NFL Postseason Megathread: Playoffs in the Post-Orton Era

[jimmy olsen]

Nothing would have happened before the Superbowl, even if they were silent about it.

[Admiral Yi]

It would have been kind of fun if Goodell had disqualified the Pats and the Neckbeards had gone to the big game instead.

[Syt]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/early-lead/wp/2015/01/25/bill-nye-says-bill-belichick-made-no-sense-on-deflategate-explanation/

Bill Nye says Bill Belichick made no sense on DeflateGate explanation

Bill Nye "the Science Guy" listened to Bill Belichick the football guy give a science-y explanation for how the New England Patriots' footballs became deflated last week and "what he said didn't make any sense."

This is probably the first in a procession of scientists who will bring a whole new level of scrutiny to the subject as Super Bowl XLIX week begins, but Nye, a mechanical engineer who made a name for himself on TV, said he believes that scientific explanations for how the balls lost their loft hold no water. "I'm not too worried about Coach Belichick competing with me," Nye said. "What he said didn't make any sense."

Instead, Nye told "Good Morning America" that he thinks they could have become deflated only by deliberate, manual means. That's the opposite argument Belichick made in a press conference Saturday, when he said that no one had tampered with the balls, deflating them below the NFL's 12.5 pounds per square inch threshold.

To change the pressure in a ball, Nye said, "you need one of these" and held up gauge with a needle.

Nye didn't offer a lot in the way of specifics and, of course, as you weigh his opinion, note that Nye, who formerly worked for Boeing in Seattle, closed with "Go Seahawks."

Among others, the folks at HeadSmart Labs subjected footballs to testing and came up with a different conclusion than Nye.

[jimmy olsen]

Headsmart Labs and whole host of real scientists disagree.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxsXFX3tDpg

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/01/26/scientists-agree-that-football-will-lose-air-pressure-when-moved-cooler-place/2KfFPHn9dARXXCwMgBMSkO/story.html

"Professor Belichick got it exactly right," said Richard P. Binzel, professor of planetary science at MIT.

By Felice J. Freyer
Globe Staff  January 26, 2015

It's basic physics, folks.

Four of the Boston area's best scientific minds, zeroing in on the controversy over the Patriots' use of underinflated footballs, agreed: If you take a ball from a warm place to a cool place, it will lose air pressure.

"Professor Belichick got it exactly right," said Richard P. Binzel, professor of planetary science at MIT, referring to the Patriots' coach, Bill Belichick.

On Saturday, Belichick blamed "atmospheric conditions" for the lower-than-required air pressure in 11 out of 12 Patriot footballs in the team's 45-7 win over the Indianapolis Colts a week ago. Belichick said the game balls had been inflated to the regulation 12.5 to 13.5 pounds per square inch and then got softer in the 51-degree air.

Although not all were ready to endorse the Patriots' theory, the scientists contacted Sunday agreed that the team's explanations do not defy the laws of nature.

"Everything they said doesn't seem impossible to me," said James Bird, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Boston University. "Based on simple ideal-gas-law calculations, I would not be surprised if the Patriots are vindicated. That said, there are many unknowns that can make small differences. . . . "

Binzel said the basic facts apply everywhere. "If you take a football at room temperature and take it outside to a cold playing field, the ball pressure will go down every time," he said. "This is true not just at Foxborough but at every playing field, whether here on earth or all the way out to Pluto."

Binzel calculated that a 5 to 10 percent dip in temperature could bring about a drop of 0.5 to 1.5 pounds per square inch, or psi, in a ball's air pressure.

As for reports that the pressure had dropped by as much as 2 pounds per square inch in some of the balls, Binzel said that "there are a lot of fuzzy numbers" being talked about, and the accuracy of the meters used to measure the footballs is unknown.

Softer footballs are thought to be easier to handle, and the NFL is investigating whether the Patriots deliberately sought an advantage by underinflating the balls.

In his press conference Saturday, Belichick explained that the team had conducted a simulation to determine how the air pressure could have dropped. Along with cooler temperatures, he also offered another factor: The team routinely rubs the balls to break them in, a process that he said can raise the air pressure by heating the ball. Then, he said, the pressure could drop once the balls were turned over to the referees.

Michael J. Naughton, chairman of the physics department at Boston College, called the ball-rubbing argument "technically possible."

"If there's enough friction, it could change the pressure," he said. If the pressure measurements were taken soon after this "rubdown," the balls would be starting out warmer than room temperature, making for a steeper drop in temperature.

"I'm not forming any opinions on what happened," Naughton added. But there is no question that temperature affects pressure, and every football on every football field in history has lost pressure when brought from a warm place to a cooler one, he said.

L. Mahadevan, a professor of applied mathematics, physics, and biology at Harvard, also found Belichick's argument within the realm of possibility. "If the ball was just at regulation pressure indoors after the players had worked with it, it very well could depressurize a little — but that depends on the temperature difference, all other things being equal (which may not be the case)," he wrote in an e-mail.

