NFL 2014 season

[Flagg]

Naa from what I hear they're talking fines and draft picks being taken away.

[Thanas]

Fucking patriots. This obviously gives an advantage to WRs as those balls are far easier to catch. What if they were fucking doing it against the Ravens as well? With how close that game was, that might easily have made the difference.

Fucking cheatriots.

Oh and apparently they did it earlier in November as well:

According to ESPN's Adam Schefter, the Colts first became suspicious of under-inflation during the November 16 loss to the Patriots. Those concerns were especially raised after two Mike Adams interceptions. Their antennae were raised again Sunday after D'Qwell Jackson's interception. "I've got both those balls at home," Adams said with a smile. "Maybe I should go home and weigh them."

According to New York Newsday and WCVB in Boston, Jackson believed the ball wasn't inflated as much as usual. He told a Colts equipment manager the ball felt under-inflated and gave it to him. The equipment man told Colts coach Chuck Pagano on the sideline. That message was relayed to Colts general manager Ryan Grigson in the press box, who told NFL director of football operations Mike Kensil, Newsday and WCVB said. Kensil told the on-field officials at halftime about the balls. Someone told Bob Kravitz of WTHR in Indianapolis, because he broke the story of the Patriots possibly deflating their game footballs – which would help them throw and catch it better in the rain – and now the NFL is looking into it.

EDIT: Oh, and remember how suddenly Edelmann was catching those balls and returning them from our kicking unit for far better field position when the balls came down shorter as usual?

https://twitter.com/JasonLaCanfora/stat ... 3760642050
As NFL investigates Deflate-gate would be wise to speak to Ravens. Some there believe kicking balls used in their playoff game underinflated

Kicking balls were supplied by the Patriots.

FUCK.

[Thanas]

So...fucking Cheatriots been caught cheating in two separate instances, 4 years removed from each other. What went on in between? Before Spygate?

Their whole fucking legacy is tainted.

[Tsyroc]

Holy shit, this thing I thought was desperate whining and denial by Indy fans might actually be true, since all but 1 of 12 of the balls the Patriots submitted were underinflated. The league is now pissed off and people are speculating about punishment. I think it's still a little soon since an in depth investigation is needed, but given the teams recent history and the fact that the Patriots knew they were playing with underinflated balls and never said a damned thing and probably would never have been found out during halftime if it weren't for Bradys interception throw. I think the Cheatriots may be at it again.

I think it's a little too soon.

For one I would like to know if they checked the Indy balls and what those measured at.

I'd also like to know what the environmental circumstances were during the various measurements. I've seen quite a few post on the sports boards talking about the air temp when the balls were first tested and what it was later. Which some have made a good argument for the change in pressure to be purely due to the external weather changes. It seems plausible.

Along those lines. What if the Patriots kept their footballs really warm up until the initial measurement and then they were allowed to cool down and then they were underinflated?


Anyway, I thought the whole thing was a bunch of bullcrap. That each team has their own balls and that there are different balls for play and for kicking. WTF??
Personally I thought the league should just be in charge of the balls and QBs just need to get used to throwing new balls (apparently Peyton Manning was the one who really pushed for used balls).

[Thanas]

Holy shit, this thing I thought was desperate whining and denial by Indy fans might actually be true, since all but 1 of 12 of the balls the Patriots submitted were underinflated. The league is now pissed off and people are speculating about punishment. I think it's still a little soon since an in depth investigation is needed, but given the teams recent history and the fact that the Patriots knew they were playing with underinflated balls and never said a damned thing and probably would never have been found out during halftime if it weren't for Bradys interception throw. I think the Cheatriots may be at it again.

I think it's a little too soon.

For one I would like to know if they checked the Indy balls and what those measured at.

I'd also like to know what the environmental circumstances were during the various measurements. I've seen quite a few post on the sports boards talking about the air temp when the balls were first tested and what it was later. Which some have made a good argument for the change in pressure to be purely due to the external weather changes. It seems plausible.

It does until one remembers that this also happened @Indy in a dome.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Atmospheric pressure at Sea Level in psi is only 14.7 psi. A storm system is normally accompanied by a drop in atmospheric pressure, which in most pressure gauges would increase the reported pressure of the football. A major hurricane sees a drop of less than 2 psi at the eye -- 2 psi is a big deal.

