As Americans, we are prone to loving an intense game of football. The love of football ranges from college teams to the professional teams like the New England Patriots. There seems to be quite the upheaval of controversy brewing with this team after a recent event, wherein the deflation of the footballs used in a certain game was questioned.
The controversy happened during the AFC (American Football Conference), where the Patriots won 45-7 against the Indianapolis Colts. Tom Brady, the Patriots quarterback, gave the ball to their equipment manager, which eventually led to the NFL Director of Operations taking a look. The balls were tested at halftime and were in fact somewhat deflated. The reason this is seemingly such a big deal is the fact that a lesser inflated ball is easier for the players to handle the ball, aka squeezing the ball and managing somehow to throw it. Along with that, the fact that this was a championship game, and if what was actually said about deflated balls was one hundred percent true, the outcome of the game had the potential to be different. The head coach of the Patriots claims that the balls deflated because of atmospheric pressure. One person I talked to stated that “the Patriots knew about this. They had to practice with these balls beforehand to know how to handle them during this game with the deflation put into place. No wonder the Colts were playing so poorly, they couldn’t get a handle on the ball like they were used to with a regulated, inflated football.”
Now even Bill Nye is getting in on the action by claiming that what the head coach said is false, and also claiming that the football team’s pre-game action, where they rub down the footballs, isn’t enough pressure to deflate the balls that significantly. He claims that a person would need an air pump with a needle to release pressure.
I think the real question is, How big of a deal is this really? Well, if you put it into the perspective of the Colts this is a huge deal because they lost the game by a significant amount. One could also argue that they were just off their game, and even decent teams have their moments of mishap, but they did lose their chance at the Super Bowl, which would make anyone tempted to find a way to get back at the other team.
Even though I don’t watch football that much, nor do I know the logistics of rules, it doesn’t seem to me that anything crucial will be done about this situation, especially not disqualifying the Patriots from the Super Bowl. I do think however that more people will be or already are more suspicious about the integrity of the Patriots.
* all research from http://ESPN.go.com and http://SI.com