It’s not about hating. It’s about a team that breaks the rules repeatedly. No other team has had any sort of similar infractions organizationally. While overblown...yes, and no. It’s the Super Bowl and everything is overblown. The fact that this happened is no small deal and needs to be dealt with in the offseason..both in punishment and also rules adjustments.
There is a massive advantage to have a ball that’s easier to grip and hold on to. Easier to catch, less likely to fumble.
“There is a massive advantage to have a ball that’s easier to grip and hold on to. Easier to catch, less likely to fumble.”
If that is truly the case for this sport, why check the balls hours before the game and then let them be under control of the respective teams? For a sport with so many commercial breaks, why not just simply check the balls during the game?
FReegards
Breaking the rules ‘repeatedly’??? How did you come up with that?
Perhaps you should peruse this list of the other 31 clubs’ rule violations before passing judgement:
http://patskrieg.com/2015/01/23/31-reasons-to-get-off-your-high-horse-nfl/
I think I will go along with Joe Theisman when he said it was all about nothing as he tried throwing and catching balls at all the talked about pressures as well as wet and said he could not tell the difference. He said actually a wet ball is easier to hold and throw as the leather gets tacky when damp or wet.
I have no proof but I know human nature and believe Occam's Razor applies here. The officials who were charged with inspecting and verifying pressure in 24 balls presented by the two teams, failed to do so. And I think that habit is very widespread over the course of a season. Far easier for them to give the process lip service and say, "Yah, they're ok. Check this one off as 'done'. Let's go have a smoke."
The current delay in anything coming from the NFL is probably due to them trying to find a way to obfuscate and keep hidden the fact that it was the game official's who dropped the ball.
If in fact the Patriots cheated in this way in this game, there’s a damn good chance they were doing it all season, and maybe even in past seasons.
But, of course, as we have been told many times, cheating only matters if it’s a close game.
One of the sportscasters here in Houston (Matt Musil) did an experiment with the football. He started with a ball at 12.5 PSI, which is allegedly Brady's preferred pressure and within the legal limits. He placed the ball in a refrigerator set at the gameday temperature for 90 minutes to simulate the time of a half a game of football. When he removed it, the ball had lost 2.5 PSI of air, which would make it below the legal limit. I think this raises the possibility that there has been a rush to judgment on the matter, rather like the first reports of Trayvon (kid chased by night watchman and gunned down in cold blood) and Michael Brown (kid gunned down with hands in the air while trying to surrender).
Numerous teams have been caught spying. Just off the top of my head, Denver, NY Jets and even my Fins in the last couple of decades. They were organizational infractions that they were punished for.
Bottom line, all teams cheat when they think they can get away with it. Too much money involved and a lack of ethics all around.
Heck, every team has players on performance enhancing drugs. They are all guilty. New England has just had the bad luck of being the most successful team of the last decade and they are hated for it.
No other team has had any sort of similar infractions organizationally.
Just within the last couple of years, you have two teams warming kicking balls, a QB discussing how he submits his favored overinflated balls and gets them through ( which isn’t a violation to submit them), and a team applying stickum to the balls during games (they were fined $20k for not cooperating with the investigation).
The list goes on, including coaches making provably false accusations.
“There is a massive advantage to have a ball that’s easier to grip and hold on to. Easier to catch, less likely to fumble.”
A larger difference is the benefit of practicing with muddy, sopping wet balls.