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JayGlazer
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Breaking news: sources tell @FOXSports the NFL has zeroed in on a locker room attendant w Patriots who allegedly took balls from officials locker room to another area on way to field. Sources say they have interviewed him and additionally have video. Still gauging if any wrong doing occurred with him but he is strong person of interest

Of course. You have ton find someone to pin it on. John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, Osama Bin Laden.
 
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From Day 1, chain-of-custody has been a key to this case ... where do the footballs go once the officials say they are o.k.?

I'll try not to bore everyone with another rant, but geeze, if the Patriots took the approved footballs into a different room and doctored them on their way to the field, we are looking at a premeditated, willful, systematic, conspiratorial form of intentional rule-breaking that ought to result in a very significant penalty.

Between SpyGate and this, it reminds me of 1980's SMU football.
 

bbgun

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Northwoods was nuts and should have been quashed the second someone proposed it , but it's nuttier to think LHO was part of that program.

I'm much more concerned about what the current administration does in public, let alone in private.
 

Doomsday

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true, but it wasn't immediately rejected, either
Kennedy rejected it immediately, and fired his chairman of the joint chiefs, who authored it. Although it did take six weeks before it appeared on his desk.

Can't put the toothpaste back in the tube though - after this was disclosed every terrorist attack on us, every incident, is met with cries of "FAAAAALSE FLAAAAG!"
 
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Stats Show the New England Patriots Became Nearly Fumble-Proof after 2006 Rule Change Proposed by Tom Brady
Posted on January 26, 2015
By Warren Sharp

While speculation exists that “Deflate Gate” was a one time occurrence, data I introduced last week indicated that the phenomena MAY have been an ongoing, long standing issue for the New England Patriots. Today, that possibility looks as clear as day.

Initially, looking at weather data, I noticed the Patriots performed extremely well in the rain, much more so than they were projected. I followed that up by looking at the fumble data, which showed regardless of weather or site, the Patriots prevention of fumbles was nearly impossible. Ironically, both studies saw the same exact starting point: 2007 was the first season where things really changed for the Patriots. Something started in 2007 which is still on-going today.

I wanted to compare the New England Patriots fumble rate from 2000, when HC Bill Belichick first arrived in New England, to the rest of the NFL. Clearly, one thing I found in my prior research was that dome teams fumble substantially less frequently, given they play at least 8+ games out of the elements each year. To keep every team on a more level playing field, I eliminated dome teams from the analysis, grabbed only regular season games, and defined plays as pass attempts+rushes+times sacked. The below results also look only at total fumbles, not just fumbles which are lost. This brought us to the ability to capture touches per fumble.

To really confirm something was dramatically different in New England, starting in 2007 thru present, I compared the 2000-06 time period (when Bill Belichick was their head coach and they won all of their Super Bowls) to the 2007-2014 time period. The beauty of data is the results speak for themselves:

UPDATED-Patriots-Fumble-Rate-Histogram-Comparison-00-06-v-07-141.png

The data is jaw dropping, and this visual perfectly depicts what happened. From a more technical perspective, John Candido, a Data Scientist at ZestFinance who is a colleague of mine over at the NFLproject.com website and was also involved in the development of this research, comments:

Based on the assumption that plays per fumble follow a normal distribution, you’d expect to see, according to random fluctuation, the results that the Patriots have gotten since 2007 once in 5842 instances.

Which in layman’s terms means that this result only being a coincidence, is like winning a raffle where you have a 0.0001711874 probability to win. In other words, it’s very unlikely that results this abnormal are only due to the endogenous nature of the game.

Many of the arguments giving the Patriots the benefit of the doubt are evaporating. While this data does not prove they deflated footballs starting in 2007, we know they were interested in obtaining that ability in 2006. (This is something I found out AFTER I performed the first two analyses, both of which independently found that something changed starting in 2007.)

In 2006, Tom Brady (and Peyton Manning) lobbied in favor of changing a NFL rule, and as a result, the NFL agreed to change policies. Brady wanted the NFL to let EVERY team provide its OWN footballs to use on offense, even when that team was playing on the road. Prior to that year, the HOME team provided ALL the footballs, meaning the home quarterback selected the footballs the ROAD quarterback would play with on offense.

Brady’s quote at the time, when pushing for the change was: “The thing is, every quarterback likes it a little bit different. Some like them blown up a little bit more, some like them a little more thin, some like them a little more new, some like them really broken in.”

Obviously this information, when combined with the data above, is exceedingly compelling. Not only can you visually see the change when aggregating the data into periods of 2000-06 and 2007-14, you can clearly see how it occurs on the following two graphs. The data is the same, but details are added in the second graph to provide additional information and context:

Rates-Compared-Graph-1.pngRates-Compared-Graph-2.png

Once again, a key takeaway is deadly obvious: prior to 2007 the Patriots were RIGHT IN LINE with the league averages across the other non-dome teams. When you look team by team, they literally are in the middle of the pack for most seasons, as the histogram in the very first graphic at the top of this article shows. But starting in 2007, all similarities totally vanish.