[Flagg]

Yeah, the worst part is that this may have been going on longer than spygate. And maybe even worse than that, Brady and Bellicheat are 2 of the few seemingly "untouchable" individuals in the NFL. But beyond that, all of the Patriots players that touched any of those underinflated balls KNEW they were cheating and said NOTHING. I honestly think the only fair solution is to suspend the entire franchise from next season which is a bigger deal than it may sound like (even though it's a huge deal to do that itself) since next season will end with Superbowl 50. And you know damned well that every coach in the league would butcher and eat their firstborn to win Superbowl 50.

[Steve]

How did it last this long, though, given that every interception thrown provides another potential witness?

[Thanas]

http://www.foxsports.com/nfl/story/defl ... lls-012115

The Baltimore Ravens tipped off the Indianapolis Colts going into the AFC title game about the Patriots potentially doctoring the air in footballs, according to FOX Sports NFL Insider Jay Glazer.

According to Glazer, the NFL was already planning to inspect the balls at halftime, despite D'Qwell Jackson's interception originally being reported as the cause.

While the NFL is still investigating and figuring out what direction to go in terms of possible penalties for Bill Belichick and the Patriots in what is being dubbed "Deflategate," many NFL owners, general managers and coaches are tired of the Patriots and are wondering if the league will finally take a hard line, Glazer reported.

[Tsyroc]

How did it last this long, though, given that every interception thrown provides another potential witness?

If some of the "quotes" going around by other team's QBs are reliable, there are some QB's who prefer the ball to be at the max pressure or more. So much so that there might be a lot
of tampering going on that causes a lot of variation in how the balls feel. The Patriots might have gotten caught by being too efficient and uniform in their ball tampering.


I still find it bizarre that the NFL has the teams provide their own footballs for games and the teams only play with the balls they've provided. That just seems like a logistical pain in the ass for the officials and something that is just asking to be manipulated for the teams benefit.

[Ziggy Stardust]

So...fucking Cheatriots been caught cheating in two separate instances, 4 years removed from each other. What went on in between? Before Spygate?

Their whole fucking legacy is tainted.

I'm not going to excuse the ball deflating thing, except to agree with Dwayne Allen that it is unlikely to really have had any impact on the outcome of the game. Deflated balls didn't make the Pats win 45-7. Period. You are deluding yourself if you think that it could be responsible for the entirety of that game's outcome. That said, I think it's bizarre and stupid that they did it in the first place.

But the legacy is only "tainted" for the obsessive Pats haters that don't even remember the details behind Spygate. People like to make it out like the Pats were doing some evil and nefarious thing; you know, the thing every single team in the league was doing up until 2006. Further, the wording of the new rule was incredibly vague, and stated only that video equipment was not allowed during a game in which the club was participating; the rule didn't actually explicitly state that recordings outside of that context were against the rules. At worst, you can accuse the Patriots of rule lawyering.

Of course, I'm guessing you are just going to accuse me of being a thoughtless Pats apologist, because pretending that these scandals somehow invalidate all of the on-field accomplishments of the team in the last decade helps you sleep at night, I guess.

I will say this again, to defuse the idiotic "apologist" comments I can feel coming: I wish the Pats had not done either of these things. I think in both cases, the balls and the tapes, the controversy is overblown, because the actual on field effects of these are going to be fairly minimal. If you don't think players are going to pick up on the other team's defensive signals without video taping them, you are fairly deluded anyway. That said, it is because both of these scandals were so unnecessary from an on-field perspective that they bother me. The Pats would have been just as dominant on field during the past decade without doing shady things. I am not saying they are beyond criticism for these actions, but the hyperbole about how it irrevocably taints their legacy and whatnot are silly.

[Terralthra]

[Thanas]

So...fucking Cheatriots been caught cheating in two separate instances, 4 years removed from each other. What went on in between? Before Spygate?

Their whole fucking legacy is tainted.

I'm not going to excuse the ball deflating thing, except to agree with Dwayne Allen that it is unlikely to really have had any impact on the outcome of the game. Deflated balls didn't make the Pats win 45-7. Period. You are deluding yourself if you think that it could be responsible for the entirety of that game's outcome. That said, I think it's bizarre and stupid that they did it in the first place.

But did it have an impact on the Ravens game, where you won by 4 points and where you consistently got better field position by about 15 yards due to non-inflated balls travelling slower when kicked by us? I would say it at least potentially did.

At worst, you can accuse the Patriots of rule lawyering.

No, I accuse them of cheating. The intentional breaking of rules to gain an advantage. I think it did have an impact on tight games, which the Patsies usually won.

