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NFL Releases Deflategate Report

Posted by timothy on from the now-watch-your-language dept.

_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.

9 of 225 comments (clear)

  1. Boston fans... by Lumpy · · Score: 5, Funny

    No surprise they can't understand science. Have you met the average football fan?

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    1. Re:Boston fans... by halivar · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The average football fan is not an NFL player.

    2. Re:Boston fans... by ageoffri · · Score: 5, Insightful

      And how many earned their college diplomas? After hearing radio interviews of Clinton Portis when he was playing for Denver, there is no way he managed to finish elementary without "help", let alone college. Don't get me wrong there are some players, maybe the majority who have earned their degrees, but there is a good amount who got special help.

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  2. Game balls by bondsbw · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

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    All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
    1. Re:Game balls by _xeno_ · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Guess who pushed that rule through, though.

      Did you guess "the New England Patriots quarterback who we now know was cheating using that rule?"

      Because, guess what, you'd be right!

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      You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
    2. Re:Game balls by Kadagan+AU · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Citation

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  3. Can we please stop tacking -gate on to the end... by alvinrod · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  4. Re:Older = more experience by halivar · · Score: 5, Funny

    The difference between (+5, Insightful) and (-1, Offtopic) is knowing which thread you're posting on. ;P

  5. Re: "More probably than not" is a legal term by jmac_the_man · · Score: 5, Informative
    This isn't true. "More probable than not" is the standard that the NFL judges violations of the Playing Rules by. It approximately means "we've proven guilt sufficiently for us to impose punishment."

    In the American legal system, the analogous state is "guilty."

    Wells didn't have to get to "beyond a reasonable doubt," the standard for a criminal investigation, because that would be gilding the lily. The NFL can impose punishment at "more probably than not."

    This is all explained on the first page of the Wells Report.