The statistical “jump” the Patriots make in the 2006 offseason, from one fumble every 39 plays to one fumble every 76 plays is nothing short of remarkable. Their trendline over this period is not even close to that of the rest of the NFL.

The 2013 season is an oddity in that the Patriots were actually slightly worse than the rest of the NFL. Looking at that season, its apparent the reason: of the Patriots 23 fumbles that season, 6 (over 25%) occurred in a Sunday night game vs the Broncos played in 22 degree weather, with 22 mph winds and a wind chill of 6 degrees. Cold conditions of this nature absolutely cause more fumbles than usual. They fumbled a TOTAL of 5 times in 11 of their 16 games in 2013 (69% of their total games), so it truly was this week 12 “antarctic” game (and a week 17 game vs the Bills which saw 4 fumbles) which really put the Patriots fumble rates for 2013 out of sync. This is exactly why looking at small sample sets, such as single seasons, is not the preferred manner to investigate this analysis.

Why are fumbles so important? Because as Bill Belichick knows, perhaps more so than most NFL coaches due to his understanding of the game – turnovers usually control game outcomes. Since 2000, teams who won the turnover battle won 79% of their games, regardless of ANY other statistic. A 12-5 record equates to 75% wins, so its clear how vital turnovers are in the minds of intelligent coaches. And as far as turnovers are concerned, the number one concern for a team with a quarterback as skilled and proficient as Tom Brady is not interceptions (because there won’t be many), its fumbles.

There are many arguments which have been raised in favor of why the Patriots don’t fumble as often as other teams. Many of them are simply factually incorrect. If it was coaching, former players should be able to tell us that Bill Belichick suddenly and drastically changed the way he instructed players to carry the football in the 2006 offseason. But the data shows that if mysterious trade secret was delivered, the players forgot about it when they left New England, as their individual fumble rates became drastically worse when playing for other NFL teams.

The bottom line is, something happened in New England. It happened just before the 2007 season, and it completely changed this team. While NFL teams apparently are complaining to the league that they felt the Patriots played with deflated footballs during the 2014 season and postseason, all investigations into those allegations would be wise to reference my research herein, and begin the investigation in the 2006. That was when Tom Brady was able to persuade the NFL to change its rules to allow him (and other quarterbacks) to provide their own footballs for all road games. I will reiterate, this analysis cannot say it was, undoubtedly, illegal football deflation which caused the data abnormalities. But it does conclude that something absolutely changed, and it was not the result of simple random fluctuation.
 

ThoughtExperiment

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In 2006, Tom Brady (and Peyton Manning) lobbied in favor of changing a NFL rule, and as a result, the NFL agreed to change policies.
And again, the league never should have allowed this if they truly wanted to stop this type of thing from happening.

I'm sure it was as usual the last many years of the league: They wanted more offense at any cost, so they agreed to let the QB be as comfortable as possible and supply footballs he liked. It's that simple.
 
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The statistics and plotted graphs are interesting, but lost in the presentation is the variation within the league.

For example:

Which and how many other teams have abnormally low fumble rates?

Is there one or more teams who have an abnormally high rate of fumbling? If so, what sort of meaning do you ascribe to that? (bad footballs? intentionally throwing games? etc.)
 
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The graphs only consider non-dome teams... but the top graph shows the fumble rates of the other non-dome teams. There are 23 non-dome teams represented in the graph from 2007 - 2014. The fumble rate of the Patriots is one every 74 touches. The next best team fumbles one of every 56 touches, and the vast majority of them (19) fumble one every 50 touches or less.
 
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Analyst: Patriots Fumble at a ‘Nearly Impossible’ Rate

The Boston Globe
By Nik DeCosta-Klipa @NikDeCostaKlipa
Boston.com Staff | 01.25.15 | 5:32 PM

If Deflategate produced anything of value besides ball jokes and SNL skits, it’s this: during the past five years the Patriots have fumbled at a nearly impossibly low rate, according to football data analyst Warren Sharp. Since 2010, their average plays per fumble lost is 187, compared to the league average of 105. And no one else comes even close. On one hand, a fumble rate that low speaks to the team’s impeccable preparation. On the other, it adds fuel to the accusations of cheating.

This isn’t random chance. As Sharp points out, we would expect this instance to occur once in 16,233.77 chances if fumbles per play follow a normal distribution, “which in layman’s terms means that this result only being a coincidence, is like winning a raffle where you have a 0.0000616 probability to win.” Nearly statistically impossible.

Even looking at total fumbles, not just fumbles lost, the Patriots are the only outdoor team in the last 25 years to average 70 plays per fumble or better, according to Sharp:

“The league average from 2010 to 2014 was 50 plays per fumble. For indoor teams, the average was 55 plays per fumble. For outdoor teams, excluding the Patriots, the average was 46 plays per fumble. The Patriots averaged 73 plays per fumble, almost 60 percent more than outdoor teams and almost 50 percent more than the league average the past five years.”

Maybe the Patriots just target players who are particularly good at holding onto the ball? It’s easy to think that during the offseason and in the draft room, Belichick and friends are scouting players who have a knack for not fumbling.

