# NFL: Underinflated Balls? **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [January 21, 2015, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nfl-underinflated-balls/710515 "2015-01-21T20:17:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![notfrommensa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f14d63/32.png) [@notfrommensa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/notfrommensa)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2015, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nfl-underinflated-balls/710515/161 "2015-01-25T02:06:22Z")
160 posts in this thread, and no one has mentioned “calibration” Even if a gauge was used last Sunday, when was the last time it was calibrated? I have two tire pressure gauges and I know there is at least a three psi difference. I watched the video in post 159. I don’t think they mentioned calibration either. How does the procedure do against a six sigma gage R&R study? ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2015, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nfl-underinflated-balls/710515/162 "2015-01-25T02:15:52Z")
> [@EllisDee](#): > > Ha! > > Agreed. **Hentor** ’s rhetoric is laughable. Seems pretty obvious he has an axe to grind. **Ellis Dee** , I recall you not being ignorant regarding football. Can you explain the fumble stats? I know you’re not going to claim talent and coaching explain the Patriots’ statistically improbable performance in that regard. Are you? Oh, and “ball sauna”? I’m the one with laughable rhetoric? Sheesh. ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2015, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nfl-underinflated-balls/710515/163 "2015-01-25T03:02:36Z")
The fumble stats article is interesting, but is doing some fast and loose shit. I’d like to see a more rigorous take on those numbers by someone I’d trust (538, perhaps). First, he keeps dancing back and forth between fumbles and fumbles lost. I don’t see how fumbles lost is remotely relevant here. If a team fumbles the ball 20 times in a game but recovers 19 of them, that’d look pretty good on the fumbles lost chart but nobody would accuse the team of keeping a secure grip on the ball. So the first chart where it’s a bazillion to one possibility of happening by chance is highly misleading. You see how Atlanta is a distant 3rd there? Actually they have 15 fewer fumbles over that period than the Pats, and better plays/fumble as well. But when he goes to actual fumbles instead of fumbles lost, he scrubs all the dome teams from the chart. Actually New England has really good ball security, but Atlanta has better and New Orleans is right there as well. This is certainly still remarkable given the Pats’ venue, but it hardly seems impossible to explain without positing cheating. Especially when any RB who fumbles at Foxboro is benched. Second, he keeps using rolling 5-year averages. Now this is good at showing long-term trends, but also lets him populate a couple charts (best 5-year periods wrt plays/fumble) with a whole bunch of overlapping entries from the Pats. So, okay, the Pats have _consistently_ not fumbled much for about 8 years now, so that’s 4 different 5-year periods at the top of the chart. So there may well be other outdoor teams with single seasons with that good ball security, but who don’t maintain it consistently season to season. Maybe there aren’t, but we can’t tell from the data provided. ---
**Author:** ![Bootis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e8c25b/32.png) [@Bootis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bootis)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2015, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nfl-underinflated-balls/710515/164 "2015-01-25T05:40:28Z")
[QUOTE=Hentor the Barbarian] Oh, and “ball sauna”? I’m the one with laughable rhetoric? Sheesh. [/QUOTE] This is beautiful. This sentence is the embodiment of that very rhetoric you’re being called out for. _you_ came up with the term “ball sauna” _you_ attempt, once again, to use only the silly-soundingness of the term _you_ coined intentionally to be silly sounding as your sole argument to dismiss the hypothesis. That is the very definition of substanceless rhetoric. You still haven’t provided any _reasoning_ ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2015, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nfl-underinflated-balls/710515/165 "2015-01-25T05:45:30Z")
> [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](#): > > I know you’re not going to claim talent and coaching explain the Patriots’ statistically improbable performance in that regard. Are you? A quick googling uncovers [this](http://www.teamrankings.com/nfl/stat/fumbles-per-game) cite with “team fumbles per game” rankings: 2014: Vikings ranked #1, Patriots #2 2013: Patriots ranked #24 You’ve already lost me. This “improbably low fumble rate” claim has zero substance, and is clearly just another imaginary offense cooked up by people with an axe to grind. If you’re really dug in on this non-issue, consider the fumble rank of the Indianapolis Colts from 2004-2010, as per that cite: 2004: Colts #4 / Patriots #13 2005: Colts #1 / Patriots #12 2006: Colts #2 / Patriots #22 2007: Colts #2 / Patriots #1 2008: Colts #2 / Patriots #4 2009: Colts #1 / Patriots #4 2010: Colts #4 / Patriots #1 CHEATERS!!!1!!!one!! The Colts are dirty CHEATERS!!! That’s the only POSSIBLE explanation for that run. Only a fool would look at those numbers and conclude anything other than cheating. Right? You have not demonstrated “statistically improbable” in any way, shape or form. I have demonstrated that a team being consistently good at not fumbling over a series of consecutive years isn’t particularly unusual. How long will you grind your axe? It’s not making you look great. Is one example of another team having similar success in recent history not compelling enough? Consider the Atlanta Falcons: 2006: Falcons #3 2007: Falcons #5 2008: Falcons #11 (slackers!) 