Football Balls: A Case Study

The NFL is investigating whether the New England Patriots intentionally deflated footballs during their victory over the Indianapolis Colts in Sunday's rain-soaked AFC Championship Game.

My topic choice for the final essay will be Football Safety Equipment. I decided to write about this topic because I am an athlete and I have played football since I was six years old. When I transfer to a four year college, I plan to play on the collegiate level. As I grew, my father would purchase extra protection in addition to purchasing my own specialized helmet for football. My father did this because he believed Parks and Recreation did not properly maintain their equipment. Also, over the last couple of years there has been quite a few players from little league to the professional league who have suffered concussions. As a result, some medical professionals believe these concussions are linked to CTE (Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy).

Tom Brady and the New England Patriots were accused of deflating footballs to give them an advantage in the January 18th AFC Championship game against the Indianapolis Colts. Deflated footballs are easier to grip and throw, giving their team a direct advantage over the Colts. The Indianapolis Colts equipment manager first suspected the balls did not meet the NFL’s minimum standard right before half time and after measuring the balls he notified officials. Most all of the balls the Patriots had were not measuring to the correct standard and they found that Tom Brady knew of the violation and said nothing. Punishment from the NFL was a one million fine, four game suspension without pay and the loss of not only their 1st round draft pick in 2016 but also their 4th round draft pick in 2017. In addition, the two equipment staffers responsible for the incident were also indefinitely suspended. (ESPN.com) However, Tom Brady recently won his court appeal overruling the 4 game suspension and will be a starting player in the upcoming

When it comes to sports, a competitive mindset is key. In American football, it’s hard not to win without communication and teamwork. In the NFL playoffs of 2015, the New England Patriots beat the Indianapolis Colts 45-7 for the AFC Championship. In a game that originally portrayed the Patriots as an offensive force to be reckoned with, ended out to be a game that goes down in history. After further investigation, the NFL found 11 of the Patriots' 12 footballs in the game to be underinflated by about 2 pounds below the NFL’s requirement. Now whether the allegations are determined to be true or not, it does raise some speculation about the truth of the AFC

A football involved in the Deflategate scandal involving the New England Patriots, their quarterback Tom Brady, and the National Football League (NFL), has sold at auction, fetching $43,739.99, according to The Washington Post.

Tom Brady wants to take the NFL to federal court, to appeal his charges of four-regular season game suspension and fined the Patriots with a $1 million fine. I believe that the NFL should negotiate Tom Brady’s charges, before he takes it to the federal courts. There is no direct evidence that could prove Brady’s involvement with the football deflation at the AFC Championship game, even though Brady’s appeal hearing sounded inadequate. He could beat the federal case because there is no proof of his involvement. Brady doesn’t have much more to lose if the suspension is upheld, then the NFL does. Ted Wells stated that his team (NFL) has already been billed $5.5 million, with an additional $600,000 for hiring other experts. By negotiating a deal

The New England Patriots were playing the Indianapolis Colts in the 201 AFC(American Football Conference) Championship. The New England Patriots were playing theIndianapolis Colts. At halftime of the game, the referees found footballs that were “deflated”.But, I don’t believe it happened. It was cold and rainy, which means that the footballs could havenaturally deflated. The football in an NFL game have to be 12.5 PSI-13.5 PSI (Pounds PerSquare Inch).It doesn’t add up that the Patriots deflated the footballs. They scored 17 points in the firsthalf, but after the referees supposedly fixed the deflated footballs, the Patriots scored morepoints in the second half, at 28. The Patriots ended up going and winning Super Bowl“XLIX”. They beat the Seattle Seahawks, 28-24.Fifteen months later, the NFL disciplined the Patriots for DeflateGate. They lost a 1stround draft pick in 2016 and a 4th round draft pick in 2017.

The “Deflategate” scandal is a case that involves the four time superbowl championship team, the New England Patriots, and their potential hall of fame quarterback, Tom Brady. Tom Brady and the New England Patriots were accused of allegedly tampering with the game footballs used in the AFC Championship Game against the Indianapolis Colts in the 2015 season. In this game, the Patriots defeated the Colts 45-7 and went on to to defeat the Seattle Seahawks 28-24 in the 2015 Superbowl.

