Tom Brady’s passing lines against the Colts broken down by the first half WITH deflated balls, and the second half without inflated balls (thanks to the refs):
1st Half - 10 completions out of 19 pass attempts, 90 yards, one touchdown, and one interception.
2nd Half - 13 completions out of 16 pass attempts, 136 yards, two touchdowns, and no interceptions.
The Pats will be penalized for violating the rule and for making the NFL and the referees look like dorks once again. The rule will be revised to deal with future attempts to circumvent it. I don’t see that the balls helped Brady at all. My hunch is scuffing up the ball and manipulating it has been going on ever since Pop Warner.
When I read that three other NFL quarterbacks have come out to say they have also used deflated balls because of the gripping and passing concerns, I can’t lose any sleep over this incident. How many of us prefer a certain type of baseball or basketball or football when we play sandlot sports because of the grip?
As a Patriots fan, my reaction is that there’s a lot of stupid hate and hysteria. I posted yesterday about spygate but I’d bet you’ll find nearly everyone believes the Patriots were illegally taping defensive signals when they were actually guilty of taping them from an illegal location. The difference is obvious: you can tape and teams did tape until they switched to radios for defense but the league ruled you had to tape from above the field. I assume that’s because taping on the field gives a better view, but again if you ask 100 people they won’t know taping was legal.
Then there’s the sight of the usual bad losers like Marshall Faulk and Heinz Ward and unconvicted murderer Ray Lewis. Faulk still beats on the drum that the Patriots taped the Rams practice in 2002 though the NFL says that didn’t happen. Ward somehow with no story attached thinks the Patriots must have cheated to beat the Steelers in Pittsburgh because the jerk can’t accept he lost. Competitive? Yes but taken to the level of being a jerk. And taken to that level as well because he uses this to sell himself and get on TV.
Here’s an example of cheating that really does matter: Seattle has led the league in PED use under Pete Carroll. What if that’s a team program? Maybe Richard Sherman’s antics are chemically induced. We know that when users were turned up in San Diego they never performed to that level again. And Pete left a program that was cheating to get away from the suspensions coming. I’m not pointing the finger. I’m saying that outrage is idiotic.
I’m wondering what is so magic about 12.5-13.5 PSI. I don’t see why the NFL doesn’t allow a much wider range of pressure, like 10-15. The lower number needs to be enough to keep the ball reasonably deflated, and the higher number needs to prevent the ball from popping or becoming mis-shaped.
Unlike most ball sports, the defense in football rarely touches the ball, so one team wouldn’t be disadvantaged if they like a different pressure because they have their own.
Perhaps the issue of ball pressure should be revisited, I don’t know. That’s not the point. The point is that the balls (and N.B. – only the Patriot’s balls) did not conform to the league rules which were in place on the day of the game.
Nickel CB Jeremy Lane about Rob Gronkowski: "I actually don't think he's that good," Lane said. "He's OK. He does have a big body. But from what I've seen on tape, he doesn't like you putting your hands on him. So if we put our hands on him and shake him up a little bit, he won't catch that many balls."
Here’s Gronk’s reply: “Everyone’s entitled to their own opinion,” Gronkowski said. “They’ve got a great defense overall. We’ve got to be worried about their whole defense. We’ve got to be sure we practice hard, prepare hard all week so we’re ready to roll.”
Sherman and Revis are widely considered two of the best -- if not the two best -- corners in the league, and the numbers bear that out. Pro Football Focus graded them as the third and fourth best corners in the NFL this season. Opposing quarterbacks posted a 48.4 passer rating when throwing at Sherman, the third-lowest figure in the league, while they rated a 72.6 throwing at Revis, the ninth-lowest figure.
Some of that difference is likely due to their stylistic differences, though. Sherman spends nearly the entirety of every game lined up wide to the defense’s left side of the field. According to ESPN, he lined up there in 91.3 percent of his snaps this season, and of the 2,839 snaps he’s played on defense in his career, he’s been lined up on the defense’s right side for only 90 of them. Seattle’s Cover 3 defense calls for Sherman to patrol one-third of the field, while the opposite corner takes the other outside third and safety Earl Thomas patrols the middle.