However, Michael Salfino of the Wall Street Journal looked at Patriots players who, since 2010, have logged significant minutes on other teams to compare fumbles rates. His findings:

“Additionally, according to Stats, LLC, the six players who have played extensively for the Patriots and other teams in this span all fumbled far less frequently wearing the New England uniform. Including recovered fumbles, Danny Amendola, BenJarvus Green-Ellis, Danny Woodhead, Wes Welker, Brandon LaFell and LeGarrette Blount have lost the ball eight times in 1,482 touches for the Patriots since 2010, or once every 185.3 times. For their other teams, they fumbled 22 times in 1,701 touches (once every 77.3).”

So it can’t be merely personnel, right? For example, Green-Ellis didn’t fumble once in 501 touches for the Patriots since 2010. However, during his next two years with the Cincinnati Bengals he fumbled five times in 524 touches.

Likewise, Amendola hasn’t fumbled once in 82 touches with the Patriots, yet had three fumbles in 162 touches with Ram since 2010. During the same time, Woodhead saw his plays-per-fumble decrease from 171 with the Patriots to just 86 with the Chargers. Blount fumbled every 51.8 plays with the Buccaneers and Steelers, but only every 73 plays with New England.

Yet while Welker only lost the ball every 166 touches with the Patriots, he is still yet to fumble (in 122 touches so far) with the Broncos. And LaFell has actually seen his plays-per-fumble decrease to 76 with the Patriots, from 86.5 with the Panthers.

While it isn’t universal for every individual player, Salfino’s larger finding still stands: in the past five years, players fumble significantly less on the Patriots than they do when playing for other teams. Since his initial report, Sharp wrote a supplemental post showing that from 2007-2014, individual Patriots players with more than 300 touches fumbled once every 107 touches, versus every 67 touches when playing for other teams.

So it isn’t strictly personnel. Could it be the coaching?

Despite Stevan Ridley earning a reputation for being fumble-prone, the stats don’t seem to show that he fumbles at a rate particularly higher than league averages. In fact, since 2010, only one team in the league had a better rate: The Atlanta Falcons, who play in a dome, fumbled only once every 80 plays. Besides the Patriots, no other team in the league broke 70 and no other outdoor team had a better rate than 55. Compared to the average fumble rate for the 31 other teams in the league, per touch Ridley actually has a better chance of holding on.

That hasn’t, however, stopped him from being benched—multiple times—for fumbling. Perhaps Belichick has particularly high standards for his players. And we know turnovers are a statistic that Belichick has focused on in the past. It’s not very realistic that it is something he regularly drills in practice and emphasizes, even if it means benching his running back.

Does this apparent strictness from the coach explain the Patriots’ collective tight grip on the football? Perhaps Belichick has just groomed his team into a statistical anomaly when it comes to fumble rate?

Or perhaps something else has been in the works. As Sharp speculates, maybe they’ve invented a “revolutionary in-house way to protect the ball” or they design plays that don’t put players in the position to fumble. Or maybe it’s the ball.

The Patriots have held the best plays per fumble rate since 2007. Sharp also points out this is the first year the Patriots started outperforming in wet weather games. After going 0-2 in 2006, New England has gone an unprecedented 14-1 in Tom Brady wet weather home games (compared to 51-9 in dry weather home games). According to ProFootballReference.com, from 2001 to 2006, Brady averaged 9.8 fumbles per season. From 2007 to 2014, his fumbles per season decreased to 5.3.

Interestingly, one other thing changed the season prior to 2007: the rules. In 2006, Brady and Peyton Manning successfully lobbied the league to allow road team offenses to bring their own balls, breaking from the rule in which the home team provided all 24 balls. You may have heard of this rule change recently in the news again.

Ultimately, the anomaly of the Patriots’ superior fumble avoidance doesn’t prove anything, besides a distinct advantage on their opponents. But whether it’s coaching, play design or PSI, it’s certainly no coincidence.

http://www.boston.com/sports/football/patriots/2015/01/25/patriots-fumble-nearly-impossible-rate/LCgrlUR9qgxDsIgcal9dUI/story.html
Nik DeCosta-Klipa can be reached at n.decosta-klipa@globe.com or @NikDeCostaKlipa
 
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So a Patriots' ball boy reportedly took footballs into bathroom for about 90 seconds.

Is that enough time for one person to deflate 11 balls? Not sure.

If there was another person or two in the bathroom to help, then you could.

90 seconds would be enough time to exchange one set of balls for another. Officials mark the balls with a silver sharpie after approving them. If you have a silver sharpie, it wouldn't be tough to make a similar mark yourself. And if you see the marked footballs ahead of time, you could mark your own to match ahead of time, before making the swap.
 

Bob Sacamano

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So a Patriots' ball boy reportedly took footballs into bathroom for about 90 seconds.

Is that enough time for one person to deflate 11 balls? Not sure.

If there was another person or two in the bathroom to help, then you could.

90 seconds would be enough time to exchange one set of balls for another. Officials mark the balls with a silver sharpie after approving them. If you have a silver sharpie, it wouldn't be tough to make a similar mark yourself. And if you see the marked footballs ahead of time, you could mark your own to match ahead of time, before making the swap.

Fucking fag.
 
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