The Patriots deflated footballs Sunday night.

Originally posted by Jamespowers:

Originally posted by IEAD:
How about investigating the Seahawks' juiced balls instead.

This^

That.

Call me a 49er homer, but I don't know any other team with such a simplified defensive scheme that can manhandle the entire NFL, relatively injury free, for 2 entire years.

Originally posted by baltien:
Link?

Report: Balls in IND/NE indeed underinflated
Sources tell ESPN that 11 of the 12 New England game balls were inflated significantly less than the league requires during Sunday's AFC Championship Game win over the Colts.


Each team is required to provide their offense's game balls to the referees two hours and 15 minutes before every game. After that inspection, no alterations are allowed. The NFL's investigation reportedly found that the Patriots' footballs were underinflated by 2 pounds per square inch of air less than what's required by the NFL. The speculation is that they did this on purpose so Tom Brady and his receivers would have an easier time throwing/gripping the ball in the rainy conditions. It didn't matter as the Pats physically dominated and whopped the Colts 45-7, but results shouldn't alter intent. Note that in 2007, Bill Belichick was fined $500K for having an assistant spy on the Jets' defensive signals. This time, the team could lose draft picks.
Source: ESPN.com

http://www.rotoworld.com/headlines/nfl/306202/report-balls-in-indne-indeed-underinflated

11 of 12 Pats footballs underinflated

The NFL has found that 11 of 12 of the New England Patriots game balls were inflated significantly less than the NFL requires, league sources involved and familiar with the investigation of Sunday's AFC championship game told ESPN.

The investigation found the footballs were underinflated by 2 pounds per square inch of air less than what's required by NFL regulations during the Pats' 45-7 victory over the Indianapolis Colts, according to sources.

"We are not commenting at this time," said Greg Aiello, the NFL's senior vice president of communications.



http://espn.go.com/boston/story/_/id/12202450/nfl-says-new-england-patriots-had-inflated-footballs-afc-championship-game

Ban Belicheat for at least two years and revoke ALL their 2015 draft picks. I don't care that they won 45-7 or if they won 992-0, cheating is totally unacceptable and it really should void the victory, but it would be too ridiculous to have the Colts in the SB, so there should instead be massive punishment doled out for the future, especially since this is Belicheat's second offense.

This should severely tarnish Brady's legacy as well. Any discussion about him being #1 of all time should be over. No way he didn't know the balls he was throwing were deflated. The Colts DB knew right away just after briefly handling one. And no way this is the first time Belicheat has done this. Brady's whole career should be marked with a huge asterisk.

BOYCOTT THE SUPERBOWL!!!

still rooting for the Patriots. I like that the Patriots try to find any advantage they can. Sometimes they stay w/in the rules, and sometimes they don't. But at least they pull out all the stops in trying to win.
The last couple years of the Harbaugh era saw very little in terms of innovation on either from the special teams or the offense's point of view. Everything was very vanilla.

I would hope that this coaching staff starts thinking about that and implements some of that. It was quite impressive to see Seattle go for the TD of the special teams against the Packers even though they hadn't scored anything till that point and were down by 16 points.

Originally posted by 49er-from-Yavin-IV:

Originally posted by English:

Originally posted by 49er-from-Yavin-IV:
In both cases, whether it happened or not, it is not that big of a deal. Patriots won legitimately. Whether they win in two weeks, we'll see. I hope so, but I'm not going to count the Seahawks out.

With Spygate you call that victory legitimate?

I'll preface everything I have to say with I am no Patriots fan, I will root for them against the Seahawks and I respect the legacies of Belichek and Brady, but I am not a fan.

Their appearances and wins in 3 out of 4 Super Bowls last decade? Yeah, I think they were legit.

It can be argued that they should not have even been in SB XXXVI; the "tuck rule" game against the Raiders -- that was BS, but they can't do anything about flawed NFL rules, or flawed interpretations of flawed rules by flawed referees, etc., etc.

As for the so-called "Spygate" , I don't know that the Patriots did anything that other teams haven't done/weren't doing and I don't know that whatever that was helped or didn't help them to win those 3 SB titles. Maybe it did. It's more likely that every team throughout the NFL's history has tried to get away with something at some point and has usually been successful in doing so. Their "cheating" really helped them in 2002, 2005, and 2006.

I wanted the Panthers to win XXXVIII and they almost did. Same with the Eagles in XXXIX, but that those teams lost is due entirely to their own play and the play of the Patriots on the field -- nothing else.

The "Pats are cheaters" line and its incessant usage comes off as an extreme case of sour grapes to me.

That organization has plenty of detractors and none of those detractors misses an opportunity to spout off at the smallest thing. They'll say that the Patriots haven't won a SB since "Spygate" so that proves everything, while conveniently they forget that the Patriots didn't have the same loaded defenses in SB XLII or XLVI that they had in XXXVI, XXXVIII, and XXXIX.

So long story short, yes, I think the Patriots deserved their SB wins as well as their SB losses. Many, perhaps most, will disagree with me, and so be it.

As a 49er fan, I hope the Patriots prevent the Seahawks from repeating.

Don't forget the refs allowing the pats to bring a SNOW-PLOW on the field DURING a game to make a lane for the field goal kicker. How that was allowed, I have no idea.

This is the best case senario.

The Patriots win the super bowl. They have a big parade and party for a week. Then the NFL comes down and does the following.
a. Takes SUper bowl win away
b. Fines Pats money and draft picks
c. Puts an **** on the other 3 Pats Super Bowls due to spygate
d. Brady and Belichuk are left out of the Hall of Fame due to constant cheating

Originally posted by 24plus25er:

Originally posted by kray28:
Wouldn't surprise me if the refs in charge of checking the balls had money on the game.

Money on the game?!?! What was there to bet on? Everyone knew NE was going to win, deflation or not.

Sometimes I seriously question the knowledge level of the posters on this site.

Originally posted by Canadian9erfan:
This is the best case senario.

The Patriots win the super bowl. They have a big parade and party for a week. The floats fail because they are underinflated. Then the NFL comes down and does the following.
a. Takes SUper bowl win away
b. Fines Pats money and draft picks
c. Puts an **** on the other 3 Pats Super Bowls due to spygate
d. Brady and Belichuk are left out of the Hall of Fame due to constant cheating

Fixed

Ed Bouchette ‏@EdBouchette

Steelers pres Art Rooney met with several of us. He does not know if report is true about DeflateGate but if so Pats will be disciplined

John Tuohy ‏@John_Tuohy 3h3 hours ago
Does a casino owner say, 'Yeah, he counted cards but he won so much it wouldn't have mattered anyway. Let him walk.'? #shrinkage

Does anyone really believe Belicheat would cheat against the Colts but not the Ravens? Everyone knew they'd beat the Colts and that the Ravens were their biggest threat. They were probably cheated out of that game.