NFL Postseason Megathread: Playoffs in the Post-Orton Era

[Ed Anger]

[sbr]

To me the interesting thing here is the NFL crapping all over themselves yet again.  They were tipped off about the issue and either decided to run a sting operation, or just didn't give a shit.  No one paid extra attention to the balls, they had multiple pressure gauges that read differently on the same balls and no one knows who used which to test anything; no one thought to actually record the starting pressures to check against later.

I think they acted exactly as they should have for the most part.

The Colts raised the issue prior to the game, but had no proof or evidence. So the NFL elected to not do anything out of the ordinary other than normal procedures. All they did was have someone remind the referree to make sure he followed normal protocol for checking the footballs. I think that was a very reasonable response given that the Colts didn't actually have anything other than anecdote.

Nobody "thought" to record the starting pressures because it doesn't matter. You aren't testing the balls to see some particular value, you are just testing to make sure they are valid, within the given range. You really think every game the officials should record the actual pressure of 36 game balls, when never before in the history of the NFL has anyone ever cared what the actual values were? It doesn't matter - the jobs of the officials are to

1. Check each ball.
2. Make sure that if they are not in the right range, they are adjusted to be in the correct range.


There is a presumption here in this process that there isn't, and should not need to be, much concern about someone actively and intentionally cheating. The process is just to make sure that both teams game balls are legal and ready, and adjust those that are not, for whatever reason. This has worked fine for hundreds and hundreds of NFL football games where the home team is not engaged in a conspiracy to modify the game balls.

Further, the referee(s) in question have all stated that all 12 Patriots footballs were at 12.5 or 12.6 PSI after they adjusted the two that were low. Are you suggesting that they are lying, and in fact the balls were lower than that, but they just decided to ignore them and not adjust them for some reason? Why would they do that?

What should the NFL have done differently - for decades the process they have has worked just fine for thousands of game balls. You are saying they "crapped all over themselves" because they haven't been recording the pressure measured for the last 40 years for every game ball of every game?

Once the Colts provided NFL officials with actual balls that appeared to have been tampered with, the NFL officials collected all 24 game balls in question at half time, took them into the locker room, and tested as many as they could in the few minutes they had available. Every single Patriot football was under pressure compared to the original readings. two different guages were used, and it is no surprise that they had slightly different measurements, but both *consistently* made it clear that someone let air out of the Patriots footballs. Again, what should they have done differently? Had a scientific team on standby for every game ready to leap into action and do a perfect lab controlled test on game balls at any moment?

They took the balls into the locker room, grabbed the backup officials, and measured every single ball twice, and recorded the results. What could they have done better in those few minutes they had available?

They didn't have time to measure the Colts balls, but they grabbed four of them and tested them as well. All four measured within acceptable range, with one exception on one gauge, and even that one was only very nominally below range. It is pretty clear that the Colts did NOT tamper with their game balls (nor would they have had any opportunity to anyway, being the visiting team and not having any access to them after they were checked anyway).

What should the NFL have done reasonably better under the circumstances?

The problem with all of this is, is that with the referee's best recollection of which gauge he used pre-game (which is the only best recollection of Anderson that Wells ignored) and the Ideal Gas Law 11 of the 12 Patriots balls were exactly where they would be expected to be at halftime.  So the best recollection of a trusted NFL official and the laws of nature means it is very likely that no air was ever let out of the Patriots balls.  I would say that is a pretty big problem with this entire thing.

I also find it amusing that Wells decided that 11 balls could be deflated by one person in 18 seconds in a bathroom while the entire official corps could only test 16 balls during a 15 minute halftime break.

As for what the NFL could have done differently?  The easy no-brainer one would be to only have one pressure gauge in the building, or if for some reason that is impractical make sure that all gauges show the same readings.  Maybe have someone swing by Dicks Sporting Good and grab a new gauge that doesn't have a "longer crooked needle".  And if your plan was to retest balls later I don't see how recording the psi values of the balls is that onerous a task.  That is all immediate stuff before and during the game.  After the fact the NFL could have done a number of things to keep this silly little incident from blowing up into such a shitstorm.

Dan Wetzel says it best:

This is how the NFL let deflate-gate get out of control and ridiculous

With anger still simmering, an appeal coming and Ted Wells holding a fiery teleconference Tuesday to attack Tom Brady's agent (professionalism straight out of the WWE), it's fair to say we are far from the end of deflate-gate.

