I haven't been able to figure out how to interpret the uproar over underinflated footballs and the New England Patriots.
Then I saw this argument from the estimable Stephen Carter:
It’s comfortable for us to tell ourselves that sensible people don’t cheat when they know they’re going to win. But not everybody is sensible. The Watergate crimes continued well beyond the time when it was considered plausible that the Democrats might unseat Richard Nixon. (Edmund Muskie, the candidate Nixon feared most, was long out of the race by June, when the burglary was discovered.)
One recalls Judge Richard Posner’s observation that we seem to view plagiarism committed by successful authors as “a chump’s crime, less likely to reflect a serious larcenous intent than a loose screw.” He adds: “The more successful the writer, the more nutty-seeming the plagiarism.”
But not all cheating is nutty, even when you’re confident. There are those who by constitution and character will continue to press, seeking every possible edge. It never made sense that Dennis Kozlowski and Mark Swartz, both more than handsomely compensated, would loot Tyco to the tune of some $150 million, but the jurors convicted them of doing just that. Sometimes you do it because you can get away with it.
I think that last part is the key. The Patriots win because they press every possible edge. At the margins, it's hard to know how much of an advantage the Patriots would have received, although I'm pretty sure they've tested it out. And it's possible that the Colts were on the trail
because they got a heads-up from the Baltimore Ravens:
According to Jay Glazer of Fox Sports, the Indianapolis Colts were tipped off by the Baltimore Ravens before the AFC championship game about the Patriots possibly altering the air pressure in their footballs. The Ravens lost to the Patriots in a divisional playoff game the week before.
Two things stand out about that report: If true, the Ravens were obviously pretty angry to tip off the Patriots' next opponent, and this would mean it's more than a one-game situation in New England. Unless it's a crazy coincidence that the Ravens assumed the Patriots' game balls were under-inflated when they weren't, told the Colts their hunch, and the championship game happened to be the game in which 11 of the 12 Patriots' game balls were flatter than usual. Of the Patriots' 12 game balls, 11 each had two pounds per square inch less than NFL rules stipulate, as ESPN reported Tuesday.
What do you think? Is it a big deal, or not really?
9 comments:
Millions of dollars, and the integrity of a billion dollar league are on the line. Its a big deal.
I think that if the NFL is concerned about its product, it would mandate flatter balls in bad weather so that the skill performers would perform more skillfully.
Is it blatant gamesmanship on New England's part? No doubt,but the league culture is "don't get caught", not "don't do it." We hear that holding could be called on any given play, yet it isn't. We see jerseys pulled on pass routes and ankles twisted in piles that the officials apparently don't see. The officials handle the ball on every play - they should be alert to this (why the Ravens brought this to the Colts attention and not the leagues's sounds strange to me) and call a penalty. Of course, such an "in game" penalty will have to be invented.
If Tom Brady was in any way complicit (regardless if he was aware of the exact regulations regarding psi, weight, etc.), then yes, it's a huge deal. I'm not saying deflated footballs were the catalyst for the Pats' success all these years (they weren't). But if one knowingly ignores unambiguous rules, the unacceptable sin (within the context of sports) of compromising the game's integrity needs to be addressed via fine, suspension, etc.
All that said, I have *zero* faith that the Goodell regime will not somehow bungle this whole investigation. We'll likely never know what actually happened.
Would the resulting penalty be the same regardless of what Qb is involved?
What if it was Vick, and not Brady? Maybe thats all we need to know about league integrity.
Writing as an avid bicyclist, I would not be surprised if, just as I can tell a properly inflated tire from an underinflated one by grabbing it, someone on the Ravens squad picked a ball up and noticed it was soft.
And the solution here is simple. Let the league provide the game balls, and let each team look at the bin of game balls and select three that they can test.
There seems to be a rush to judgment that not only was this underinflation real and deliberate, but that the coach or QB or team knew of it in advance. Unless, however, the League can prove that someone did something deliberately and colluded with team higher-ups to do it, I think it's a whole lot of raving about nothing at all. No one can even say how this was accomplished, and whether that was some deliberate act of omission or commission to arrive at the result. No criminal, no crime.
There are a lot of little things that aren't a big deal: steroids, abuse, bounties, concussions, etc... Until they are. The NFL is still flying high, but there's no rule that it ever must be so. Other institutions have been known to lose trust and support, after all.
For my part, I'm very turned off by the domestic abuse ads and breast cancer month, and military month, and preachie, preachie, preachie. And all the ads are more than tiresome. Maybe I'll continue to be interested or maybe all these things will just sap the game of its pleasure.
W. B. has a point. I think most of the people criticizing the NFL and the grass it plays on have no interest in the game whatsoever. They see something that non-metrosexual white males enjoy and must find a way to tear it down.
I'm with those not terribly interested in the NFL, but I saw a cool article today that noted that the Patriots get about 50% more touches/fumble than any other team in the league. It's a statistically significant difference, and it started around 2007.
Now it could be improved ball handling techniques, but yes, deflated balls could be something, too.
Again, the NFL needs to take a look at the possibility that the league ought to be providing the game balls, not the teams.
One other way of indicating what's going on; how are the Patriots at field goals and punts? Experience suggests that you'd get less out of that with a deflated ball.
NFL? Meh. Statistics of what's going on? Fascinating!
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