OT: More Deflategate information...its getting silly
I don't know if anyone else was listening to Dan Lebatard's show yesterday, but he had a guest on named Warren Sharp who brought up some interesting facts. First he reminded us about the Brady and Peyton Manning led petition of the NFL to allow visiting teams to supply their own footballs for when their offense had the ball. They were successful and we're left with the rule we have today.
Background on the rule change: http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/2015/01/26/tom-brady-deflategate-peyton-manning-rule-change-nfl/22372835/
Then, Mr Sharp did his due dilligence on the Pat's fumble rate since that rule change, which involved some solid statistics work (when I read the words 'distribution' and 'mean' ... I knew I was in the presence of greatness).
Essentially, the result is that the Pats not only have the lowest fumble rate since 2006, the second least fumbling team isn't even close. The chances of the Pats having that low of a fumble rate are extremely slim. He compares it as such: “... 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.”
Link on a Boston.com story: http://www.boston.com/sports/football/patriots/2015/01/25/patriots-fumble-nearly-impossible-rate/LCgrlUR9qgxDsIgcal9dUI/story.html
Finally, an interesting tidbit that ball boys need to go potty too. And to conclude by quoting the article of this piece (http://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nfl/patriots-ball-attendant-just-using-the-bathroom/ar-AA8CEwY)...
"The whole argument is grasping as straws at this point. Now it's just funny."
January 27th, 2015 at 9:54 AM ^
I disagree. This is insignifcant, and sensationally blown way out of proportion.
January 27th, 2015 at 9:27 AM ^
(2) this site's author doesn't specifically claim that fumbles are random; he claims that fumble *recoveries* are random.
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January 27th, 2015 at 9:31 AM ^
1) Very low. But that's one person--these data come from a number of ball carriers and compares their fumble rates with different teams.
2) I think everyone agrees that once the ball is out, recoveries are entirely random. But I think there are good data that fumbles in the first place are have very low year-to-year correlation on teams as well. I could be wrong--I can't seem to pull up Brian's analysis that I'm thinking of right now.
January 27th, 2015 at 9:26 AM ^
are only as good as the statistical model used to generate them. Don't let a tiny p-value impress you...
January 27th, 2015 at 9:39 AM ^
Size Matters
January 27th, 2015 at 9:28 AM ^
It's silly because everyone feels the need to have their own snowflake be seen. Just stop talking about it. Shit.
January 27th, 2015 at 9:33 AM ^
I'm too late to post my usual response, so here is a gif.
January 27th, 2015 at 10:40 AM ^
I was having a down start to me day ... I was feeling uninspired ... then I saw this.
I am now motivated! Damn it, if that bird can overcome explosions and some stacked magazines, then so can I!
Hoorah. Damn the torpedoes ... full speed ahead!
(This GIF is great!)
January 27th, 2015 at 9:36 AM ^
This died for me when wet leather and a 25 degree difference were shown to be enough to account for the 2psi difference. Regardless of what you think they might or might not have done, there is no way that the NFL can prove that they did it on purpose and there is a significant amount of doubt whether they even needed to. Nothing is going to come out of this and it's silly to keep talking about it at this point.
January 27th, 2015 at 9:43 AM ^
"If the weather was what caused 11 of 12 balls to be deflated under 12.5, why did the weather not compromise the 12 second half balls?"
The deflation is a function of the change in temperature and other environmental conditions. The 2 psi drop in the experiments was obtained by inflating the balls at a temperature of 75deg and letting it sit for a couple of hours in 50deg weather. Inflating the balls at 50deg for example, and letting it sit at 50deg is not going to cause the balls to deflate much.
January 27th, 2015 at 9:53 AM ^
And while I'm tired about talking about this, that Sharp piece is a bit misleading. If you look at other fumble statistics like average in-game, home/away splits, etc. oer the same period the Patriots are not light-years ahead of everyone else, and in many respects have the profile of a very good team that doesn't turn the ball over much, just like NO, Indy, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, etc. So outside of players not fumbling the ball on a per-play basis as much as other teams, in no other way is NE particularly unique in terms of fumbles beyond the markers of a good team that doesn't turnt he ball over. They are in no way remarkable in that account for a half-dozen other teams.
January 27th, 2015 at 10:01 AM ^
You say it's getting silly, but bring more attention to this pathetic subject. Also, just stop using "gate" already. Please. Just please.
January 27th, 2015 at 10:03 AM ^
January 27th, 2015 at 1:45 PM ^
Training Wheels?
January 27th, 2015 at 10:03 AM ^
January 27th, 2015 at 10:03 AM ^
January 27th, 2015 at 10:03 AM ^
January 27th, 2015 at 10:03 AM ^
January 27th, 2015 at 10:03 AM ^
January 27th, 2015 at 10:07 AM ^
January 27th, 2015 at 12:30 PM ^
MeanJoe.....This really ISNT that hard.
1. Type your thoughts in the box provided either as a unique post or by hitting "reply" to the post above the one you wish to reply to (as I am now with yours).