A first-year attorney could lampoon Wells' report, and Brady has hired the prominent Jeffrey Kessler, so expect the four-game suspension to be halved on appeal. We'll see about the New England Patriots' lost draft picks and $1 million fine.

Still, at this point it's worth contemplating the totality of evidence, as Wells likes to write. And what's apparent is deflate-gate was more misdemeanor than felony, a molehill that commissioner Roger Goodell's office turned into a mountain via incompetence, vengeance or both.

"It's not ISIS," Tom Brady said back in January.

Wells should have focused on that line rather than whine about Brady not handing over electronic communication that may not exist (did he expect to find a confessional email chain with [email protected]?).

It doesn't matter whether you think Brady and New England are guilty or innocent, punished properly or inappropriately. Me? I go with common sense and common sense says the Patriots' equipment guys did it to gain some advantage and Brady was approving of the act. Yet the biggest take away from this tiresome ordeal is how Goodell's lack of touch, vision, courage and guile created a circus.

Start with this: the story didn't go big until ESPN reported about 24 hours after the game that the NFL had discovered that 11 of the 12 footballs were measured to be more than 2 pounds per square inch below the league minimum of 12.5.

That gave a subject that almost no one knew much about context, significance and potentially sinister intent. ESPN cited a nebulous "league source" at a time when it's believed no one outside the NFL office knew the actual measurements.

Of course, that story wasn't true. It wasn't even close to true. Wells' report showed that none of the footballs, each measured twice, were that underinflated.

At that very moment, the NFL had to know the story wasn't true. Yet it did nothing.

So the league either created a fake story that was extremely prejudicial to the Patriots by leaking inaccurate information or someone else did it and the league office let it run wild rather than correct it with the actual air pressure measurements. It's tough to figure out which scenario is worse for Goodell.

Once it appeared the Patriots were up to something big then the public and media rightfully demanded a serious investigation into what wasn't that serious of a story. Goodell didn't steer this to the truth and away from the heated condemnation of a signature player and the validity of a Super Bowl participant (and soon champion).

He instead commissioned Wells' report, lending credence to a false narrative. Abdicating his authority to Wells led to the build-up for the report, which allowed a pack of Manhattan lawyers to serve as the cops, judge and jury.

There is probably no report without that demonstrably false ESPN story. What would be the point?

Goodell could have looked at the pressure levels, saw that in the context of natural weather-related deflation it was fairly insignificant, doled out some kind of fine or even sanction and killed the kerfuffle in its tracks. It would have saved his league from all sorts of negative headlines and conspiracy theories.

A good commissioner would've done just that. He's supposed to "protect the shield," not provide talk radio fodder. There is just no way Adam Silver, Paul Tagliabue or David Stern lets this go down.

Even more bizarre, an NFL senior vice president emailed a letter to the Patriots stating that "one of the game balls was inflated to 10.1 psi ... [and] in contrast each of the Colts game balls that was inspected met the requirements."

Those assertions were untrue.

No gameball was measured below 10.5 and most were in the 11s, which is within an acceptable range of natural deflation. Three of the four Colts footballs as measured by one gauge were below 12.5, although also within the weather realm (it's uncertain the NFL knew anything about Ideal Gas Law at the time).

Wells' report brushed this off as "miscommunication" but it's quite a miscommunication.

The NFL either had no idea what it was doing and was just making up facts without checking or, in a more draconian reading of it, it was trying to scare and/or silence the franchise into compliance by trumping up evidence.

What's also clear is the NFL never cared about a whole lot about the inflation levels of footballs, probably because it doesn't impact the game very much. The refs check the footballs pregame with a pressure gauge (which vary wildly) and that's about it. It's all a loose guess. In November, when Carolina and Minnesota were caught trying to doctor the footballs by warming them on a cold day, they each got a warning and everyone laughed at the story.

The Colts sent the league an email the week of the AFC title game with concerns about the Pats' footballs. The NFL ignored it, instead employing a process so casual that there is a viable counterargument that the league never even proved the footballs were deflated.

Even then the competitive advantage is debatable, if not negligible. Brady was better in the second half against the Colts. As Peter King points out, across his career he is almost exactly as effective on the road (when Pats personnel would have no access to pregame footballs) as at home (when "The Deflator" might operate).