[SCRawl]

But did it have an impact on the Ravens game, where you won by 4 points and where you consistently got better field position by about 15 yards due to non-inflated balls travelling slower when kicked by us? I would say it at least potentially did.

Isn't the accusation that the Patriots were using under-inflated footballs by their team (for the benefit of grip), while the other team would have been using footballs which would have met the NFL's specifications?

[Thanas]

But did it have an impact on the Ravens game, where you won by 4 points and where you consistently got better field position by about 15 yards due to non-inflated balls travelling slower when kicked by us? I would say it at least potentially did.

Isn't the accusation that the Patriots were using under-inflated footballs by their team (for the benefit of grip), while the other team would have been using footballs which would have met the NFL's specifications?

No, the allegations apparently cover the kicking balls used by the ravens as well. Link.

[SCRawl]

No, the allegations apparently cover the kicking balls used by the ravens as well. Link.

I hadn't heard that, though if this is true it is (in my opinion) a worse transgression. It's one thing to soften your team's footballs to give a slight advantage in grip, but another again to make the other team's footballs demonstrably less effective and give them a measurable disadvantage. Mind you, I think that this would be harder to pull off, but if they even attempted it they should be harshly punished.

[Thanas]

This is a good explanation of how I feel about the whole issue:

Whelp, the Pats are big ‘ol cheaters. Was this a big cheat? Not really, but it’s still a cheat. I thought this story was stupid sour grapes when it broke, but man if the news this morning didn’t make me change my mind. I always laughed at the morons who called them the Cheatriots and Belicheat and considered those people to just be jealous. After all it was one moment 7 years ago, get over it you whiny babies. That same guy who filmed the jets later got caught filming for the Broncos, and no one seemed to care half as much about it then. Broncos got off cheap and people were still willing to hold it over the Patriots heads. Yeah, they were just jealous babies. But wait, turns out they might have been right all along! The Pats are indeed cheaters!

Always had a healthy respect for the Patriots, just didn’t like them because I found their constant high level of play boring after a while. I’m a man who likes chaos because chaos is more entertaining than sustained success because it’s unpredictable and keeps you on your toes. You can’t be so good for so long and have your success not turn into routine in some ways. Brady 2 minute drills now have this feeling of “of course he’s gonna win the game” instead of “ARE THEY GONNA DO IT?”. But now, my respect for the Pats has diminished a fair degree, because now I can’t help but wonder what they’ve gotten away with. I can ignore one transgression that they were justly punished for as just a bad apple doing bad apple things. Twice though? Nah, I can’t ignore that. I love that Patriots fans are again using the “BUT OTHER TEAMS DO IT TOO” defense, as if that somehow makes it okay that their team cheated. Nope, other teams might do it too, but those teams are also jerks but hey, they didn’t get caught. “OH BUT WE ONLY GOT CAUGHT BECAUSE OUR TEAM IS UNDER HEAVIER SCRUTINY BECAUSE OF SPYGATE”. Oh, you mean the last time you got caught cheating? You are under heavy scrutiny about cheating because you got caught cheating? Maybe if you wanted your team to be less scrutinized you should stop cheating in the first place. Who cares if other teams are doing bad things, that’s the NFL’s problem to deal with, and I hope they crack down on it. The Pats got caught again, and I hope their punishment reflects the second offense. I hope they get fined more, lose more picks, and possibly get a suspension next year. Don’t want to get punished for cheating? Don’t want to get unfairly singled out for cheating when other teams are doing it too? Maybe stop cheating! Belichick is smart enough to find legal competitive advantages and is still leagues ahead of most other coaches. He doesn’t need to cheat. Stop cheating, cheaters. I love that if the Patriots win next week that everyone will mentally stick an asterisk next to it and it’ll haunt the Patriots forever. If they lose, the story will be about how the cheaters got exposed without their cheating. This is now officially a no-win scenario for the Patriots, and they are finally interesting again.

[...]

EDIT: Coming back to it a day later after the press conference, the press conference didn’t change my mind either way. I highly doubt Belichick in all his years of being a head coach known for finding those little loopholes and quirks never once learned how the balls get organized. It seems like it’s currently in his best interest to deny it, in the chance that the league cannot prove the balls were deflated on purpose. Maybe he didn’t do it. Maybe it was Josh McDaniels or a rogue ballboy. Maybe they were deflated beforehand and the refs did a crap job of testing them. All I’ve learned is that the level of deflation the balls were at is one of those things the people using them would notice. Brady would have noticed. Blount would have noticed. The refs might not as they have other things on their mind and they have no reason to grip them hard, they just place them and hand them to others.

