NFL Playoffs 2015/Super Bowl XVIX

[obucard]

It's possible we'll learn that Sherman is dealing with a more serious injury than he's letting on following SB XLIX.

Only if he has a bad game.

[MrSaigon]

I got 6 and 2 in my first ever super bowl pool. Boo.

Go kickers.

[Maclowery]

My big box is 0 8 Pats, and I have smaller 5 3 and 2 5 ones. I picked the Seahawks, their over, and the game's over as well. Gambling is funnnn.

[lukethedrifter]

What was he wrong about? He said he didn't think rubbing the football would explain the change in ball pressure.

Still wrong. Dumb scientists.

The Patriots have absorbed a beating in that larger contest, with many scientists concluding that only the surreptitious hiss of air being released from the balls could explain the difference. But now the Patriots have started to rally, and in a big way. Healy, who provided The New York Times with an advance copy of his technical paper on the experiments, concluded that most or all of the deflation could be explained by those environmental effects.

Photo

IDEAL GAS LAW Max Tegmark, an M.I.T. professor of physics, wrote out the equation, below, which was used in initial calculations in the New England case. Credit Julia Robinson for The New York Times
“This analysis looks solid to me,” said Max Tegmark, a professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who reviewed the paper at The Times’s request. “To me, their measurements mean that there’s no evidence of foul play.”

Other evidence is also turning the Patriots’ way. In a usually obscure profession that has received extraordinary attention during the controversy, some academic and research physicists now concede that they made a crucial error in their initial calculations, using an equation called the ideal gas law.

Official Study -- Deflation in NFL Footballs from Weather Conditions

These findings support the fact that due to the rainy conditions and a 25°F decrease in the footballs’ temperatures, it is expected that the footballs would experience a pressure decrease of about 1.82 psi. CLICK TO DOWNLOAD FULL REPORT

[Socnorb11]

Is there an explanation for why the Patriots' ballls were deflated, and the Colts' balls were not?

[Schlich]

Each team plays with their own balls

[lukethedrifter]

Is there an explanation for why the Patriots' ballls were deflated, and the Colts' balls were not?

Do you have the initial pressures of all the balls? Did the Colts inflate them to the ceiling level b/c that's what their QB likes? Did the Pats inflate to the minimum then expose them to the cold, wet climate in order to get the feel their QB likes?

[Schlich]

ah, you meant a Patriots-sponsored explanation.

[lukethedrifter]

So, science then.

[Socnorb11]

Is there an explanation for why the Patriots' ballls were deflated, and the Colts' balls were not?

Do you have the initial pressures of all the balls? Did the Colts inflate them to the ceiling level b/c that's what their QB likes? Did the Pats inflate to the minimum then expose them to the cold, wet climate in order to get the feel their QB likes?

I have none of those answers. I assume the league has all of them, though. I'm also wonder if the ball pressure was checked after the game. We know the balls were re-inflated at halftime. If they held pressure from halftime until the end of the game, then the scientific explanation is shot.

Personally, I think the entire thing is overblown. I'd like to see the Patriots get penalized, but that doesn't mean that they deserve to be penalized. I still hope they win the Super Bowl.