2. Click ONCE on the "save" button below.
3. Now this next step is the one you struggle with so please pay close attention.....DO FUCKING NOTHING FOR THE NEXT 10-20 SECONDS WHILE YOUR COMPUTER SPOOLS AND/OR MGOBLOG TRAFFIC PREVENTS THE POST FROM APPEARING IMMEDIATELY. HITTING SAVE OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN SIMPLY CREATES MULTIPLE POSTS OF THE SAME FUCKING THING.
4. I repeat (because I've posted this several times in the past to you because you seemingly cannot remember this....DO FUCKING NOTHING FOR THE NEXT 10-20 SECONDS WHILE YOUR COMPUTER SPOOLS AND/OR MGOBLOG TRAFFIC PREVENTS THE POST FROM APPEARING IMMEDIATELY. HITTING SAVE OVER AND OVER AGAIN SIMPLY CREATES MULTIPLE POSTS OF THE SAME FUCKING THING.
5. Profit.
January 27th, 2015 at 1:42 PM ^
MGrowOld, that is the funniest damn post I've read on here in a while. I nearly pee'd in my pants with laughter.
January 27th, 2015 at 10:10 AM ^
January 27th, 2015 at 10:04 AM ^
but I wish we wouldn't have a stupid topic on every new development in this faux-controversy. Who cares? I also heard the Patriots were calling their opponents bad names. Let's be outraged about that too
January 27th, 2015 at 10:05 AM ^
And yet, with the correctly inflated balls, the Patriots destroyed the Colts in the second half. Logic is not Logicing.
January 27th, 2015 at 10:12 AM ^
ridiculous. You think a ball being 1 psi under regulation creates that? The give of the ball when you squeeze it would change by less than one millimeter when dropping from 12.5 psi to 11.5 psi.
If you think that gives you an eight year run of being the best at not fumbling, I have some ocean front property to sell you in Montana.
January 27th, 2015 at 10:17 AM ^
I will admit that I had a chuckle at the expense of the NFL (this happens a lot lately) when it turned out that they spent money and manpower investigating someone who, as it turns out, had to simply use the bathroom. If the inflation of that poor dude's bladder is worth the NFL's time, then I can show you an organization that has zero perspective on what is important.
January 27th, 2015 at 10:17 AM ^
Is it the Tom Brady connection and the desire to prove one of our own is not guilty? I don't mind the distraction from the countdown to NSD, but I'm just curious.
For my take, unless someone wanted to cause the Patriots to lose and deflated the balls for that purpose, those balls were deflated with the knowledge of what works best for Brady. And if this investigation is going to last past the Super Bowl (ie. Meaning no pre-SB disciplinary action) then ESPN and Co. should channel their inner Richard Sherman. If he knows nothing is going to happen soon thanks in part to the Goodell/Kraft friendship, the media should follow his lead.
January 27th, 2015 at 10:48 AM ^
the NFL should change the rules to allow teams to inflate their balls to whatever psi they want, so long as they use the same psi the entire game, like the PGA does on using whatever conforming ball a pro wants, so long as it's the same type the whole round. Since each team uses its own balls on offense anyway, the only time it would matter is on a turnover or punt/kick which is inconsequential on the outcome.
They are making way too much of this and it appears to be sour grapes by the losers.
January 27th, 2015 at 10:35 AM ^
statistics. Here is the problem with his analysis, which also appeared on Slate. His sample is not a random sample. It is not as if he took a random sample from a large popluation of NFL teams, which we do not have, and then looked at the fumble rate of that sample. He is looking at the team with lowest fumble rate. The extreme values have different distributions and the test statistic he is applying is not valid. In addition, his analysis assumes that there is nothing one can do about preventing fumbles, which is not true. E.g., Patriots practice with balls dipped into soap water. I am not sure how many teams do that. The correct way of testing this would be to adjust for the other factors such as practicing with soapy balls and whether the RBs had high or low rate of fumbles in college or before joining Pats.
Now, the eye test says the difference is too large and I get that, but it may turnout not to be statistically significant.
January 27th, 2015 at 10:51 AM ^
You're leaving out the part where he removes all of the indoor teams, two of which have very similar fumble rates to the Patriots, in order to come to the conclusion that the Patriots' rate is "nearly statistically impossible."
January 27th, 2015 at 12:00 PM ^
Nothing about this story is silly anymore. Conversely, everything about this story is annoying.
January 27th, 2015 at 1:36 PM ^
I don't get how, in sports that have officials whose job it is to maintain the rules, teams can get accused of cheating when it's something that was officiated. "Deflategate" is just as much cheating as the Seahawks or MSU mugging receivers down the field is.
Everyone brings up "Spygate" as well, and let me just say that I doubt Belicheck was the first to tape opposing teams' signals. If you're stupid enough to repeat signals in the open, you won't last in the NFL long. This all reeks of Jim Irsay complaining and league wide jealousy. And I'm not even a Pats' fan, for the record.
January 27th, 2015 at 3:02 PM ^
I realize that the average NFL fan wants MOAR TOUCHDOWNS!!! for their fantasy football leagues, but why does the NFL cater to offenses so much? Why not just make the league supply footballs to ensure that they are all standard issue? Wouldnt that make sense? Isnt that how every other professional sports league does things? It seems a little silly that the QBs in the NFL get to doctor the ball to their liking before games.