I think if it were any other team than the Patriots it would hardly be an issue. My own take on it is influenced by the fact that they have been in the spotlight for this kind of thing before(rule bending). Even going back to the snowplow game...which was another situation where the HC wasn't even culpable.Mothman wrote:This whole thing seems like a tempest in a teapot to me. I'm not endorsing cheating. The rules are in place and should be enforced but I also think, in the big picture, this is a very minor violation and probably not all that unusual. I think teams and players are constantly doing little things like this to gain whatever slight advantage they believe it gives them (see the link I posted above about the Vikings heating footballs on the sidelines during the Panthers game this season, Warren Sapp's comments about Brad Johnson using pine tar, Johnson's own comments about paying to have footballs scuffed up for the Super Bowl, Aaron Rodgers wanting the ball over-inflated, etc.). In many cases, any advantage provided might be more psychological than anything else. Football history is littered with examples of teams doing whatever they can to gain some sort of competitive advantage.
According to a report on PFT, "there’s no reason to believe the officials should have noticed anything unusual" and, according to a league source, "a pressure difference of one or two pounds would not be obvious, if the official is not specifically looking for it." If that's the case, and the difference in air pressure isn't even noticeable without testing, how significant of an advantage could under-inflated footballs possibly have provided? According to the same report, the officials were aware of the issue in the first half and "the league opted not to stop the game during the first half but to test the balls at halftime". That alone tells me this isn't very significant in terms of impact on the game.
The NFL should determine who was responsible for this, fine or otherwise punish them and then take steps to prevent it from happening again. If this stuff is truly important, regulate it and make it impossible for teams and players to mess with the footballs used in the game. The mere fact that this wasn't being done also tells me it was of minimal importance to just about everyone.
I can't imagine the air pressure creates that big a difference. What surprises me is that teams supply their own balls rather than some league apparatus. That suggests that their is some leeway for "personalizing" the balls in some way...air pressure/scuffing being the most obvious.
It makes me think that the air pressure standard is there more for continuity than to prevent some edge. If you took the standard away teams could inflate the ball however and all have the same edge.
If you are going to make teams provide their own balls why have the pressure standard?...it doesn't make sense now that I really think about it.