Devil and the deep blue sea

[Joe Guy]

It's only a matter of time before the NFL will require all teams to use a Nerf football.

[Guinevere]

Belichik addressing the press now. Essentially, armospheric conditions resp for 1.5 psi drop in balls pressure.

Surely you men understand the shrinkage concept

[BoSoxGal]

Good one, Guin!

[Lord Jim]

Belichik addressing the press now. Essentially, armospheric conditions resp for 1.5 psi drop in balls pressure.

I watched that eye glazing performance, and actually Belichick said that when the balls were measured in the same indoor environment that they were tested in before they were put in play, (which is what happened after the AFC championship game) there was only about half a pound, (eight ounces) of loss in PSI that regular play could account for...(based on his testing, that I assume was not monitored by the league)

That leaves a pound and a half unaccounted for, even by his testing, in 11 balls...

[Big RR]

A few corrections rubato--R is not the Rydberg constant but the universal (ideal) gas constant. And 20 degrees C is 293 degrees Kelvin, not 283 degree K. Also, to be accurate, we should probably use absolute units of pressure as we are looking at the total pressure the gas in the football exerts--the ones reported are the psig, pressure in excess of atmospheric--14.7 psi, and I am assuming atmospheric pressure does not vary over the temperatures measured, so the pressures are 25.2 psia and 27.2 psia.

So we then get t/293=25.2/27.2; making t=271 degrees K, -2 degrees C (around 28 degrees F), which is in the realm of possibility.

Of course, I would think the football would insulate the gas against the cold and the temperature of the gas would be above the ambient temperature, so I still think it is likely some air was let out.

[BoSoxGal]

[BoSoxGal]

[BoSoxGal]

Best summation of the situation yet:

[Lord Jim]

if you're paying the littlest bit of attention, you can see the jealousy spewing everywhere.

That's a fair point...

One of the things I've learned over the past week is that among the fans of AFC teams, The Patriots are just about as disliked as The Cowboys are by fans of NFC teams...(Not just Redskins or even NFC East fans; I learned shortly after moving out here that San Franciscans hate The Cowboys almost as much as Washingtonians... )

But that having been said, none of those haters were on the Patriots sidelines to decompress those balls...

From a PR standpoint on this, the league is between a rock and a hard place...(or if you prefer, the "Devil and the deep blue sea"...)

"Deflategate" is sucking up all of the media oxygen that would usually be focused on the pre-game run up to The Bowl...

In the past week, I haven't seen, read, or heard, one single story about anything else related to the Super Bowl, except for this...

To let you know just how bad this gets, yesterday I watched an interview on CNN with Kevin Costner to discuss his latest film, Black or White...

Even in that interview, Costner got asked about "deflategate"...

This morning, "deflategate" was a topic of discussion on This Week, Face The Nation, and Meet The Press...

This is a PR nightmare for the NFL...

Maybe next week as we get closer to the game the focus on this will recede, but I doubt it will diminish that much....

You've got more than a thousand reporters from all over the world in town to cover this, and given the choice between puff pieces about players with handicapped kids, or players who "came up" from a hard childhood, (which is the sort of TV fare one normally sees prior to a Super Bowl) and a "who done it" mystery involving a coach with a record for skullduggery, I don't think the focus will diminish that much...

This will probably dominate the pre-game show; (hell, they'll probably still be talking about it during the game...)

I'm sure that the Poobahs in the NFL wish they could release a report that essentially said, "This is much ado about nothing; completely innocent occurrence, nobody did anything wrong..."

But obviously they can't do that, or they would have done it...it would clearly be in the best interest of the league to do so...

[oldr_n_wsr]

Just "play dee game"

[MajGenl.Meade]

There should be a poem....

Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright,
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light;
And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout,
But there is no joy in Boston—mighty Brady aired it out

[Lord Jim]

Tomorrow is "media day" for the teams...

Gee whiz, I wonder what 90% of the questions will be about?

[MajGenl.Meade]

They'll hold it outside so maybe only 88.5% of the questions.....

[Sue U]

The (NY) Daily News, classy as ever:

[Guinevere]

Was there any doubt?

[Lord Jim]

Looks to me like they're actually dialing it back...

Only six pages of deflategate coverage...

[Long Run]

All the hyperventillation on this will impact the air pressure to be sure.

[TPFKA@W]

I wonder if atmospheric pressure has an impact on the size of these men's egos?

[Big RR]

Nothing has an effect on the size of their egos; they just get bigger and bigger.

[Lord Jim]

When it comes to NFL football players, their egos are already permanently inflated to the absolute maximum PSI limit. There's no way to increase it.