conspiracy thread dedicated to ridiculousness

I thought I read somewhere that Brad Johnson had his balls deflated and paid people to do it?

 

Not a big baseball fan but the tactic of spitting on, scuffing with an emery board, Vaseline on a regulation ball etc.,, is automatic ejection from the game, they got it right. It's not like N.E. could have whipped the Colts no matter what, it's the how far back does this ball alteration go? When Phil Simms and Troy Aikman call you out, and trust me they embellish his on the field accomplishments to biblical events from the broadcast booth, even they are screaming out liar liar pants on fire in a subdued manner.

 

Yeah, but Jordy Nelson caught a bad case of butterfingers this season.

 

someone had to fill jermichael finley's role. jordy was elected.

 

The only place I heard that was in this forum and no offense but that's not much of a source.

 

One causeses obscenely less fumbling and is illegal though.

*REF*

 

They are not the same thing. One is legal and one is not. That's like saying a pitcher rubbing a baseball in his hands is the same as a pitcher using sandpaper on the ball. They both cause a different degree of the same effect, but one is legal and one isn't.

 

%) *OK* *CRAZY* :! :!

"Bill Belichick quotes science, My Cousin Vinny in bizarre presser
Posted by Darin Gantt on January 24, 2015, 3:26 PM EST
Belichick
AP
The Patriots raised the bar on the normal Friday afternoon news dump, calling a 2:30 p.m. ET press conference on the Saturday before the Super Bowl.

And after making reporters wait 35 minutes, it was coach Bill Belichick taking the podium, to tell reporters, ?I believe 100 percent we have followed every rule to the letter.?

Belichick detailed their process for preparing balls for game day, and he said their process of getting balls ready raised the air pressure by one pound per square inch. He then talked about putting his quarterbacks through a series of tests to see if they could tell the difference in balls at different air pressure.

He insisted the balls weren?t prepared in a heated room, or treated in any unique way.

There was a lot of scientific bluster from Belichick, none of which explained why 11 of his 12 balls weren?t in compliance but all 12 of the Colts? were.

He even quoted the movie My Cousin Vinny, saying he was ?no Mona Lisa Vito,? in terms of ball knowledge compared to Marisa Tomei?s character?s mechanical knowledge.

?I?m embarrassed to talk about the amount of time I?ve put into this, relative to the challenge in front of us,? Belichick said.

In many ways, we all are.

But it?s hard to tell after this press conference that we?re any closer to knowing what happened."

 

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...YZmD3SEhGCNqH5adQ&sig2=-2Kyqt7_i4r93FOKYrtU-Q

 

I did see where some lab simulated the conditions and got balls to drop 2 pounds of pressure. Maybe the Patriots should be hailed as innovators for inflating to low end of acceptable range knowing ball deflates more in cold weather and knowing that would give them an advantage by making the ball easier to hold onto. Apparently the range the NFL wants the ball inflated within is difficult to maintain. I may be persuaded to go back to my original stance that this is all a big diversion from the real corruption in the NFL....

 

1. That argument holds no weight with me. It could be applied to every person or team that ever gets caught doing anything. Anyone who does it should be punished.

2.A couple for you:
a. Benjarvus Green Ellis played 4 years with the Patriots ('08-'11) and never fumbled once in 500+ carries. He went to Cincinnati and fumbled in his second game. Fumbled two more times in his third game.
b. Kevin Faulk played in NE from '99 to '12 (going off memory). Prior to '07 he was fumbling once every 39 touches. From '07 on he fumbled once every 194 touches.
c. Sammy Morris (again off memory) fumbled twice as much (per carry) playing on three other teams than he did as a Patriot.

3. You can't be sure of anything. Some QBs have already said they don't like throwing an inflated ball. For example, Brunel said his ball had to be 13psi. So to say everyone has done it is foolish. They aren't going to do something their QB doesn't want to do.

4. When Tomlin stepped on the field I:
a. Called it embarrassing
b. Argued that it was intentional IMO.
c. Was the first person to post the KDKA footage erasing all doubt as to his innocence.