The Patriots and Brady seemingly deserve some sanction, if only for having someone carry the footballs into a bathroom, but this grew beyond reason.

This wasn't important to the NFL until the NFL retroactively made it important.

Nearly everyone is enjoying the haughty Patriots getting their comeuppance here and that's understandable. However, even if you think in the end Brady was secretly commanding this operation (as I suspect), is this how the commissioner's office should work?

What happens when the next time it's your team's time?

The best thing I saw today on Twitter was someone who said something like (can't find it to get exact quote or source):  The Patriots cheating, the officials screwing up and the NFL bungling the investigation are not mutually exclusive concepts.

[sbr]

I'm not certain, but I doubt other teams inform the Commissioner when they lay their ballboys off in the off-season.

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2015/05/14/the-patriots-fired-the-guys-theyre-passionately-defending-today/

McNally was a gameday temp.  He wasn't getting paid a thing in the offseason, so his "suspension" means status quo.  I don't know if Jastremski is a full-time employee or not, but the league is the organization announcing their suspension and that they cannot be re-employed in any role having to do with preparing footballs.  Why gig the Patriots for this?

Neither of these guys are ballboys, by the way.

The league may have announced a suspension but McNally and  Jastremski were suspended by the Patriots after the Wells Report was released.

And I know they aren't ballboys but it seems fitting to call them a silly name during such a silly story; Equipment Manager and Locker Room Attendant sound to formal for this nonsense.

[The Minsky Moment]

The Chargers did cover up their actions and obstructed the NFL's investigation.

Did you actually look up this episode yourself and find out what happened or are you just reading second-hand what Patriopologists are writing about it?  Because in fact there is no comparison.

My initial reaction was that the penalty was disproportionately harsh but the more BS special pleading I hear from the Pats side the more I am starting to wonder whether this was a message that needed to be sent after all.

[The Minsky Moment]

BTW in my book Ted Wells has infinitely more credibility than anyone associated with the Patriots organization.

[Berkut]

The problem with all of this is, is that with the referee's best recollection of which gauge he used pre-game (which is the only best recollection of Anderson that Wells ignored) and the Ideal Gas Law 11 of the 12 Patriots balls were exactly where they would be expected to be at halftime.

That is simply not true. The report states that given a starting pressure of 12.5, the balls should have been between 11.32 and 11.52 - if they had been measured on the field, of course. They were actually measured back in the locker room some 15 minutes after being removed from the field, so should probably be a little bit higher, if anything. There were some balls that were below 11 on both gauges. How could that be possible if air was not let out of them?

https://espnfivethirtyeight.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/screen_shot_2015-05-06_at_1-58-19_pm-e1430940873607.png?w=610

Ball 2 was 10.85 or 11.2. Ball 4 was 10.7 or 11.0. Ball 10 was 10.5 or 10.9. There is no way to explain that, as the report rightly concluded.

  So the best recollection of a trusted NFL official and the laws of nature means it is very likely that no air was ever let out of the Patriots balls.  I would say that is a pretty big problem with this entire thing.

No, the NFL official in question has not at any time disputed the results of the report.

I also find it amusing that Wells decided that 11 balls could be deflated by one person in 18 seconds in a bathroom while the entire official corps could only test 16 balls during a 15 minute halftime break.

Wow, this is just making shit up at this point. McNally was in the bathroom with the balls he was explicitly not authrorized to have for about 100 seconds. Plenty of time to stick a needle in 12 footballs.

And the game officials were not involved in testing the balls at halftime, they don't have time for that as they are busy with other duties. That was done by two of the backup officials on the game with some help from the NFL staff at the game. And I find it not at all hard to believe that carefully measuring and recording information takes some time. The idea that it takes some amount of time to do one task, and different amount of time to do another task being evidence that the one task could never have happened is rather ludicrous.

Unless you believe...what? That they really did test more balls at halftime, but are now lying about it? What is it that you don't believe, that McNally could not have deflated 12 balls in 100 seconds (I can assure you it is easily done, and you can easily test that yourself), or that they are lying about how long it took them to carefully measure each ball twice and record the results?

As for what the NFL could have done differently?  The easy no-brainer one would be to only have one pressure gauge in the building, or if for some reason that is impractical make sure that all gauges show the same readings.

