NFL Playoffs?, Playoffs?!?!(that's not a catch, that's a catch)

[dps]

It goes along with the narrative that tries to exonerate Brady - why would the NFL just make up this complete fiction of deflated balls out of complete thin air? Because they want to get the Pats so bad!

Poor Tommy is just an innocent victim of the NFL witch hunt, because the NFL hates the Pats because they win so much...

Actually, the narratives of the Brady defenders and the Brady bashers are irrelevant.  Science has shown that there's no case for him or anyone else to answer for.  Not even by the lame-ass "more probable than not because we already decided this" standards for conviction in the NFL front office.

Sorry that that doesn't fit your narrative, either, but there we are.

Bullshit.  The balls the Patriots were using were less inflated than the ones that their opponent was using.  If it were just a matter of the balls naturally losing pressure over time (which of course does happen, which is what the science explains) then both sets of balls would be under-inflated by essentially the same amount.  It's clear that someone with the Patriots deflated the balls;  the only question is the extent of Brady's involvement.

[frunk]

Bullshit.  The balls the Patriots were using were less inflated than the ones that their opponent was using.  If it were just a matter of the balls naturally losing pressure over time (which of course does happen, which is what the science explains) then both sets of balls would be under-inflated by essentially the same amount.  It's clear that someone with the Patriots deflated the balls;  the only question is the extent of Brady's involvement.

They were less but not significantly less, and critically the difference was not larger than the initial permitted range.  If both sets of balls started out within the allowed range but the Colts balls were higher in that range (both legal but not at the same pressure), they'd still be higher after losing pressure due to the conditions.

[Berkut]

Blahblahblah.

The balls were deflated, and everyone knows it. Even grumbler knows it. Even the guys writing the tortured "scientific consensus" articles know it.

[Tonitrus]

Texans vs Raiders in Mexico City next year on a Monday night.  Counting as a Raiders home game.

If I wanted to be a trolling Raider fan...I'd mix their jersey with either a Santa Anna or, probably better, Pancho Villa getup. 

[Valmy]

Texans vs Raiders in Mexico City next year on a Monday night.  Counting as a Raiders home game.

If I wanted to be a trolling Raider fan...I'd mix their jersey with either a Santa Anna or, probably better, Pancho Villa getup. 

Villa invaded New Mexico not Texas

[Tonitrus]

Texans vs Raiders in Mexico City next year on a Monday night.  Counting as a Raiders home game.

If I wanted to be a trolling Raider fan...I'd mix their jersey with either a Santa Anna or, probably better, Pancho Villa getup. 

Villa invaded New Mexico not Texas

Santa Anna then! 

[frunk]

Blahblahblah.

The balls were deflated, and everyone knows it. Even grumbler knows it. Even the guys writing the tortured "scientific consensus" articles know it.

I think Brady is an obsessive asshole who wanted to make sure the balls were at the bottom end of the allowed inflation range, but that's as far as the conspiracy goes. 

[Berkut]

Blahblahblah.

The balls were deflated, and everyone knows it. Even grumbler knows it. Even the guys writing the tortured "scientific consensus" articles know it.

I think Brady is an obsessive asshole who wanted to make sure the balls were at the bottom end of the allowed inflation range, but that's as far as the conspiracy goes. 

Yeah, I am sure the Pats employee just took the balls for no particular reason, and was fired because the Pats wanted to placate the NFL.

[grumbler]

Bullshit.  The balls the Patriots were using were less inflated than the ones that their opponent was using.  If it were just a matter of the balls naturally losing pressure over time (which of course does happen, which is what the science explains) then both sets of balls would be under-inflated by essentially the same amount.  It's clear that someone with the Patriots deflated the balls;  the only question is the extent of Brady's involvement.

That's the problem with reasoning from faith rather than evidence; you end up arguing that "facts" like the one that "The balls the Patriots were using were less inflated than the ones that their opponent was using" as though they were eivdnce for something.  That is not evidence of anything; NFL rules allow teams to inflate balls to different pressures based on QB preference.  Science explains perfectly the actual observations of football pressures at halftime.

So, the statement "It's clear that someone with the Patriots deflated the balls" is a faith-based statement, not a science-based one.

[grumbler]

Blahblahblah.

The balls were deflated, and everyone knows it. Even grumbler knows it. Even the guys writing the tortured "scientific consensus" articles know it.