I have no doubt the Pats would have beaten the Colts regardless. The Colts were simply outmatched. I don’t even know how much of an advantage a deflated ball would give, only that it’s illegal. The problem here is that getting caught cheating twice casts a level of doubt over the rest of their successes. I was willing to ignore Spygate as a rubbish one time thing, but twice caught has instilled just a small nagging doubt. It makes me wonder what they’ve gotten away with. It makes me wonder what other small trickery we haven’t found out. If the Patriots did this on purpose (To be determined I suppose) while being under a microscope, if they were willing to cheat anyway, what else have they done? I had so much respect for the Patriots as an organization even though I was sick of them winning all the time, and now I’m questioning how much of that respect was fair. I’m fine and love it when Belichick finds his crafty loopholes like the one against the Ravens. I’m not fine with them actively crossing the line.

This doesn’t change the Patriots level of success, nor should it. I don’t want to see wins vacated and I’m not going to say the Patriots are only good because they cheat. It just seems like they straddle the line and probably cross over it occasionally. All this did for me was really just remove a fair amount of respect I had for the organization, which isn’t anything in the grand scheme of things. But I’ll never look at them the same way again.

[Flagg]

This is a good explanation of how I feel about the whole issue:

Whelp, the Pats are big ‘ol cheaters. Was this a big cheat? Not really, but it’s still a cheat. I thought this story was stupid sour grapes when it broke, but man if the news this morning didn’t make me change my mind. I always laughed at the morons who called them the Cheatriots and Belicheat and considered those people to just be jealous. After all it was one moment 7 years ago, get over it you whiny babies. That same guy who filmed the jets later got caught filming for the Broncos, and no one seemed to care half as much about it then. Broncos got off cheap and people were still willing to hold it over the Patriots heads. Yeah, they were just jealous babies. But wait, turns out they might have been right all along! The Pats are indeed cheaters!

Always had a healthy respect for the Patriots, just didn’t like them because I found their constant high level of play boring after a while. I’m a man who likes chaos because chaos is more entertaining than sustained success because it’s unpredictable and keeps you on your toes. You can’t be so good for so long and have your success not turn into routine in some ways. Brady 2 minute drills now have this feeling of “of course he’s gonna win the game” instead of “ARE THEY GONNA DO IT?”. But now, my respect for the Pats has diminished a fair degree, because now I can’t help but wonder what they’ve gotten away with. I can ignore one transgression that they were justly punished for as just a bad apple doing bad apple things. Twice though? Nah, I can’t ignore that. I love that Patriots fans are again using the “BUT OTHER TEAMS DO IT TOO” defense, as if that somehow makes it okay that their team cheated. Nope, other teams might do it too, but those teams are also jerks but hey, they didn’t get caught. “OH BUT WE ONLY GOT CAUGHT BECAUSE OUR TEAM IS UNDER HEAVIER SCRUTINY BECAUSE OF SPYGATE”. Oh, you mean the last time you got caught cheating? You are under heavy scrutiny about cheating because you got caught cheating? Maybe if you wanted your team to be less scrutinized you should stop cheating in the first place. Who cares if other teams are doing bad things, that’s the NFL’s problem to deal with, and I hope they crack down on it. The Pats got caught again, and I hope their punishment reflects the second offense. I hope they get fined more, lose more picks, and possibly get a suspension next year. Don’t want to get punished for cheating? Don’t want to get unfairly singled out for cheating when other teams are doing it too? Maybe stop cheating! Belichick is smart enough to find legal competitive advantages and is still leagues ahead of most other coaches. He doesn’t need to cheat. Stop cheating, cheaters. I love that if the Patriots win next week that everyone will mentally stick an asterisk next to it and it’ll haunt the Patriots forever. If they lose, the story will be about how the cheaters got exposed without their cheating. This is now officially a no-win scenario for the Patriots, and they are finally interesting again.

[...]