Mahadevan estimated that a drop from 80 degrees to 53 degrees would cause the pressure to fall from 12.5 to 11.1 pounds per square inch.

Mahadevan's calculations explain only a small drop in pressure, but not one as great as the 2 pounds per square inch that had been reported.

But Bird points out that only small differences are at play, and the measurements are not precise enough to draw conclusions. "If it lost 5 psi, I think this would be a very different conversation," he said.

Under NFL rules, each team supplies their own footballs to the game. The Belichick explanation suggests that the Colts, who have not faced similar questions, may have used balls with higher air pressure.

The Patriots are preparing to face the Seattle Seahawks in Sunday's Super Bowl, even as the air pressure controversy that has come be known as Deflategate continues among fans and scientists.

At least one attempt to reproduce conditions on the football field seems to support the Patriots. HeadSmart Labs, a Pittsburgh research company working on preventing head injuries from sports, said that it conducted a study that found weather and field conditions alone could have lowered the pressure by as much as 1.95 psi.

"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, in a press release. "Out of the 12 footballs we tested, we found that, on average, footballs dropped 1.8 psi when being exposed to dropping temperatures and wet conditions."

Meanwhile, Bill Nye the Science Guy, who has become a minor celebrity for his ability to make science understandable to the masses, couldn't help but weigh in. He told "Good Morning America'' that Belichick's explanation about rubbing the footballs did not make sense.

But Nye added: "I cannot help but say, Go Seahawks."

As for the Boston-area professors, could they be influenced by their football allegiances? They all said no. Naughton is a lifelong Buffalo Bills fan, but said, "My answers to any of these questions don't change regardless of whether I'm a fan or not."

Mahadevan does not follow football at all. Bird says he will probably watch the game but is not passionate about it.

And Binzel acknowledges being a Patriots fan, but notes: "The laws of physics know no fandom. The laws of physics play no favorites."

[garbon]

[alfred russel]

Basically all the scientists were from Boston. The journalist should have gotten feedback from the top science minds in the Colt's geographic footprint, even if the Creationist Museum was closed on the Sunday he wrote the article.

[frunk]

Basically all the scientists were from Boston. The journalist should have gotten feedback from the top science minds in the Colt's geographic footprint, even if the Creationist Museum was closed on the Sunday he wrote the article.

At least one attempt to reproduce conditions on the football field seems to support the Patriots. HeadSmart Labs, a Pittsburgh research company working on preventing head injuries from sports, said that it conducted a study that found weather and field conditions alone could have lowered the pressure by as much as 1.95 psi.

"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, in a press release. "Out of the 12 footballs we tested, we found that, on average, footballs dropped 1.8 psi when being exposed to dropping temperatures and wet conditions."

[jimmy olsen]

Basically all the scientists were from Boston. The journalist should have gotten feedback from the top science minds in the Colt's geographic footprint, even if the Creationist Museum was closed on the Sunday he wrote the article.

Bill Nye is from Seattle, and only has a BS.

The guys in the above article have PhDs, and the lab that did the test is in Pittsburgh.

[alfred russel]

Bill Nye is from Seattle, and only has a BS.

The guys in the above article have PhDs, and the lab that did the test is in Pittsburgh.

Okay Tim, lets get real for a moment.

A doctorate doesn't mean much; I mean Ide has a doctorate too. PhD stands for doctor of philosophy.

This is a question of SCIENCE. The two cents of James Bird, PhD doesn't mean much here. A title like "Bill Nye, the Science Guy" -- This is a question of SCIENCE. What Bill Nye says about science you can take to the bank.

[Admiral Yi]

   Not just a science guy, the Science Guy.

[Syt]

So, if the elements could deflate the balls, why did they only do so for one team?

[jimmy olsen]

So, if the elements could deflate the balls, why did they only do so for one team?

If you fill one up to the league maximum and the league minimum and they fall the same amount one will end up out of the allowed range. it's unlikely they both fell by the same amount however, because that's not taking into account differences in how they prepare the ball, with regards to rubbing it and such.

[Ed Anger]

 Dr Julius Sumner Miller will break the douchebag scientist tie.

[KRonn]

So, if the elements could deflate the balls, why did they only do so for one team?

If you fill one up to the league maximum and the league minimum and they fall the same amount one will end up out of the allowed range. it's unlikely they both fell by the same amount however, because that's not taking into account differences in how they prepare the ball, with regards to rubbing it and such.

It's possible I think, and I'm hearing that the balls were under pressure by one psi, though not sure if that's been verified. The balls wouldn't have made a difference at all but if there was cheating going on I'll be pissed at the Pats. If they cheated and have been in these press meetings and denying it and trying to explain then it'll look a lot worse for them, and rightly so. That said I don't care too much about the inflation of the footballs and apparently neither does the league else they'd have a better way of ensuring things are done right. And I figure other teams likely do the same, as some QBs like the footballs firmer or softer.

[derspiess]

because that's not taking into account differences in how they prepare the ball, with regards to rubbing it and such.

  I bet you still think nothing happened in Spygate, either.