Good ol' faith-based football! 

When the science is against you, you faith guys argue instead that "everyone knows" that the facts aren't important, and that science should be discarded because it scientific explanations are "tortured."

This happens every time.  At least you guys are predictable.  I'm looking forward to your argument that Brady is guilty because of the "lack of transitional fossils."

[grumbler]

I think Brady is an obsessive asshole who wanted to make sure the balls were at the bottom end of the allowed inflation range, but that's as far as the conspiracy goes.

Exactly.  The fact that the NFL has never released, nor did the Wells report even mention, the pressures measured in the footballs at the end of the game tells you that there was no deliberate deflation of the footballs below the legal limit.  Since the NFL investigators knew exactly what pressure they set the balls to at halftime, if the end-of-game measurements had shown significantly less deflation than the halftime measurements, thus disproving the Ideal gas Law and its explanation of the halftime results, Wells would have mentioned it and it would have been leaked by the commissioner's office.

And we know that they measured the balls at the end of the game, because the NFL investigators would have had to been monumentally stupid or utterly disinterested in the truth to pass up that chance to recreate the suspect event under controlled circumstances.  failing to measure at the end of the second half would have crippled the credibility of the "investigation."

[grumbler]

Yeah, I am sure the Pats employee just took the balls for no particular reason, and was fired because the Pats wanted to placate the NFL.

  The Pats employee took the footballs to the field because that was his job!  He'd been doing this for years. Did you seriously not know this?

And those "fired' guys are still with the Patriots, though McNally, who was a game-day employee, didn't apply for any game-day jobs last year as far as I can tell. You have a strange definition of "fired."

[dps]

Bullshit.  The balls the Patriots were using were less inflated than the ones that their opponent was using.  If it were just a matter of the balls naturally losing pressure over time (which of course does happen, which is what the science explains) then both sets of balls would be under-inflated by essentially the same amount.  It's clear that someone with the Patriots deflated the balls;  the only question is the extent of Brady's involvement.

That's the problem with reasoning from faith rather than evidence; you end up arguing that "facts" like the one that "The balls the Patriots were using were less inflated than the ones that their opponent was using" as though they were eivdnce for something.  That is not evidence of anything; NFL rules allow teams to inflate balls to different pressures based on QB preference.  Science explains perfectly the actual observations of football pressures at halftime.

So, the statement "It's clear that someone with the Patriots deflated the balls" is a faith-based statement, not a science-based one.

No, its a statement based on facts reported by the press.  And while I don't have much faith in the press, those facts haven't been denied, which makes the press credible in this instance.

[grumbler]

No, its a statement based on facts reported by the press.  And while I don't have much faith in the press, those facts haven't been denied, which makes the press credible in this instance.

The "facts" reported in the press include a lot of junk science that has been reputed by real scientists (you can believe the Nobel laureate from MIT or Bill Nye the Science Guy) and a lot of deliberate misinformation "leaked" by the commissioner's office but subsequently shown (even by the commissioner's own hired gun) to have been lies.

I don't know how you "deny" these "facts" you claim have been published by "the press," but do you believe, for instance, the New York Times?
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/23/sports/football/nfl-ignores-ball-deflation-science-at-new-england-patriots-expense.html

John Leonard is a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who roots for the Philadelphia Eagles, listens to sports talk radio when he is exercising, and teaches a course called Measurement and Instrumentation.
...
Based on his study of the data, Leonard now says: "I am convinced that no deflation occurred and that the Patriots are innocent. It never happened."

He is hardly the only scientist to take that position. As Dan Wetzel pointed out in a recent Yahoo Sports column, scientists at Carnegie Mellon, the University of Chicago, Boston College, Rockefeller University, the University of Illinois and Bowdoin College — and others — have all come to the same conclusion.

The "facts" may not have been "denied," but they have been disproven.

[grumbler]

It is interesting how, when you introduce the facts, what you hear from the True Believers is... *crickets*

What's the languish over/under on the number of days before the True Believers start to once again start to proselytize the One True faith, which is that
(1) the Patriots obviously deflated the footballs
(2) Brady is guilty of organizing the cheat, and
(3) people like me are lying when we say we don't believe in the One True Faith, because
(4) "Everyone knows" that 1 and 2 are true and scientific conclusions are mere "Blahblahblah"?

I'm saying seven days.