Vancanhawksfan":1qrbqfqm said:
I hate cheaters, and if the Patriots are guilty of it I believe the hammer really should come down.
That said I'm going to be a devil's advocate by sharing a thought. Obviously they've been caught in the AFC Championship game. However everyone here is assuming that they must have been doing it for years.
Now the statistics produced above may very well suggest a possible correlation if it can be proven that they were in fact deflating the balls over these years. However the statistics DO NOT PROVE anything.
The reason I still harbor some doubt is this: if the Patriots have been doing this over the course of years, would you not expect that other players such as the wide receivers and running backs would know this was happening too? Some of these players move on to other teams...don't you think that they would raise this issue and blow the whistle against their former team if they knew this was happening?
I can address (guess) about this.
1. Reports are that teams have complained about this before. At least two teams were involved in complaining this time, both the Ravens and Colts. The Colts also are reported to have noticed this in the regular season. In Indy, which proves that the Pats are not doing this for weather concerns.
2. I think fans and most players think about this very differently. Kinda like in Baseball, where players fudge the rules on mitt size, spit on the fingers, stealing signs...it's not that big a deal to the players.
3. The Pats (or Tom) don't, or at least until recently, didn't see it as cheating per se. I can see from Tom''s point of view that when the league started allowing teams to use their own footballs on the road, they were kind of giving team's permission to make the balls the way they like them. I don't think the league has actually thought of this as a big deal, they have been getting complaints and never acted until a team complained mid-game. Baseball is kind of the same, umps may suspect cheating, but rarely act unless the other team complains mid game.
I think the outrage of fans and media is kind of a surprise to the Patriots. When initially asked about it, Tom called it rediculous. I really think he believes it should be the QB prerogative to have the ball the way he wants it.
The lack of fumbles is the reason I suspect Bill is a liar as well.
Now that this has been exposed, players who formerly thought of this as no big deal will talk a bit more. Somebody who knows will say how long it has been happening and we won't have to go by the bits and pieces that are leaking out now.