I am a football fan and will continue to be a football fan. I love the Philadelphia Eagles and will root for them forever. All good Eagles fans hate other teams. It's just the way it goes. We hate the Cowboys and the Giants because of inter-division rivalries. Everyone hates the NE PATRIOTS. They are very good, but they CHEAT and they get away with it.

The PATRIOTS smacked the Colts 45-7 to go to the Superbowl in two weeks. During the game a Colts player intercepted the ball and went to the sidelines and said, "That ball feels deflated." And that was the beginning of deflate gate.

Teams provide their own game balls. They have to meet inflation guidelines and 11 or the 12 balls the PATRIOTS were underinflated which makes the ball easier to handle and catch in cold weather.

Tom Brady is 35 years old and has been a qb forever. He would know if a ball was underinflated. But he and coach Bill Belichick deny any knowledge of this.

The link is Troy Aikman's take on the situation.

Aikman on Deflategate: Brady knew and Belichick should burn


By Justin Terranova

Troy Aikman said he believes Tom Brady spearheaded Deflategate and Bill Belichick should pay dearly for it.

The Cowboys great and Fox analyst held nothing back in a Dallas radio interview Thursday when discussing the latest controversy to envelop the Patriots and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell.

“It’s obvious that Tom Brady had something to do with this,” Aikman told the station, according to the Dallas Morning News.

“I know going back to when I played, they’ve loosened up the rules in terms of what each team is able to do with the footballs coming into the game. Used to, the home team provided all the balls. And now, each team brings their footballs the way they like them and break ‘em in. Used to you couldn’t break them in. So for the balls to be deflated, that doesn’t happen unless the quarterback wants that to happen, I can assure you of that. Now the question becomes: Did Bill Belichick know about it.”



http://nypost.com/2015/01/22/aikman-on- ... ould-burn/

Or it's only simple physics? Inflate the ball at room temperature. Take it out to the cold outdoors and the pressure drops... if they were playing in the cold.

Can the deflation be proven as an intentional act? I read somewhere that someone said the team likes their balls at the lowest inflation tolerance. If that is true, then the weather could make a difference, dropping the pressure below the acceptable level. This person (coach?) said they would start inflating a tad over the lowest level to prevent that from happening.

51 degrees on Sunday. Not cold enough to explain the 2 psi that the balls were below the standards.

Ok. There goes that excuse.

Da Qwell Jackson says he did not say the ball was underinflated. He said he didn't notice anything wrong with the ball He said he brought the ball over to the sideline to keep as a souvenir of his first post season interception and because it was thrown by Brady. Now he thinks he'll never get the ball back.

Now the Colts are saying that the Patriots used their ball during the first half, and the league says the ref checked all the balls at halftime and they were all returned to proper inflation before the second half. The Colts also say that there were no problems with the footballs during the game, and that the Patriots beat them by playing better than they did. The referees handle the ball after every play. Surely, if they were able to detect something wrong when they did, they would be able to detect something wrong at any other time as well. The officials must be nearly as used to handling footballs during the game as the players and coaches are.

Obviously something was wrong, but there is no evidence at this time that anyone engaged in any cheating. Let's just wait for the investigation.

Aikman and Brunnell are both going to come out of this looking a little foolish for their over the top comments when everyone in the league is moving a little more cautiously. The press and the haters are jumping to a lot of conclusions.

Must have been a boring game and they had to create some excitement?

Very boring game. Colts looked absolutely awful.

Just looked up the Colts. Thought they were the Baltimore Colts. Guess not, eh?

I read somewhere that someone said the team likes their balls at the lowest inflation tolerance

That actually sounds painful.

What difference would it make if the balls were deflated by 2 pounds. Both teams play with the same ball so there wouldn't be any advantage to deflating it.

In the NHL the home team gets to tilt the ice in their favour. They get to skate downhill that way. It's less tiring.

Sort of true. Each team gets to use their own footballs on offense. Each team has 12 footballs. They are inspected before the game. Special teams (kickers) have their own separate footballs. So really, how much were any deflated footballs actually used in the game? Couldn't be much.

From the sound of it, no deflated balls were used.

The whole thing is inflated!

"Rules for Balls" for your viewing "pleasure" ~ ~ Sooz