ACCEPT THE TRUE CRAPPINESS OF MY OWN FOOTBALL TEAM, SO THEY ARE CHEATERS AND LIARS! WHO DEFLATE BALLS, OK?!
Calouste
@Doug r: I don’t get the overtime rule. Why not let each team play one possession, and check the score after that? And if scores are still level, play another set of one possession each. That would eliminate the influence of the coin toss.
Bobby Thomson
@NonyNony: nah. First Yankees, then Cowboys, then Duke basketball, then Notre Dame football. Pats are in the top 10 but not the top 4.
opiejeanne
@Tree With Water: hehe. Yes, people over there can be a bit tubular, as you put it.
MCA1
@the Conster: Please. Nice straw man. Point out one person in this thread who actually attributes something like the Belichick regime’s ability to make Julian Edelman a productive NFL player to the Pats’ loose commitment to the rules. No one here disputes the guy’s tactical genius or the accuracy of Brady’s arm, or Kraft’s salary cap strategies, and the organization’s front office stability, or any of that. A lot of people do, however, think little of the sportsmanship and feel the pattern of needlessly gilding the lily they see out of Foxboro is indicative of a certain undesirable arrogance, and that it taints their legacy. It is in fact possible to accept the greatness of the Pats over the last 15 years – even, in fact, to be in awe of the great Wizard Belichick’s singular ability to game plan to his opponent’s weakness and exploit it to death – and yet still not admire it quite as much. Winning isn’t everything, despite what Vince Lombardi may have thought.
Tree With Water
@MCA1: That’s very true. I’m a lifelong fan of the baseball Giants, and I’d have a hard time defending their regular season won-loss record during the 2012. Miguel Cabrero carried the club the first half of that year, and then was suspended for PED use. It indisputably detracts from season from the second of their 3 in 5, and it always will. That said, I’m still not convinced Belichik (et.al.) knew anything about this idiot story, perhaps because I could not care less about it.
opiejeanne
Have none of you seen the article comparing fumbles by all teams going back to about 2000?
Bill
@vtr: “By the way, why, besides the fact that Belichick is obnoxious, does everyone hat the Patriots?”
1. Spygate and the lack of any repercussions.
2. Belichick is comes off as the most joyless obnoxious jerk to ever coach a professional team. (And that’s a a pretty deep pool of joyless obnoxious jerks.)
3. Brady may be the world’s largest douchebag. On a douche scale of 1-10 he “goes to 11.”
4. Boston sports fans make the rest of the country want to to drown them in chowdah.
5. Any team that consistently wins will attract a certain amount of hate.
MoeLarryAndJesus
@opiejeanne: Yes, I’ve seen it. I’ve also seen the several more impressive articles that show it to be an innumerate piece of shit.
I guess that’s why the Wall Street Journal hyped it.
maurinsky
As someone who doesn’t really follow sports ball of any kind, I think comments about one groups fans being the worse are hilarious. They are all the same from my perspective! I have friends who HATE the Patriots and complain about how Patriots fans are the worst, and friends who HATE the Jets or the Giants and complain how fans of those teams are the worst, and same with Red Sox and Yankees – they all seem equally obnoxious and assholey to each other from my outside perspective.
Morzer
@scav:
Goldman Sachs with pigskin and even more sanctimony about their various frauds.
Tree With Water
@maurinsky: Right you are. Except for Dodger fans, who really are the scum of the earth.
sw
Let’s all get past this silly pre-occupation with how much air is or isn’t in our balls and get back to the deadly series business of the dumbest god damn game on the face of the planet.
LosGatosCA
@JDM:
brain damage?
JoeShabadoo
@Roger Moore: The test has been done, a paper released, and a video posted on youtube about it.
marduk
More debunking of Sharp’s bullsht fumble analysis.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/your-guide-to-deflate-gateballghazi-related-statistical-analyses/
http://drewfustin.com/2015/01/27/patriots-fumble-comments/