12intheBox
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- Wil Fay
Let's all talk about this until we are sick to our stomachs. Again. And again. And again.
Brady 4 game suspension ruled valid
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RAMBUSH
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I'm glad Brady will be back when the Rams play the Patriots. Will do my heart good seeing Donald, Barron, and co. end his season. Will get to enjoy seeing Garoppolo prove he's not the QB of the future in NE over the first 4 games. Cheaters getting punished. All is right with the world. 
LesBaker
Mr. Savant
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That's the type of hit that the NFL has to get rid of and 15K fines won't do it.
I'm no Pats fan, but that was flat out a dirty shot.
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- Dennis
FloridaBison
Dreamin of the back 9
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- floridabison
I'm glad Brady will be back when the Rams play the Patriots. Will do my heart good seeing Donald, Barron, and co. end his season. Will get to enjoy seeing Garoppolo prove he's not the QB of the future in NE over the first 4 games. Cheaters getting punished. All is right with the world.
Agree with you, save one thing.
When Garoppolo played last year it was preseason and he played well for a rookie QB. I can't stand the Patriots, but at that point in the season they had an O-line that made Cals look pretty darn good. This is fact.
Garoppolo is a gamer. I personally hope that future is with another team though!
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http://mmqb.si.com/mmqb/2016/04/25/...dy-suspension-reinstated-appeals-court-ruling
Two Views of the Brady Deflategate Ruling
The reinstatement of Tom Brady’s four-game Deflategate suspension affirms Goodell’s power, says Andrew Brandt, but hardly confirms the case against the Patriots QB, according to Peter King. Now, will Brady take the case further, and will the league relent on the degree of punishment?
by Peter King and Andrew Brandt
King: The Punishment Does Not Fit the Offense—If There Was an Offense
Here’s what bothers me about the clearly legal and by-the-book 2-1 ruling by the three-judge U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit panel, which reinstates the four-game suspension of Patriots quarterback Tom Brady stemming from the Deflategate scandal:
Four respected American jurists have now ruled on NFL commissioner Roger Goodell’s discipline of Brady and the Patriots. It’s tied. Two have sides with Goodell (Second Circuit judges Denny Chin and Barrington Parker, Jr.) and two have sided against Goodell (Chief judge Robert Katzmann of the Second Circuit and Richard Berman, the judge from appeals court who originally set aside Goodell’s discipline last summer). So it’s 2-2. And the tie goes to the commissioner.
There’s been no indication in the hours since Monday morning’s ruling by the appeals court that Goodell intends to take out a velvet hammer and lessen the suspension. The Patriots now face playing the first four games of the season—including the Sunday night season-opener against the tough Arizona Cardinals—with unproven Jimmy Garoppolo starting for the first time in his NFL career.
My stance here has been clear: There is significant and damaging circumstantial evidence in the case against Brady and the two Patriots operatives who, the Wells Report alleges, tampered with footballs to take air out of them before the AFC Championship Game in January 2015. But I’ve never been convinced that it is clear and overwhelming, and there are holes big enough in the Wells Report to throw a Brady spiral through.
The two judges, however, were clear in their ruling that Goodell has the power, via the CBA, to do what he wants in cases like this one. He doesn’t have to have an independent investigation of a case. He doesn’t have to have the kind of incontrovertible evidence you’d need in an American courtroom to convict someone. He can do it, essentially, by having a sort of 51-49 balance of evidence if he chooses. Wrote Chin and Barrington: “The parties contracted in the CBA to specifically allow the commissioner to sit as the arbitrator in all disputes …
They did so knowing full well that the commissioner had the sole power of determining what constitutes ‘conduct detrimental,’ and thus knowing that the commissioner would have a stake both in the underlying discipline … Had the parties wished to restrict the commissioner’s authority, they could have fashioned a different agreement.” Of this there is no dispute.
But I’ve always thought in this case there was, and still is, one absolutely vital piece of evidence missing. It’s a piece of evidence that once and for all could have determined whether there had been any monkey business with the footballs in the hour before the AFC title game.
The NFL should have measured the footballs before, at halftime and after all 267 regular-season and postseason games in 2015—not just selected games, which is what the league did. That would have determined the effect that weather had on footballs, to see if the league’s questionable science in the Wells Report withstood the rigors of an NFL season.
The fact that the NFL did so only in scattered games (according to Goodell) simply to ensure no team was cheating this year totally missed the point—if the league was ever trying to find out the truth. To me, the NFL’s scattershot 2015 testing tells the world it never wanted to find out the effect of weather on footballs.
To recap: In his report, Wells wrote that the Patriots footballs should have measured between 11.32 pounds per square inch and 11.52 psi, according to the weather that day and the effects of the Ideal Gas Law. The 11 footballs that were measured at halftime of the championship game were tested on two gauges. The average of all 22 readings was 11.30 psi … 0.02 lower than what the league’s Ideal Gas Law science would have allowed for balls that started the day at the Patriots’ level of 12.5 psi.