2009: Falcons #5 2010: Falcons #3 2011: Falcons #2 2012: Falcons #1 CHEATING CHEATERS OF CHEAT-TOWN!!! ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2015, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nfl-underinflated-balls/710515/166 "2015-01-25T06:02:02Z")
> [@Gorsnak](#): > > So, okay, the Pats have _consistently_ not fumbled much for about 8 years now I know you personally aren’t arguing this, so this isn’t directed at you: No, they haven’t. Unless we’re going to willfully ignore last year when the Patriots ranked 24th in team fumbles. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2015, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nfl-underinflated-balls/710515/167 "2015-01-25T06:07:39Z")
> [@notfrommensa](#): > > 160 posts in this thread, and no one has mentioned “calibration” > > Even if a gauge was used last Sunday, when was the last time it was calibrated? I have two tire pressure gauges and I know there is at least a three psi difference. > > I watched the video in post 159. I don’t think they mentioned calibration either. > > How does the procedure do against a six sigma gage R&R study? Considering how the NFL moves the first-down markers, I’m not sure the issue of calibration has ever occurred to them ---
**Author:** ![fachverwirrt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/94ad74/32.png) [@fachverwirrt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fachverwirrt)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2015, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nfl-underinflated-balls/710515/168 "2015-01-25T06:25:07Z")
> [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](#): > > **Ellis Dee** , I recall you not being ignorant regarding football. Can you explain the fumble stats? I know you’re not going to claim talent and coaching explain the Patriots’ statistically improbable performance in that regard. Are you? > > Oh, and “ball sauna”? I’m the one with laughable rhetoric? Sheesh. Nobody (except you) has said anything about “ball saunas”. Nobody has suggested that the Patriots have built some sort of special device or room for inflating balls. The scenario involves inflating balls in a sauna. Saunas are the sort of thing that NFL teams tend to have in their stadiums. You have still not provided any actual argument as to why it’s some sort of magical faerie scenario to take a ball into a sauna and inflate it. ---
**Author:** ![Bootis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e8c25b/32.png) [@Bootis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bootis)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2015, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nfl-underinflated-balls/710515/169 "2015-01-25T06:37:45Z")
The best thing about this whole media manufactured faux outrage deflated ball circus is that it is totally going to backfire. [Public sympathy is actually swinging hard to Belichick](http://espn.go.com/espn/fp/flashPollResultsState?sportIndex=sportsnation&pollId=4679268)and the Patriots as the witch hunt, lynch mob vibe of it all becomes more more focused and disturbing. I think people are starting to see the patriots as the victim in all of this. They came on too strong. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2015, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nfl-underinflated-balls/710515/170 "2015-01-25T12:59:32Z")
> [@EllisDee](#): > > Unless we’re going to willfully ignore last year when the Patriots ranked 24th in team fumbles. How many of those were by Ridley personally? Before Bill benched him, even at one point deactivating him for a game and making him stand on the sideline in street clothes holding a ball all game long? High school shit, yes, but it worked. The Pats do some hard coaching about holding the ball, maybe more than most teams. How was it the ball’s fault that the Colts couldn’t tackle Blount? ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2015, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nfl-underinflated-balls/710515/171 "2015-01-25T13:28:22Z")
Okay I was wrong. **Ellis Dee** isn’t very knowledgeable about football. I guess I was remembering somebody else from past discussions. Do you think “per game” is the relevant unit for fumble risk? If you pay more attention to football, you’ll hear the term “touch”. That represents a more relevant denominator for many statistics. For team fumbles, a team is more likely to fumble the more times they run a play. If you compare numbers of fumbles per game, it will distort comparisons between teams that only run 50 plays in a game and those that run 80. Does that make sense to you? I could explain further if you like. As for why the Falcons and Colts would have fewer fumbles than many other teams in the league, there’s an obvious reason for that. I’ll see if you can think that one out for yourself with a little clue: there are things that happen outside that make it harder to hold on to things. Why would the Colts and Falcons experience those “things” less often than other teams? ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2015, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nfl-underinflated-balls/710515/172 "2015-01-25T13:32:22Z")