So the NFL, prior to knowing this would be an issue at all, should have pro-actively taken it upon themselves to search every NFL stadium to make sure there is only one gauge in it? Or gone into the air pressure gauge business to design a perfect gauge that records values consistently across every gauge and user?

  Maybe have someone swing by Dicks Sporting Good and grab a new gauge that doesn't have a "longer crooked needle". 

Hell, they probably will at this point. But since they have never in decades of playing hundreds  of games had a problem with having the officials just bring a gauge with them, or absent that having the home team simply provide a gauge, how would they have been able to do this at this game without your ability to predict the future?

And if your plan was to retest balls later I don't see how recording the psi values of the balls is that onerous a task.

There is no plan to retest balls later when the initial measurements are taken, as I explained already. The initial measurements are simply to ensure the balls are legal, not to use as evidence in some 1 in 10,000 case where it turns out a team is cheating. And yes, it would most certainly be an onerous task to ask the officials to right a bunch of stuff down that has absolutely no value whatesoever beyond removing some fake objection Patriot's fans might raise when they are caught cheating.

Because even in this case, having Andersen right down "12.5" 12 times in a log book would provide zero additional information than what we have already. We already know what the values were, unless you think Andersen was lying when he said he measure all 12 balls, found 10 of them in the 12.5-12.6 range, 2 lower, and adjusted those two to 12.5.

  That is all immediate stuff before and during the game.  After the fact the NFL could have done a number of things to keep this silly little incident from blowing up into such a shitstorm.

It is only a shitstorm because the Patriots are making it one.

[Berkut]

The Chargers did cover up their actions and obstructed the NFL's investigation.

Did you actually look up this episode yourself and find out what happened or are you just reading second-hand what Patriopologists are writing about it?  Because in fact there is no comparison.

This reminds me of how Suh apologists tried to spin his actions - "Oh, but the NFL is a violent game, players take little extra shots at each other all the time!".

No, there is absolutely no comparison. Not every action that falls under the generic term "Messing with the game balls" is the same.

[Berkut]

If you actually read the Wells report, specifically the appendix, where they go into great details about all the test they did, it is pretty conclusive. Explonent actually went out and ran simulations where they replicated the exact sequence for both sets of balls. In each case, the results matched what would be both expected given the understanding of the science (IE, the game ball pressure drop was consistent and predictable), and matched the observed drop in the Colts balls that were tested (and since it is known that the Colts game balls were certainly NOT tampered with, since there would be no opportunity for them to do so).

They could not reasonably replicate, absent actually letting air out of the balls, the drops measured by the Patrios balls, even if you assume that one gauge or the other gauge did all the pre-game measuring.

[Berkut]

FiveThirtyEight had an interesting little discussion around this - no surpris e that the stats experts in sports found the report completly convincing. Of course, they are just part of the conspiracy to get the Patriots, I imagine.

They brought up some interesting points about the study of Patriot fumble rates as well:

cwick: Left unaddressed is whether deflated balls had been helping the Patriots win — do we have any better sense for that now than we did before? Because before we thought this was isolated to just the Colts game, which they won handily. But now it seems like this was about Tom Brady's preferences in more than just that game.

benm: I think the much-maligned study by Warren Sharp about the Patriots having a low fumble rate should be taken more seriously, for sure. I mean, though it had flaws, at a very minimum that author correctly identified that the Patriots fumble rate has been absurdly small. I did my own calculations using binomial and Poisson models and found the same.



benc: NOW this is a 538 chat!

benm: But the fun part is when you get all Bayesian about it. As I said at the time, the existence of the Patriots' extremely low fumble rate, as a Bayesian matter, makes it much more likely that the Patriots were intentionally cheating – even though the link between fumble rates and inflation levels is only speculative. That's the beauty of Bayesianism. But it gets better: Now that it seems likely that the Patriots were violating the rules to gain an advantage, the fact that they also had an extremely low fumble rate makes it more likely that the relationship between inflation levels and fumbling is real – and more likely that the Patriots have materially benefited from their cheating.

[grumbler]

The league may have announced a suspension but McNally and  Jastremski were suspended by the Patriots after the Wells Report was released.

I can't find any report from the Patriots on this at all.  Can you link me up?

I mean, it sounds to me like the NFL said that they are not to be allowed to do their jobs.  The Patriots "suspending" them because the NFL won't let them do their jobs is rather understandable - if the Pat's don't, then they are defying the commissioner.