I believe in fair play and I'm sure as hell not gonna defend my team if they're cheating.

*** I edited the Kevin Faulk info to include touches (receptions).

 

I think CBS had an article and I read it there also.......

 

CBS' (and to be fair everyone else who wrote about) got their information from Rick Stroud at the Tampa Bay Times. He wrote the original article back in 2012 before the 10 year reunion of the Bucs championship and then he put it out again with new info last week. At no point did the original mention air pressure and before he printed last week he asked Johnson about air pressure. He said he never messed with the pressure. His only issue was the ball being slick when taken out of the box rather than being in a used state. In the new article Johnson mentions he talked to Gannon both before the Super Bowl and recently since this story broke and they were in agreement that they didn't want to play with balls that were brand new and slippery.

Say what you want about what Johnson did. Right or wrong, it actually prompted a rule change and since that time Super Bowl QBs haven't faced that dilemma. All the SB balls since SB 37 are now allowed to be broken in by the QBs to avoid the slippery ball.

It's a worthy story and it's obviously very interesting but it simply doesn't compare to what happened in New England before the game, the biggest reason being both QBs don't use the same footballs.

 

I think it's hilarious that Belichek says he made the balls in the worst conditions as possible for the team when practicing but has no idea what psi they need to be at?

 

Ok, I'm back to leaning towards the Patriots being cheaters. Here's the thing, the NFL as we all now know mandates football PSI must be between 12.5 - 13.5. In order to maintain a PSI during a game within 1 pound per square inch, the NFL would have to test the PSI outdoors in game weather because surely the NFL would know if you test it in a 70 degree room indoors and then go outside for a few hours you are going to potentially lose more than 1 pound per square inch. Surely the incompetent, stupid NFL would at least understand that, right, and test these balls OUTSIDE, right? One would have to think so. And especially since the Colts balls remained in the correct PSI range. Think about it, even if the Colts filled their balls to the upper range of PSI at 13.5, if they tested the ball inside then by halftime the balls that were taken outside into 50 degree weather would have dropped more than 1 PSI so they should have been out of spec too. When I first read the below article I thought ok, well, maybe the Patriots are innocent but if they tested the Colts balls inside too then there is no way they would have still been in spec when they took them outside and played a half of football if that same process caused the Patriots balls to drop around 2 PSI. But it still just doesn't add up now does it. I hope after the NFL has taken weeks and weeks to "thoroughly investigate" all of this, that they also explain how the Colts balls could be in spec but the Patriots balls out of spec. My guess is the Patriots did cheat but the NFL will come up with some cock-a-bull story and if the early signs say anything, possibly will throw some ball boy under the bus somehow in some way. LOL like some ball buy is going to F with a football without Tom Brady's instruction.


"Bill Nye says Bill Belichick made no sense

Posted by Mike Florio on January 25, 2015, 10:27 AM EST
Nye
Getty Images
We?ll be posting the entire transcript of Bill Belichick?s Saturday press conference so that anyone interested in reading the whole thing can review it, process it, understand it. One fairly famous scientist who presumably listened to the entire press conference and/or read the transcript already has issued a verdict.

Bill Nye, a mechanical engineer who worked at Boeing before becoming TV?s ?Bill Nye The Science Guy,? appeared on Sunday?s Good Morning America to say Belichick?s explanation ?doesn?t make any sense.?

Another group based in Pittsburgh that includes brainiacs from Carnegie Mellon (somehow, I was admitted there and graduated with a degree a metallurgical engineering and materials sciences and a degree in engineering and public policy) claims that the conditions of the AFC title game would have caused a significant drop in air pressure.

?We took 12 brand new authentic NFL footballs and exposed them to the different elements they would have experienced throughout the game.? said Thomas Healy, founder of HeadSmart Labs and a masters student in mechanical engineering at Carnegie Mellon. ?Out of the twelve footballs we tested, we found that on average, footballs dropped 1.8 PSI when being exposed to dropping temperatures and wet conditions.?