> [@EllisDee](#): > > I know you personally aren’t arguing this, so this isn’t directed at you: > > No, they haven’t. Unless we’re going to willfully ignore last year when the Patriots ranked 24th in team fumbles. So that’s why he was using the rolling 5-year averages. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2015, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nfl-underinflated-balls/710515/173 "2015-01-25T14:16:35Z")
> **[Bill Belichick: Patriots Followed NFL Rules, Didn't Heat, Alter Footballs](https://nesn.com/2015/01/bill-belichick-patriots-followed-nfl-rules-didnt-heat-alter-footballs/)** > > FOXBORO, Mass. — DeflateGate, as far as Bill Belichick is concerned, is settled. The New England Patriots didn’t do anything wrong, according to their head cocah. Belichick addressed the media again Saturday to reiterate that his team... So, we can put a fork in the ball sauna hypothesis. Belicheck specifically denied putting the ball in a heated environment. He apparently is blaming… friction. Yet, he also says that officials are instructed to inflate the balls to 12.5. The Patriots ran tests, and even so could only account for a 1.0 psi deflation in the halftime measurement. ---
**Author:** ![Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de053/32.png) [@Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackknifed_Juggernaut)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2015, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nfl-underinflated-balls/710515/174 "2015-01-25T14:17:10Z")
The idea that the Patriots were able to achieve a 10.5 psi using legal means is somewhat plausible, except that I think they would have explained themselves already. Belichick acted like he had no clue about the Patriots pre-game ball-handling procedures, which is uncharacteristic of him since he’s such a micro-manager and that ball pressure appears to be an important issue for most QB’s at the pro level. The only useful thing that came out of Brady’s presser was that he clearly stated that he, himself, did not tamper with the balls. “The Brady doth protest too much?” That’s great, except that no one would have expected him to do te dirty work anyway. My pet theory is that one ball maintained the correct air pressure because Brady was practicing with that one while the other 11 were being deflated. If the investigation doesn’t find anything conclusive, I suspect that Goodell will have no choice but to suspend Belichick for a year with maximum fines and lost draft picks. He’s the boss and there’s precendence with Sean Payton. If enough evidence surfaces that the Patriots did intentionally deflate the balls after the referee inspection, I predict at least a 1-year playoff ban tacked on. ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2015, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nfl-underinflated-balls/710515/175 "2015-01-25T14:22:26Z")
This isn’t the NCAA. I can’t see the NFL banning a team from bowl games, I mean, playoffs. ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2015, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nfl-underinflated-balls/710515/176 "2015-01-25T14:39:26Z")
> [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](#): > > Okay I was wrong. **Ellis Dee** isn’t very knowledgeable about football. I guess I was remembering somebody else from past discussions. > > Do you think “per game” is the relevant unit for fumble risk? If you pay more attention to football, you’ll hear the term “touch”. That represents a more relevant denominator for many statistics. For team fumbles, a team is more likely to fumble the more times they run a play. If you compare numbers of fumbles per game, it will distort comparisons between teams that only run 50 plays in a game and those that run 80. Does that make sense to you? I could explain further if you like. > > As for why the Falcons and Colts would have fewer fumbles than many other teams in the league, there’s an obvious reason for that. I’ll see if you can think that one out for yourself with a little clue: there are things that happen outside that make it harder to hold on to things. Why would the Colts and Falcons experience those “things” less often than other teams? This is nice and all, except that if you take **Ellis Dee** ’s link and combine the fumbles/game with offensive plays/game to get offensive plays/fumble for 2013, you find that New England moves all the way up to… 22nd, behind noted dome teams such as Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Green Bay, and Chicago. There’s actually precious little difference between fumble rankings by game and by plays. The use of fumbles lost by your writer introduces much more distortion than using fumbles/game rather than fumbles/play. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2015, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nfl-underinflated-balls/710515/177 "2015-01-25T15:11:32Z")