BTW, I hope you understand that all of this discussion is just to jerk Berkut around.  No one could challenge his precious bullshit Wells report for any intellectual reasons whatsoever.  Not even Nobel prize winning scientists.

[grumbler]

BTW in my book Ted Wells has infinitely more credibility than anyone associated with the Patriots organization.

He used to in my book, as well.  His selection of data to fit the predetermined conclusion of the NFL front office kinda dinged his rep.  But, he did the job he was told to do, so he couldn't do more than ding.

[Berkut]

BTW, I hope you understand that all of this discussion is just to jerk Berkut around.

Nice to clear that up.

[Berkut]

Man, the more I read in this report, the more amusing it is to see people pick out little pieces in order to pretend like the entire thing is all bullshit.

The ridiculous level of detail and effort they went to evaluate some footballs is an indication of

A) How hard they tried to head off exactly this kind of nit picking, and

B) How much work professionals can go to when someone with deep pockets asks for a report, they bill hourly, and there isn't any limit to the cost.

Just a sample:

Gauge-to-Gauge Variability and Accuracy
The following set of experiments was performed to address the following two questions:
1. If multiple gauges, including the Game Day Gauges, are used to measure an identical
pressure, what is the variability of readings among all of the gauges? Another way of posing
this question is "What is the precision of these gauges?"
2. If the Game Day and Exemplar Gauges are used to measure a pressure for which the
true value is known, how close do their readings come to the true pressure? That is, how
accurate (or true) are these gauges?19
Experimental Procedure
To determine both the precision and accuracy of the gauges, a fixture with a common manifold
was constructed that allowed for multiple Exemplar Gauges to simultaneously be exposed to
common temperature and pressure conditions. A single high-accuracy gauge (Omega DPG4000-
30) with NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) traceable calibration was also
connected to the manifold to record actual pressure data (for the remainder of this report, this will
be referred to as the "Master Gauge"). The test fixture with Exemplar Gauges and the Master
Gauge attached to the manifold is shown in Figure 5.
19 The usage of precision, accuracy, and true in this context are in accordance with the terminology of ISO Standard 5725-1.
MAY 6, 2015 19
Figure 5. The gauge-to-gauge repeatability experiment setup with multiple Exemplar Gauges,
Game Day Gauges (not shown), and a Master Gauge connected to a manifold such
that all gauges are exposed to identical pressures.
A computer controlled regulator was used to adjust the air pressure within the manifold. The
manifold was pressurized to a nominal pressure of 13.00 psig, and held for several seconds
until the pressure readings on all gauges settled to their final respective values. Once the readings
remained constant, the values for each gauge were recorded. The pressure was then vented, and
all Exemplar Gauges were power cycled and the Master Gauge re-zeroed. The manifold was then
re-pressurized to 13.00 psig and the above procedure was repeated. Each set of 10 gauges went
through 10 pressurization and recording cycles. Overall, 50 Exemplar Gauges were analyzed
using this method, in five sets of ten gauges. The Game Day Gauges were also subjected to this
analysis.
Results and Discussion
The data in Figure 6 show the results of the above experiments. The plot on the left shows the
variation in average readings generated when the Exemplar Gauges were compared to the
Master Gauge. On the right, the variation within a gauge (i.e., gauge repeatability) is shown.
The data indicate that although the gauges tended to over- or underestimate the true pressure, the
measurements recorded by an individual gauge were self-consistent. In other words, an individual
gauge may read slightly incorrectly as compared to the Master Gauge, but that error is consistent
MAY 6, 2015 20
for all readings taken by that particular gauge.20 This held true for the Game Day Gauges: the
Logo Gauge generally overestimated the Master Gauge by ~0.3-0.4 psig and the Non-Logo
Gauge generally read slightly below the Master Gauge by ~0.07 psig, but both gauges were
self-consistent.21, 22

Listening to sbr and Tim and grumbler pick out particular data points while ignoring the overall conclusions is like listening to YECers point out that since two carbon dating methods predict a rock is either 4 billion or 4.3 billion years old, then clearly we can go with the 6000 year old bible as the definitive answer.

[sbr]

The league may have announced a suspension but McNally and  Jastremski were suspended by the Patriots after the Wells Report was released.

I can't find any report from the Patriots on this at all.  Can you link me up?