Revis has a more varied role. He’s most often in man coverage, and he lines up all over the formation. ESPN noted that he spent 50.5 percent of his snaps this season lined up wide left, 26.2 percent lined up wide right, and 23.3 percent lined up in the slot. Those slot snaps likely contributed to opposing quarterbacks to completing a higher percentage of their passes against Revis (51.9 percent) than they did against Sherman (47.7 percent). The league as a whole completed around 62 percent of its passes this season, while it completed over 66 percent of passes to slot receivers.
I’m not saying it’s the point, I’m just wondering if this is just another example of an overly-anal NFL trying to control stuff that doesn’t really matter or make any difference. Like the color of a player’s shoes.
Yep - that was seriously bonehead of Lane. I have no idea what he was thinking (or if he was). I have never heard him give and interview before. He is normally not much of a talker. I wish he hadn’t said that.
Sherman flipped fields one game when Byron Maxwell was out so as not to leave a rookie over the other team’s top receiver. Normally Seattle plays their D straight up and doesn’t adjust for what the opponent does with different looks. If anything it could help them next week as they will be less likely to fake themselves out on New England’s unconventional sets. They just trust people to do their jobs and don’t get too fancy.
Anyway, when you get to a certain point spitting hairs over stats isn’t productive. Revis and Sherman are both really good and do great jobs as their teams deploy them. The interesting thing from my perspective will be if Seattle can limit the passing damage over the middle of the field.
@notrichenough I 100% agree with you about the NFL’s anal-ness. They seem to place great emphasis on the visuals, and looking attractive. Which in their case means looking uniform. We can’t have players wearing different colored shoes! That would look sloppy! (They’re also not allowed to un-tuck their jerseys, as I understand it, for the same reason). I do see the point of allowing each QB to prep the football however he wants to, but at the same time, professional QBs should have to play to the same standard. Is an underinflated ball a different ball? I’ll have to think about that.
Under inflated balls matter. Even Rodgers corroborates this. Brady came across too flip. His take is nobody died. That may be the case but financially, the outcome of games effect people’s lives. There is a boat load of money involved and many a person can make or lose a fortune.
I had to go back to see if Lane was involved in the “I’m Jimmy” incident during pre-game against the Saints, but it was Irvin. On the upside, Graham was completely shut down, but on the down side Gronk is no Jimmy. Jimmy actually doesn’t block much and can be “soft” - Gronk will block you into next week and runs like Marshawn only about a foot taller. I also worry about two guys with lame arms trying to tackle him. The thing about Gronk is I’m not sure it’s even possible to get inside his head. Still . . . why pull the tiger’s tail? Calls to my local station on my way home were running about 4-1 against Lane.
“The NFL is exceedingly image-conscious in general, but the crotch-grabbing incident is especially heinous because they are in the middle of a multi-year effort to reach out to women, especially white women. They think we white chicks will be horrified by this kind of behavior, so horrified that we’ll turn off the TV.”
You mean, the same white chicks that watch Beyoncé doing a booty dance without a blink of an eye are going to even care or notice a guy briefly grabbing his crotch on the field? My, they must think us such delicate flowers. A guy beating up his wife or girlfriend, we care about, the other stuff is just silly.
Okay, I thought nipplegate was pretty crass. Yuck, all those kids watching. But last year’s halftime with Bruno Mars was soooo awesome, he is such a great performer. Nobody is going to be able to touch his performance. I wonder who is performing this time.
Speaking of Gronk being a great blocker for his teammates-I was checking in at the airport a couple of weeks ago right next to “Moose.” Now that was a self-less, great guy to have in front of you as you rush your way into sports history.
I’m guessing she’ll have an autotune failure gate, if she’s doing it all live and not lip syncing. She seems to have great videos, but I saw her do a live performance once, and it was just bad. Must…have…autotune.