As explained by the group that conducted the simulation: ?During testing, twelve brand new footballs were inflated to 12.5 PSI in a 75 degree Fahrenheit room. This was to imitate the indoor conditions where the referees would have tested the footballs 2 hours and 15 minutes before kickoff. The footballs were then moved to a 50 degree Fahrenheit environment to simulate the temperatures that were experienced throughout the game. In addition, the footballs were dampened to replicate the rainy conditions.?

It?s unclear whether the footballs were placed in a wet, 50-degree environment immediately after testing for a full 135 minutes before kickoff or whether they waited until just before kickoff to move the footballs to the simulated game conditions. It?s also unclear whether the various balls were exposed to the same external forces to which a dozen footballs used by an NFL offense would be exposed when rotated through the first half of a game. It?s also unclear whether re-testing of the footballs was done following the precise duration of the first half of the Colts-Patriots game.

Precision is critical for any scientific experiment. For example, the official kickoff temperature in Foxboro on Sunday was 51 degrees, not 50. To fully simulate the conditions, the test should have occurred at 51 degrees. Also, room temperature typically is 72 degrees, not 75. That results in a four-degree variance, which surely had an impact on the ultimate findings, since pressure and temperature are directly related.

Overlooked by the CMU folks (and Belichick, and others) was the reported ability of the Colts? footballs to remain within the accepted range of 12.5 to 13.5 PSI after the same duration of exposure to the same elements and conditions. If, on average, the footballs tested at a starting PSI lost 1.8 pounds on average (i.e., 14.4 percent of their air pressure), footballs pumped even to the maximum of 13.5 PSI would have lost 1.94 PSI on average, taking them to 11.56, nearly a full bound below the minimum limit.

Look for more scientists in the coming days to emerge from their labs with more experiments and more explanations. Ultimately, the NFL will need to offer a convincing explanation for whatever it was that caused the NFL to hire the guy who performed the Dolphins bullying investigation to get to the bottom of why the Patriots footballs were not within the required specifications."

 

Video shows employee taking 24 balls into bathroom
Posted by Mike Florio on January 26, 2015, 10:55 PM EST
get-attachment
On Monday, Jay Glazer of FOX Sports added the next new big piece of news in #DeflateGate, reporting that the NFL has interviewed a locker room attendant who allegedly took footballs from the officials? locker room after they had been inspected and approved ?to another area on way to field? before the start of the game.

PFT can now contribute additional details to that story.

First, per a league source, the other ?area on way to field? is a bathroom. The bathroom consists of one toilet and one sink and a door that locks from the inside.

Second, according to the same source, the person carried two bags of balls into the bathroom: the 12 balls to be used by the Patriots and the 12 balls to be used by the Colts.

Third, from the same source, the evidence comes from a surveillance video that was discovered by the Patriots and given to the NFL early in the investigation.

Fourth, again from the same source, the video shows the employee in the bathroom for approximately 90 seconds.

Could the employee have fished 12 balls out of a fairly large bag, deflated each of them by two pounds, put them back into the bag, and exited the bathroom in roughly 90 seconds? That question will surely become the centerpiece of the next red state/blue state debate between folks who have determined that the Patriots have done something wrong and those who are staunchly defending the franchise.

And, yes, the photo accompanying this story was taken inside one of the bathrooms at Gillette Stadium. When NBC broadcast the Ravens-Patriots playoff game from Foxboro on January 10, Florio Jr. demanded pictures from the venue. Since he didn?t specify where he wanted them from, I took one inside the bathroom and texted it to him.

He didn?t think it was funny."

 

taking all of the game balls into a bathroom is fishy. The NFL just lets the balls they tested (indoors BTW which is dumbass as well due to the psi issue) go into a bathroom with one guy on their way to the big game? No oversight? Vegas operative? Belicheat operative? Lone deflater? I can't wait to see what bullshit story the NFL tries to sell us when the dust settles on this one