Do deflated footballs make any difference? From all angles...

First, the two important elements of this story - 

1) The NFL has indeed learned that eleven of the twelve footballs used in Sunday's game WERE, in fact, significantly BELOW what their inflation should have been.

2) It wouldn't have mattered if the footballs they played with were NERF footballs - New England would have won the game. Let's repeat that: the underinflated balls did NOT cost Indianapolis a trip to the Super Bowl.

So the question becomes, why did it happen? And was somebody trying to gain an advantage? Or help the players out in the colder weather by NOT giving them rock hard footballs to throw, kick, or catch?

Here's the investigation, courtesy of ESPN Boston.

Here's an FAQ about the legal aspects of the situation...

Here's Andrew Sharp's take on it in Grantland...and here's ESPN's Jackie MacMullen's...

AND, to top it all off, there's now a report from CBS Sports that there are Baltimore Ravens players who think the balls may have been deflated in their game as well...

It's always SOMETHING with the Patriots!

There was a moment just before the half when the announcing team made the logical assumption that the issue with the football for which the officials momentarily halted the game was simply having the wrong type of football in - the "K ball", designated solely for kicking plays (one of the more insipid rules in sports, IMHO - what sport utilizes different types of balls depending on the play? What about a fake kick? Should Seattle have asked to change back from a K ball when it tried the fake field goal? Ah, but I digress...).

Turns out it may have been something a little more sinister. My favorite aspect of the story, though, is quarterback Tom Brady, who when asked about it, responded by saying he doesn't respond to things like that.

What?

Congratulations to Indianapolis and Green Bay!

And to Denver and Dallas, for that matter, because all four teams were deserving today! But the difference today was Aaron Rodgers and his amazing performance on one and a half legs, and the performance of the Colts' defense today, restricting the Broncos passing game to dink and dunk without sacrificing all the run defense at the same time.

As for the ridiculous rule that reversed the critical call on fourth down, where Tony Romo connected on a brilliant throw to the equally brilliant Dez Bryant...only to have the "Calvin Johnson" rule invoked and nullify the catch? Well, first of all, given the way the rule reads and has been enforced, the call was indeed both consistent with precedent and correct to the letter of the law. The explanations given on television by Mike Perrera and others were extremely clear, as was the sentiment provided by several talking heads to the effect that the rule sucks. Of COURSE it sucks. It's insipid on the surface, and it defies common sense. 

But what's worse is the same thing that makes the Detroit loss to the Cowboys last week distressing: the ugly nonsensical call will overshadow the great season the teams had. Of course Dallas deserved better, but neither they nor the Packers deserved to lose. Generally, at this stage of the season, NOBODY deserves to lose. It just FELT like they'd accomplished what they were supposed to accomplish on the play and drive. And when you're following the game on Advanced Football Analytics, and the shift in the potential win percentage for Dallas moves from upwards of eighty percent to below twenty...it just didn't seem fair.

Remember yesterday, when I said that Character Counts?

So, yeah, I forgot I was talking about the National Football League. 

This is the league that sent Ben Roethlisberger back into the fourth quarter of a playoff game last Sunday after being hit and getting (to a 98% degree of probability) a concussion which under the league's own newly-enacted concussion rules should have kept him out of the rest of the game - if not from the concussion itself, then from the examination protocol which by definition would have taken longer than they had left in the game.

Except...no, wait! There's Big Ben coming back into the game, three flipping plays later, dropping back to throw...perhaps the WORST pass of his professional life, right into the arms of the waiting Ravens and ending the Steelers' season. Explain again how that was helpful to anyone involved?

This is the league that calls penalties, walks them off...and then reneges on them. If someone can offer a better explanation, be my guest. I pray that this one was incompetence. The "mixed all-star crew" makes that more plausible, although why a professional referee marks off a penalty and THEN gets all the relevant points of view is beyond explanation. 

Because if it's NOT incompetence, then that means they realized a Detroit first down with five minutes to go and a 20-17 lead past midfield probably made the game Detroit's to lose, a dangerous proposition if the league's flagship team, playing in its flagship stadium, were to lose to a no-public-perception team when the chance for an Ice Bowl rematch looms, Romo v Rodgers, and all that entails. Better to make it fourth down and pray that the corpse they installed as Lions coach actually punted on 4th and 1 at midfield. Which he did,  and it went ten yards, and Romo had a man's drive, and Garrett made a man's call to go for it on 4th and 6, and from THAT standpoint the Cowboys absolutely deserved to win... But outcome does not justify poor choices, or idiocy; the end never justifies the means.

And now, this is the league which paid for its own "independent" investigation to investigate ITSELF with regards to what it knew about the Ray Rice elevator video when it issued the insanely inadequate two game punishment for a criminal act heinous enough that no one will even HIRE Rice again.

The Mueller Report, paid for by two league owners, found that (surprise!) the League office ISN'T comprised of liars: just incompetents! (Hooray!) Of course, since all of their original explanations involved them lying about being incompetent, you can draw your own conclusions. Certainly, since they claimed in September that they asked EVERYONE for a copy of the elevator video back in February that the Mueller Report says the proof shows they didn't know existed...well, either the NFL blatantly lied about that in order to - to what, make themselves look inept? - or the report itself is completely farcical, in which case they've succeeded in making us forget about the Warren Commission Report. 

(If your history is as faulty as Roger Goodell's memory, the Warren Report proved that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in killing President Kennedy. The problem is, no one at the time believed a word of it, although time has proven that that was indeed the most likely scenario.)

The credibility of bureaucrats is often dicey to begin with, but when your best case scenario was that you were an idiot? Are you sure that's who you want in charge of your favorite sport?