The amusing tale of "Deflate-Gate", the accusation that the New England Patriots let air out of a dozen footballs at a playoff game this past season against Indianapolis, takes a new turn this week. In a long, long, report from the National Football League's investigator, we find that the Patriots were found by the report to have intentionally let air out of footballs below the legal limit of air pressure.
I read the article and others, and the implications from what the investigator found. Apparently a Jim McNally and a John Jastremski, a lead equipment manager type and an assistant, were assumed to have intentionally let air out of a dozen balls by sticking an inflating needle in the access hole on the balls, in a men's room as they brought the balls to the field for the game.
Without getting into the physics, it's enough to know that there is a range of pressures allowed in game balls, and the 12 balls managed by the Patriots tested at halftime of the game tested somewhat below the lower limit of acceptability. The NFL allows each team to inflate the balls used by their offenses, giving passers who like a different grip some measure of control over the firmness of the ball.
Now ... if you read the words above, and look at the headlines that purport to implicate the quarterback Tom Brady of the reigning Super Bowl champions, you would start with an assumption that Brady had told the equipment staff to let the air out, possibly with a "Nya-ha-ha!" or some other evil interjection. We know from various reports that Brady liked a much softer (i.e., less-inflated) ball. Anything done to the ball would affect Brady and pretty much no one else.
Reading all that, you would think that Brady was the lead in a conspiracy to be able to deliver under-inflated footballs for his own offense's use. Bad, Brady, bad quarterback!
I, however, try to keep an open mind on matters that are this trivial, so I actually read up on what happened and what the investigator's report appeared to say. And this, friends, is what I gleaned.
- Tom Brady likes a softer, less-inflated football to throw.
- Tom Brady is in control of everything he can be with respect to his game, and explained to the equipment staff, possibly in strong, salty language, that the Patriots' footballs on game days needed to be soft, darn it!
- Jim McNally and John Jastremski are relative lackeys in the grand scheme of things, and figured out how to get the footballs down to what they believe to be a Brady-approved pressure, and very likely had done this sort of thing regularly and repeatedly.
- The equipment people did what they thought what they were supposed to do, dragged the ball bag into a men's room on the way to the field, and let some air out of each.
Those are the facts, ma'am. Now, the Patriots-hating part of football fandom may look at all that and call the Patriots cheaters, and I get it. But I, on the other hand, went into the reading with an open mind. I read all that differently.
We're all, I hope, familiar with the concept of "Occam's Razor", the simple assumption that when you are trying to deduce why or how something happened, start with the least complex reason; it's more likely to account for all the circumstances.
Unfortunately, Occam's Razor is often put in a drawer when something juicy like a conspiracy theory pops up. It's that conniving Coach Belichick that pushed the rules every which way he could! It's that too-clever, too-handsome Tom Brady that arranged for all that cheating so the footballs would fit his hand better.
Here's what I read, because I had an open mind going in, and because I believe in Occam's Razor: Brady consistently told his equipment people to keep the footballs softer, and the equipment people did what they were told. Nobody said "cheat"; the equipment people likely had a vague sense of the bottom end of the allowable pressure scale, did their deflating thing each week and that was fine.
Somewhere along the line, they stopped actually measuring the pressure (if they ever did), and went by feel. "Yep, this ought to work for Tom." No one worried about pressure checks with a gauge. At the Indianapolis game, probably no one got around to deflating the footballs, and they got deflated in a hurry, in a men's room, without checking with a gauge. Jim McNally and John Jastremski did what they thought they were supposed to do, likely without any thought about "the rules."
Occam's Razor would say that, while not innocent, the actions of the participants did not comprise some conspiracy to defraud the NFL or even cheat the Colts. A couple guys on staff were setting the pressure of the Patriots' footballs where they thought their quarterback wanted it, and they were sloppy about checking against the allowable range.
You may think what you want. I prefer simply to fit the likeliest scenario into the facts as known.
Copyright 2015 by Robert Sutton
Like what you read here? There's a new post from Bob at www.uberthoughtsUSA.com at 10am Eastern time, every weekday, giving new meaning to "prolific essayist."
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