EDIT: Coming back to it a day later after the press conference, the press conference didn’t change my mind either way. I highly doubt Belichick in all his years of being a head coach known for finding those little loopholes and quirks never once learned how the balls get organized. It seems like it’s currently in his best interest to deny it, in the chance that the league cannot prove the balls were deflated on purpose. Maybe he didn’t do it. Maybe it was Josh McDaniels or a rogue ballboy. Maybe they were deflated beforehand and the refs did a crap job of testing them. All I’ve learned is that the level of deflation the balls were at is one of those things the people using them would notice. Brady would have noticed. Blount would have noticed. The refs might not as they have other things on their mind and they have no reason to grip them hard, they just place them and hand them to others.

I have no doubt the Pats would have beaten the Colts regardless. The Colts were simply outmatched. I don’t even know how much of an advantage a deflated ball would give, only that it’s illegal. The problem here is that getting caught cheating twice casts a level of doubt over the rest of their successes. I was willing to ignore Spygate as a rubbish one time thing, but twice caught has instilled just a small nagging doubt. It makes me wonder what they’ve gotten away with. It makes me wonder what other small trickery we haven’t found out. If the Patriots did this on purpose (To be determined I suppose) while being under a microscope, if they were willing to cheat anyway, what else have they done? I had so much respect for the Patriots as an organization even though I was sick of them winning all the time, and now I’m questioning how much of that respect was fair. I’m fine and love it when Belichick finds his crafty loopholes like the one against the Ravens. I’m not fine with them actively crossing the line.

This doesn’t change the Patriots level of success, nor should it. I don’t want to see wins vacated and I’m not going to say the Patriots are only good because they cheat. It just seems like they straddle the line and probably cross over it occasionally. All this did for me was really just remove a fair amount of respect I had for the organization, which isn’t anything in the grand scheme of things. But I’ll never look at them the same way again.

Whoever wrote that is a fuckstick. Anyway, I heard the Brady presser was hilarious, he apparently even invoked ISIS.

[Tsyroc]

No, the allegations apparently cover the kicking balls used by the ravens as well. Link.

Is this the balls the Ravens were using to kick or the one's they were receiving?

If it's the one's they were using to kick and someone from the Patriots had deflated them that is a huge deal since that would mean they were tampering with the other team's equipment.

If they were tampering with the balls that they were kicking I really have to wonder about their thought processes. I mean, the less inflated ball would be more difficult to kick but it might "stick" better when it lands, and might not act in a way that the kick returner was expecting (2 advantages). Does that mean their kicker and punter have specific balls for specific situations. WTH?

The NFL really just needs to go back to providing the balls for the games and tough fucking shit if the QBs don't like how the new balls feel, or grip etc...

[Thanas]

No, the allegations apparently cover the kicking balls used by the ravens as well. Link.

Is this the balls the Ravens were using to kick or the one's they were receiving?

The ones the ravens were using to kick. Though apparently our kicker did not notice any difference, so maybe that was just lousy ST play on our part...but you gotta wonder why Tucker, who nearly always boots them out of the endzone...and Sam Koch, who is probably the best punter in the league, suddenly had their kicks travel shorter distances than usual.

[Havok]

Mangini as DC and Sparano as TE coach and helping out the line. I'll take it.

[Thanas]

We now have statistical proof:

http://www.slate.com/articles/sports/sp ... _2006.html

Dropped Balls

The Patriots became nearly fumble-proof after a 2006 rule change backed by Tom Brady.

hile speculation exists that “Deflategate” was a one-time occurrence, data I introduced last week indicated that the phenomena could have potentially been an ongoing, long-standing issue for the New England Patriots. That possibility now looks much clearer.

Initially, looking at weather data, I noticed the Patriots performed extremely well in the rain, much more so than they were projected to. I followed that up by looking at the fumble data, which showed, regardless of weather or site, that the Patriots prevention of fumbles was nearly impossible. Ironically, both studies saw the same exact starting point: Something started for the Patriots in 2007 that is still going on today.

I wanted to compare the New England Patriots’ fumble rate from 2000, when coach Bill Belichick first arrived in New England, with the rest of the NFL. One thing I found in my prior research was that dome teams fumble substantially less frequently, given that they play at least eight-plus games out of the elements each year. To keep every team on a more level playing field, I eliminated dome teams from the analysis, grabbed only regular season games, and defined plays as pass attempts added with rushes and times sacked. The below results also look only at total fumbles, not just lost fumbles. This brought us to the ability to capture plays per fumble.

