Lena's Mud and Goodell's Balls - A Brief Commentary

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by pgellis

Peter, I think you are wrong. Even if the officials noticed something, they need a team to make a complaint. It's much like in baseball last year when Michael Pineda had about a pound of pine tar on his neck. It may have been apparent to the umpires, but they needed the Red Sox to make a formal complaint before they could do anything.
Once the Colts intercepted a pass, they made their complaint.

To blame the officials does not lessen the fact that the Patriots cheated.

So an NFL referee notices that there is something wrong with a game ball, and he is powerless to do anything about it? I haven't consulted the rulebook but that is very hard to fathom and if so it's a really stupid rule.

By the way my point is not to blame the officials but to suggest that this supposed deflation may not even have been perceptible.

Finally, they could have put a grapefruit out there and Brady would have outplayed Luck.

[frankbmd]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

So an NFL referee notices that there is something wrong with a game ball, and he is powerless to do anything about it? I haven't consulted the rulebook but that is very hard to fathom and if so it's a really stupid rule.

By the way my point is not to blame the officials but to suggest that this supposed deflation may not even have been perceptible.

Finally, they could have put a grapefruit out there and Brady would have outplayed Luck.

And if they kicked a field goal, the holder would be juiced?

[HRBAKER]

The Patriots must have also figured out a way to overinflate the Colts balls.

[clydepepper]

Am I the only one who never even knew that each team uses their own footballs while on offense? How strange is that? ESPN was discussing how it would never fly in either basketball or baseball. They surmised that the reasoning behind it was to keep all of thee quarterbacks happy.

They also brought up the fact that Brady was 11-for21 with one TD and one interception in the first half with the lower pressured balls and 12-for-14 with two touchdowns, no interceptions and twice as much yardage in the second half with the correctly pressurized footballs.

The questions are: If such a rule exists, but isn't enforced, then why even have the rule and if such a rule is broken what- if any should be the penalty. ESPN was stating that since it's Belichick, and since he has 'a past history of deception' the penalty should be sizable.

My question is: Isn't this just the minutia meant for a slow sports news day?

[frankbmd]

Originally Posted by HRBAKER

The Patriots must have also figured out a way to overinflate the Colts balls.

That's called epididymitis, Jeff.

[steve B]

From a couple articles the penalty appears to be $25000 for altering a game ball. Or 275,000 for eleven. (I see no mention of any bargain for an even dozen like donuts, there would be if I wrote the rules )

It will be interesting to see if they go beyond what the rules call for.

From comments from players especially quarterbacks, the rule appears to be almost universally ignored.

Steve B

[pgellis]

Originally Posted by steve B

From a couple articles the penalty appears to be $25000 for altering a game ball. Or 275,000 for eleven. (I see no mention of any bargain for an even dozen like donuts, there would be if I wrote the rules )

It will be interesting to see if they go beyond what the rules call for.

From comments from players especially quarterbacks, the rule appears to be almost universally ignored.

Steve B

Steve, you are just plain wrong with that. The $25,000 fine is the "minimum" penalty, not the only penalty.

And the rule is not ignored. I believe that QBs may alter balls before they bring them to officials, but once they are checked, 99.9% of teams/QBs do not then go back to them and alter them. That is what is being accused here.

[Runscott]

Originally Posted by pgellis

I believe that QBs may alter balls before they bring them to officials,...

Phil - that's standard protocol for all teams. I did extensive research on this, as well as handling of 'K Balls', last year. I wrote a yet-to-be-published article regarding it, but that's another story.

One of the things I did was to buy a new NFL football and prepare it as best I could, for 'game' use. It was a grueling experience involving wet towels, driers, heavy objects, etc. I wish we had known about this stuff when I was a kid - it really helps the 'play' of the ball, but then again - I only ever owned one new football until this most recent acquisition. I based some of my effort on the following article, but there are many others:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/24/sp...king.html?_r=0