So in looking at fumble info, this WSJ article came up. It is a piece focusing on the unbelievable success Benjarvus Green-Ellis was having in NEVER FUMBLING during his NFL career at that point. [http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970204555904577167253671355534](http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970204555904577167253671355534) > [@](#): > > […]After 562 runs, receptions and kickoff returns in his four-year NFL career, he still hasn’t fumbled. Not even once. > > This streak of perfection is the longest tostart an NFL career since the league began tracking fumbles in 1945, according to the NFL. […] > > While Green Ellis has always been stingy with fumbles, his NFL streak wasn’t something the scouts could have predicted. In college, he fumbled 10 times—losing five. That article was written in January of 2012. Green-Ellis went to Cincinnati in the off-season. Where he fumbled 3 times in 300 touches. The following season he fumbled 2 times in 224 touches. [http://m.pfref.com/m?p=XXplayersXXGXXGreeBe00.htm&t=0](http://m.pfref.com/m?p=XXplayersXXGXXGreeBe00.htm&t=0) In college, he had 959 touches, with 10 fumbles. He had 562 touches with the Patriots. So he reliably averages about 1 fumble every 100 touches before the Patriots and after the Patriots. And 0 fumbles ever in four years and over 500 touches with the Patriots, setting an eye catching record for the start of a career. ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2015, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nfl-underinflated-balls/710515/178 "2015-01-25T15:27:32Z")
I’ll see your Green-Eliis and raise you the 2013 season, where the Patriots ranked in the bottom third of the league in fumbles. ---
**Author:** ![BigDadWolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/aeb1de/32.png) [@BigDadWolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigDadWolf)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2015, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nfl-underinflated-balls/710515/179 "2015-01-25T15:55:38Z")
It is time to put this to rest. Consider the following points: 1. The balls have passed inspection **every** time. 2. There is no evidence of any post-inspection ball tampering going back years. Not one former Patriots player, coach, equipment person, or team official has come forward to say they saw it happening, heard about it happening, suspected it may have been happening, or even saw circumstances where it could have happened. 3. Basic physics equations and simple repeatable tests can show that a ball at room “room temperature” can, once introduced to to a colder environment easily lose enough pressure to explain the difference. I put room temperature in quotes because these are locker rooms - not your living room. The temperature is going to vary significantly whether its by the door or by the heater. Unless someone can provide the air temperature inside the both the Patriots and Colts balls along with the air pressure at the time of the of the pregame and half-time inspections then the variance is easily explained. 4. The fumble article is a fine example of looking for and using statistics to justify a predetermined result. Using both fumbles and fumble lost is just bad methodology. As for anything else about the Patriots being better at holding on to the football 1) they are a better coached team than most and 2) its already been established the PATRIOTS LIKE THE BALL AT THE LOWEST END OF THE **LEGAL** RANGE! If this helps the Patriots fumble less then, every other team is free to follow their legal example. 5. Finally - the NFL rules state “The Referee shall be the sole judge as to whether all balls offered for play comply with these specifications”. The officials in every Patriots game handle the ball every play. If the ball had always been under-inflated then they should have noticed. They didn’t. When all this came up I was about ready to throw away my nearly 40 years of allegiance to the Patriots. Now, I hope they go out and beat the sh!t out of the Seahawks. (I don’t think that will happen because the Seahawks are a great team.) But until someone can produce evidence of tampering, I think this is just Patriot haters wanting to hate the Patriots. ---
**Author:** ![Bootis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e8c25b/32.png) [@Bootis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bootis)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2015, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nfl-underinflated-balls/710515/180 "2015-01-25T16:06:58Z")
> [@EllisDee](#): > > I’ll see your Green-Eliis and raise you the 2013 season, where the Patriots ranked in the bottom third of the league in fumbles. I’ll sweeten that pot with the lack of any proof whatsoever that a 10.5 psi football could account for any significant differences in fumbles than a 12.5 ball. And even if it _could_ it has absolutely no bearing on the burden of proof that lower psi ball were achieved, by over and over manually deflating all of the footballs, by hand, in open view, when other completely legal, risk free ways would achieve the exact same effects. You seem to be avoiding that request- you’ve been asked over and over to provide a reasoned explanation of why you believe that manually deflating footballs one by one is the only plausible explanation. But…you…won’t…do…it [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nfl-underinflated-balls/710515.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nfl-underinflated-balls/710515.md?page=10)