I mean, it sounds to me like the NFL said that they are not to be allowed to do their jobs.  The Patriots "suspending" them because the NFL won't let them do their jobs is rather understandable - if the Pat's don't, then they are defying the commissioner.

BTW, I hope you understand that all of this discussion is just to jerk Berkut around.  No one could challenge his precious bullshit Wells report for any intellectual reasons whatsoever.  Not even Nobel prize winning scientists.

From the ProFootballTalk post I linked to earlier:

"Patriots owner Robert Kraft advised commissioner Roger Goodell last week that Patriots employees John Jastremski and James McNally have been indefinitely suspended without pay by the club, effective on May 6th," the league's release last week read.

Though the league has to reinstate them, so it might be splitting hairs deciding whether the Patriots suspended them on their own accord or because the league told them to.

[sbr]

That is simply not true. The report states that given a starting pressure of 12.5, the balls should have been between 11.32 and 11.52 - if they had been measured on the field, of course. They were actually measured back in the locker room some 15 minutes after being removed from the field, so should probably be a little bit higher, if anything. There were some balls that were below 11 on both gauges. How could that be possible if air was not let out of them?

https://espnfivethirtyeight.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/screen_shot_2015-05-06_at_1-58-19_pm-e1430940873607.png?w=610

Ball 2 was 10.85 or 11.2. Ball 4 was 10.7 or 11.0. Ball 10 was 10.5 or 10.9. There is no way to explain that, as the report rightly concluded.

Well the Nobel Prize winning Chemist disagrees with you and the report so I don't have much to say.

No, the NFL official in question has not at any time disputed the results of the report.

  Of course he hasn't, being an NFL referee is a pretty good gig. You think this is the hill he would die on for that job?  Or do you dispute what  Mr Anderson's said and the report's treatment of those recollections?

Wow, this is just making shit up at this point. McNally was in the bathroom with the balls he was explicitly not authrorized to have for about 100 seconds. Plenty of time to stick a needle in 12 footballs.

And the game officials were not involved in testing the balls at halftime, they don't have time for that as they are busy with other duties. That was done by two of the backup officials on the game with some help from the NFL staff at the game. And I find it not at all hard to believe that carefully measuring and recording information takes some time. The idea that it takes some amount of time to do one task, and different amount of time to do another task being evidence that the one task could never have happened is rather ludicrous.

Unless you believe...what? That they really did test more balls at halftime, but are now lying about it? What is it that you don't believe, that McNally could not have deflated 12 balls in 100 seconds (I can assure you it is easily done, and you can easily test that yourself), or that they are lying about how long it took them to carefully measure each ball twice and record the results?

That was a typo  , I meant to say 180 seconds, but it appears that would have been wrong too.

Out of curiosity, what would the backup officials normally be doing during halftime?  I would think they could squeeze in the time to check 24 footballs.

So the NFL, prior to knowing this would be an issue at all, should have pro-actively taken it upon themselves to search every NFL stadium to make sure there is only one gauge in it? Or gone into the air pressure gauge business to design a perfect gauge that records values consistently across every gauge and user?

But it wasn't prior to knowing, they knew well before the game that the Colts asked them to keep track of the air pressure of the balls during the game.

Hell, they probably will at this point. But since they have never in decades of playing hundreds  of games had a problem with having the officials just bring a gauge with them, or absent that having the home team simply provide a gauge, how would they have been able to do this at this game without your ability to predict the future?

I would say they never cared enough before, not that they never had the problem before.

There is no plan to retest balls later when the initial measurements are taken, as I explained already. The initial measurements are simply to ensure the balls are legal, not to use as evidence in some 1 in 10,000 case where it turns out a team is cheating. And yes, it would most certainly be an onerous task to ask the officials to right a bunch of stuff down that has absolutely no value whatesoever beyond removing some fake objection Patriot's fans might raise when they are caught cheating.

Because even in this case, having Andersen right down "12.5" 12 times in a log book would provide zero additional information than what we have already. We already know what the values were, unless you think Andersen was lying when he said he measure all 12 balls, found 10 of them in the 12.5-12.6 range, 2 lower, and adjusted those two to 12.5.

Sure, normally but this wasn't a normal situation.  The Colts asked the NFL to keep an eye on the air pressure in the balls.  Is re-testing at halftime normal?  If not then I don't see how talking about the " decades of playing hundreds  of games" is relevant.

It is only a shitstorm because the Patriots are making it one.

Yeah, OK.