To confirm something was dramatically different in New England, starting in 2007 and running through the present, I compared the 2000–06 time period (when the Patriots won all of their Super Bowls) to the 2007–2014 time period. The beauty of data is that results speak for themselves:



This chart is jaw-dropping, and the visual perfectly depicts what happened. From a more technical perspective, John Candido, a data scientist at ZestFinance who is a colleague of mine over at the NFLproject.com website and was also involved in the development of this research, comments:

Based on the assumption that plays per fumble follow a normal distribution, you’d expect to see, according to random fluctuation, the results that the Patriots have gotten since 2007 once in 5,842 instances.

Which in layman’s terms means that this result only being a coincidence is like winning a raffle where you have a 0.0001711874 probability to win. In other words, it’s very unlikely that results this abnormal are only due to the endogenous nature of the game.

While these data do not prove the Patriots deflated footballs starting in 2007, we know they were interested in gaining control of their own footballs in 2006. (This is something I found out after I performed the first two analyses, both of which independently found that something changed starting in 2007.)

In 2006, Tom Brady (and Peyton Manning) lobbied in favor of changing an NFL rule that mandated home teams provided game balls for both teams. Brady wanted the NFL to let every team provide its own footballs to use on offense, even when that team was playing on the road. After Brady and Manning’s efforts, the NFL agreed to change the rule. Prior to that change, there would be relatively little advantage to playing with deflated footballs because both teams would be using the same balls.

“The thing is, every quarterback likes it a little bit different,” Brady said at the time he was pushing for the change. “Some like them blown up a little bit more, some like them a little more thin, some like them a little more new, some like them really broken in.”

You can clearly see the demarcation line on the following two graphs. The data are the same, but details are added in the second graph to provide additional information and context:





Once again, a key takeaway is deadly obvious: Prior to 2007 the Patriots were right in line with the league averages across the other nondome teams. When you look team by team, they literally are in the middle of the pack for most seasons. But starting in 2007, all similarities totally vanish.

The statistical “jump” the Patriots make in the 2006 offseason, from one fumble every 39 plays to one fumble every 76 plays is nothing short of remarkable. Their trend line over this period is not even close to that of the rest of the NFL.

The 2013 season is an oddity in that the Patriots were actually slightly worse than the rest of the NFL. Looking at that season, it’s apparent the reason: Of the Patriots’ 23 fumbles that season, six occurred in a single Sunday night game against the Broncos. That game was played in 22-degree weather, with 22 mph winds, and a wind chill of 6 degrees (cold conditions of this nature causing more fumbles than usual). It was this Week 12 “arctic” game and a Week 17 game against the Bills—which saw four fumbles—that really put the Patriots fumble rates for 2013 out of sync. This is exactly why looking at small sample sets, such as single seasons, is not the preferred method for these types of analyses.

Why are fumbles so important? Because as Bill Belichick knows, perhaps as good as anyone, turnovers usually control game outcomes. Since 2000, teams who won the turnover battle won 79 percent of their games, regardless of any other statistic. It’s clear how vital turnovers should be in the minds of intelligent coaches. As far as turnovers are concerned, the No. 1 issue for a team with a quarterback as skilled and proficient as Tom Brady is not interceptions (because there won’t be many), it’s fumbles.

Many arguments have been raised to try to explain why the Patriots don’t fumble as often as other teams. Many of them are challenged by some of the data. If it were coaching, former players should be able to tell us that Bill Belichick suddenly and drastically changed the way he instructed players to carry the football in the 2006 offseason. But the data show that if mysterious trade secret were delivered, the players forgot about it when they left New England, as their individual fumble rates became drastically worse when playing for other NFL teams.

The bottom line is, something happened in New England. It happened just before the 2007 season, and it completely changed this team. Any NFL investigations into allegations that the Patriots played regularly with deflated footballs would be wise to reference my research herein and to begin starting in 2006. That was when Tom Brady was able to help persuade the NFL to change its rules to allow him (and other quarterbacks) to provide their own footballs for all road games. I will reiterate, this analysis cannot say it was, undoubtedly, illegal football deflation that caused the data abnormalities. But it does conclude that something absolutely changed, and it was not the result of simple random fluctuation.

[Thanas]

[HeadCreeps]

Pretty much.

And his performance there (I'm told, I mean I didn't watch the game) did nothing but increase his number of detractors.

[Thanas]

Let me put it this way - He couldn't have thrown away the game better if he tried. 9/20, 69 yards. LOL.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ear ... owl-field/

dalton makes history by becoming the only pro bowl player to 1) not be able to complete a screen pass and 2) get booed

Read all the way to the end.