It is a no shocker that most people do know how surreptitiously NFL conducts its investigations; also in New England people are still consumed by the DeflateGate outrage. For this reason, a great percentage of people in the Northeast could only wonder what exactly was going on during the investigation. The little publicity given to the one

During the 2015 AFC Championship, the New England Patriots played against the Indianapolis Colts on January 18th in the Gillette Stadium, Foxborough, MA. Prior to halftime, however, the Colts brought suspicions of the Patriots having deflated their balls. They requested the pressures be checked at halftime. Two referees, Blakeman and Prioleau, each measured the pressure of both the Patriots’ and the Colts’ balls with separate gauges. The Officials came to the conclusion that all 11 of the patriots balls were underinflated, the required pressure being between 27.2-28.2 pounds per square inch (psi). Footballs from the colts were also being tested and appeared to be in the accepted range. This situation was temporarily postponed so the game could continue. The balls were filled to regulation pressure before restarting. The patriots went on to win 45-7.

Boundary objects are items of information perceived and used differently by observers in their own light of their own biases experiences or needs. Boundary objects is a term used between different professionals to understand each other from their different professional communities. The idea for boundary objects is to enhance the capacity of an idea, theory or practice to translate across culturally defined boundaries, for example, between communities of knowledge or practice. I think a great definition of a boundary object in the football world is high school coaches/teachers compared to a personal trainer or coach of an individual athlete.

It all started on January eighteenth, 2015, in a NFL game. The New England Patriots versus the Indianapolis Colts. After an interception by the Colts, linebacker D’Qwell Jackson an equipment manager on the colts sideline measured the psi of the football and found they were underinflated. The allowed psi or pounds per square inch is 12.5 to 13.5. The Patriots balls checked in at 10.5 psi at halftime of the game when NFL officials checked. It was also stated that eleven of twelve footballs were underinflated. The deflation of these balls became one of the biggest scandals in sports for the next 8 months and it is known as deflategate. Deflategate is something minor that the media created and was made into a major deal. There are many flaws and successes in deflategate that will be discussed as Deflategate is picked apart from end to end.

When deflate-gate first happened I thought to myself, why not just tell the truth. Immediately it became a circus. Why try and play the aloof card? There is no doubt in my mind that Tom Brady had something to do with footballs being deflated. It is an absurd thought that an equipment manager of such a high profile quarterback would take a decisions like deflating the footballs into his own hands. The thing that really bugs me about the whole thing, is that if Tom Brady would have just admitted it, or admitted some part to if, this would not even be a big deal. He could have easily just said, I like the footballs closer to the lower end of the PSI level or under. This became a major ordeal because he could not just admit his mistake, he cheated and instead of being honest, he tried to deny it. This teaches and shows what poor character some of the best athletes in the world can have. They think because of their past accomplishments they can bend the rules and get away with cheating.

In 2007 the Patriots were accused of a scandal called Spygate. Spygate is the accusation of the Patriots filming the New York Jets Defensive Coaches’ Signals on their sideline which is illegal. Bill Belichick, the Patriots head coach, thought it wasn’t against the rules if the team did not use the film in the same game. Bill Belichick got fined five hundred thousand dollars and “Goodell ordered league officials to go into the Patriots facility and smash the films” (Tom 2). Later that year the Patriots went on to lose the Super Bowl. In 2014 Tom Brady was accused of deflating footballs in the AFC Championship against the Colts, which is now known as the Deflategate. A day after the Patriots won D’qwell Jackson reported that the Patriots balls felt deflated when he intercepted Brady before the end of the first half. The NFL then initiated an investigation led by Ted Wells which proved nothing because the investigation could not find any hard evidence to blame Brady. Roger Goodell still decided to take Brady to court for a four-game suspension, but the court nullified the suspension and proved Brady’s innocents. Then Goodell took Brady to court again two years later and Brady was found innocent again, but Goodell could suspend him anyways, so he did for no reason at all. Consequently, Goodell also fined Robert Kraft one million dollars and took away a first and a fourth round

In court Tom Brady’s deflate scandal was about following laws not weather he actually was a part of the scandal. Judge Berman isn’t focusing his ruling on the deflated footballs themselves as much as the arbitrator complying with the statues. As stated in the court ruling “Under the Federal Arbitration Act ("FAA''), "the validity of an award is subject to attack only on those grounds listed”. However in this scandal the NFL never had a rule against footballs being under inflated. Mr. Goodell is not free to dispense his own justice he must comply with the collective-bargaining agreement in which this case he didn’t. “The law of the shop” provides professional football players an advanced conduct of potential discipline. Judge Berman looked