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NFL Releases Deflategate Report
_xeno_ writes: You may remember back in February that Slashdot covered the NFL asking Columbia University for help investigating Deflategate, a scandal where the New England Patriots were caught deflating their footballs in order to make them easier to catch. The Patriots claimed this was simply a result of the weather, while their opponents disagreed. Well, it's been months, but we finally have our answer: the balls were, in fact, knowingly deflated by the Patriots (to no one's surprise). And while science can explain a little deflation, it cannot explain the amount of deflation seen during the game. Which isn't stopping Boston fans from attacking the science. The report stops short of certainty, though, concluding rather that deliberate underinflation was "more likely than not." Not everyone agrees that a conspiracy is necessary to account for the measured pressure readings.
No surprise they can't understand science. Have you met the average football fan?
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
The NFL should provide all game balls, selected randomly prior to each use. Bringing your own game balls is a pretty obvious vector for manipulating the game.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
Can we please stop tacking -gate on to the end of every scandal?
It's not clever when everyone is doing it, especially with trivial crap like this.
It's a report written by a lawyer. "More probably than not" is a legal term meaning "guilty in the civil sense, but not in the criminal sense." Essentially the lawyers writing the report are saying "yes, they're definitely guilty, but I'm not willing to say this meets the standards of criminal justice."
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
It's time to put a stop to it, too. We need to organize. #gategate
McNally (4:39:40pm): Nice dude....jimmy needs some kicks....lets make a deal.....come on help the deflator
Why is this story here?
What is next a Real Housewives story?
Roger Goodell is pretty well known for loving the Patriots, so it's very hard to believe that he would hire a biased research firm to prove there was cheating.. If anything I'd expect him to hire a firm which would prove there wasn't cheating!
This space for rent, inquire within.
The difference between (+5, Insightful) and (-1, Offtopic) is knowing which thread you're posting on. ;P
Can we please stop tacking -gate on to the end of every scandal?
It's not clever when everyone is doing it, especially with trivial crap like this.
Totally agreed. Gategate needs to stop now.
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
DeflateAnd
DeflateNand.
DeflateOr.
DeflateNor.
DeflateXor
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
At least the political stuff, the spying stuff, etc. is 'stuff that matters'. This? Just bandwagon jumping clickbait. Is there no way this story could have been spun to include testing standards, analysis of effect on the game, or something even vaguely, remotely applicable to the audience of this site?
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Non-trolls recognize that ineffective cheating is cheating nonetheless and fully punishable.
If there's any irony, it's that the Pats cheat so hard when, frankly, they don't have to. They really are that good. But then they cheapen their reputation by being dirty and underhanded.
It's a huge and deep-seated inferiority complex, masked with bravado, but completely unjustified.... they'd be every bit as successful if they chose to really be the nice guys.
I just don't get it.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
This only means they didn't need to cheat to win that specific game. There is a preponderance of evidence that they were both knowingly and intentionally breaking the rules. This is called cheating to most people who aren't from the New England area. There is an established pattern of cheating through the entire season, which throws into question their "championship".
I know right? You'd almost think that the original hotel was named 'Water'...
Yes. Let's call it the War on Gate.
The score of the game was 45-7. The Patriots only scored 17 points in the 1st half, when the under-inflated footballs were discovered. The patriots scored their remaining 28 points in the 2nd half with normally inflated footballs. The 1 or 2 under-inflated balls that were used had minimal impact on the result of the game, even in gambling terms, as the Patriots beat the spread by 38 points. I'm not condoning cheating, but in this instance, it appeared to have been completely unnecessary from the start, so the level of coverage a trivial matter like this is getting is ridiculous.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
Not only experience.
Some of the old dudes also lift heavier tasks that might be to abstract for the kid.
But there is balance between flexibility of younger employees and the greater salary of seasoned employees.
It depends a lot on what your company does.
Well, dammit, I clicked the wrong one again. Can one of you kids get over here and show me how to delete this post and put it on the right thread showing that old people know how to use computers as well as young ones?
Do you have ESP?
Sadly, no, I don't think we can.
-gate has apparently become cultural shorthand for or "scandal". Some people probably don't even know the origins of it any more.
I fear it's cromulency is no longer up for debate, even if it doesn't embiggen the language.
I think we're stuck with at this point.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
I very rarely complain that a story doesn't belong on Slashdot, but this time I will, because this is probably the least Slashdot-worthy story I've seen yet.
This is not news for nerds. This does not matter.
This could be worth of Slashdot if were were discussing the science, the need for proper scientific method, etc. But , much like sports reporters, a lot of people are blowing by this because the bias is that sports and science do not mix.
- It's interesting that the scientific firm used to back up the findings of the report once produced reports that second hand smoke didn't cause cancer
- It's interesting that the report relies on the Refs remembering the starting PSI values. We know just how unreliable memory is
- From a scientific standpoint, it would be trivial to rip apart the findings of the report
Yes. Let's call it the War on Gate.
Let it be known that I was for it before I was against it. #warongategate
Nothing posted to
"If any reporter adds -gate to a scandal, it means the scandal isn't worth mentioning"
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Or maybe they cheat 20 different ways, and they only got caught on one. Maybe they really suck when they stop cheating entirely.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
Not that you are guilty of all of what follows, but I have to point out the obvious.
Should a shot put be what ever size and shape someone else wants, or standard? How about a discus? Javelin? Don't want to compare to Olympic sports, how about NBA. Can a team inflate their balls to a different pressure than the other team, or wear them a certain way to gain an advantage? It is all standardized to make the competition as fair as possible.
The lengths that people will go to excuse a lack of fairness is really amazing. The lengths that people will go to in an effort of excusing cheating is just as amazing, but a bit more appalling.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
I understand. But you asked whether it mattered, and my point is that's a very different question than "is it likely to have made a difference."
You can't say, "this would almost certainly have made no difference, so there was in practical terms no harm done," because the whole point of football is to see improbable plays shift the tide of fortune back and forth. It may be highly improbable that Colts fans were robbed of a victory, but it's quite possible that they were robbed of a memorable play. If the standard is "no foul if it produces the expected result" is the standard, you might as well watch WWE instead of NFL.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
College football is a big money business. Players bring in big money for their schools. The players have to keep up a minimum GPA or they are not allowed to play. If they don't play the school doesn't do as well and loses money. So the schools "help" the players by making sure they keep up their GPA. Help meaning they steer them towards fluff courses. At the end of it they give them a diploma, basically as payback for all the money they helped the school earn.
You are painting with an awfully broad brush there my friend. The real picture is FAR more complicated than you paint it. How do I know? I was a Division 1 college athlete. (wrestling if you care) Yes there are some schools that in football and basketball seriously bend or just plain ignore the rules in the pursuit of wins. Others do quite well and actually do have high academic standards. I can assure you that you won't find players at schools like Northwestern or Stanford getting cut a lot of slack in the classroom. While the NCAA is a hugely hypocritical organization, most college athletes are legitimately there to try to get a degree. The ones that aren't tend to either not graduate at all or for a very few leave early for a pro draft. The ones that shouldn't be there tend to wash out or leave before graduation.
Claiming that they have earned the diploma in any real academic sense is laughable.
Then you don't know what you are talking about. Had you bothered to actually look you would find rather few examples of college athletes being given degrees that they didn't actually earn. Don't be so quick to assume that everyone who plays college sports is a dumb jock who couldn't possibly have earned their degree.