This is enough to whack Brady four games, take $1 million from the Patriots, and dock them a first-round pick in 2016 and a fourth-round pick in 2017?
I’ll go back to the word used by an executive of a team that has jousted with the Patriots often in the past when the discipline first came down: “draconian.”
And nothing, to me, has changed in the months since Goodell’s ruling. He killed an ant with a sledgehammer. Now the Second Circuit Court of Appeals has let him do it. —Peter King
Brandt: Goodell’s Power Confirmed, Thanks to a Player-Approved CBA
The tea leaves were right. As I remarked after sitting in on the Second Circuit’s review of the Tom Brady case on March 3rd, two of the three judges were as pro-NFL in the appellate court as Judge Richard Berman was pro-Brady in the lower court. Judges Denny Chin and Barrington D. Parker were sympathetic to the NFL's arguments stressing the power of the commissioner and his broad discretion over “conduct detrimental.”
They were quite strident regarding NFLPA and Brady attorney Jeffrey Kessler, cutting him off repeatedly and bringing up factual issues unfavorable to his side, such as the destruction of Brady’s phone. As turned out to be the case, it appeared those two judges had their minds made up even before writing today’s 2-1 opinion: Roger Goodell was well within his rights to suspend Tom Brady.
After a stretch of defeats for the NFL in cases involving Ray Rice, Adrian Peterson and Brady, this has been a good month for Goodell’s cherished CBA powers over player conduct. A couple of weeks ago an arbitrator upheld the content and enforcement options of the NFL’s conduct policy, one reshaped following the missteps of the Rice case. The policy—featuring an exempt list and leave with pay as elements that the commissioner can apply toward players whose conduct is under scrutiny—was crafted with little to no input from the union, which opposed both the list and leave with pay. Now, after that decision went in favor of the league, an appeals court has given similar approval of the commissioner’s powers over player conduct.
Ultimately, as I have always said, these disputes always end up where they started: with the collective bargaining agreement. In the 2011 CBA negotiations, an early priority of the NFLPA was to rein in Goodell. However, that took a back seat to others priorities in the swirl of horse trading that characterizes deal-making, and Goodell retained his powers. Everything that has gone on in court since then has been an attempt by the union to claw back some of those powers. As noted, there have been some successes, but this was a big win for management over labor.
Speaking of the win, we now await the next step. Brady and the NFLPA can attempt to (1) petition the entire Second Circuit for a rehearing en banc (the full group of 22 judges), or (2) petition the United States Supreme Court for review. While I do not pretend to be an appellate lawyer, my sense is that it could be difficult to gain entry into either forum. The NFLPA has said it will review its options, but it now faces an uphill battle.
As for the NFL, the likelihood is that, absent further appeals, it will reimpose the suspension. However, I wonder if they would be open to compromise on this. The league now has the precedent it wanted, an affirmation of the commissioner’s power, and have a ruling in place that will deter players from running to court after receiving an unfavorable ruling from Goodell. So maybe, just maybe, the league would be open to not rubbing Tom Brady’s nose in this and accepting something less than four games. Is that likely? No, but having won its “precedent,” it remains a possibility.
Finally, while the timing and substance of Brady’s contract restructuring may be totally unrelated, he and his representatives may have financially prepared for the suspension. Brady reduced his salary from a scheduled $9 million to $1 million (with the same salary next year) in exchange for receiving a $28 million signing bonus as part of a restructured deal.
Assuming the suspension is imposed on the reworked contract—the NFL could challenge the application as to this year’s number compared to last year’s—he will lose a total of $235,000 instead of the $2.12 million he would have forfeited under the terms of his old deal. Again, this may be completely coincidental, although I think not, but the Patriots and Brady worked to save the player almost $2 million.
We are where we started 10 years ago: the Conduct Commissioner lives on. —Andrew Brandt
Two Views of the Brady Deflategate Ruling
The reinstatement of Tom Brady’s four-game Deflategate suspension affirms Goodell’s power, says Andrew Brandt, but hardly confirms the case against the Patriots QB, according to Peter King. Now, will Brady take the case further, and will the league relent on the degree of punishment?
by Peter King and Andrew Brandt
King: The Punishment Does Not Fit the Offense—If There Was an Offense
Here’s what bothers me about the clearly legal and by-the-book 2-1 ruling by the three-judge U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit panel, which reinstates the four-game suspension of Patriots quarterback Tom Brady stemming from the Deflategate scandal:
Four respected American jurists have now ruled on NFL commissioner Roger Goodell’s discipline of Brady and the Patriots. It’s tied. Two have sides with Goodell (Second Circuit judges Denny Chin and Barrington Parker, Jr.) and two have sided against Goodell (Chief judge Robert Katzmann of the Second Circuit and Richard Berman, the judge from appeals court who originally set aside Goodell’s discipline last summer). So it’s 2-2. And the tie goes to the commissioner.
There’s been no indication in the hours since Monday morning’s ruling by the appeals court that Goodell intends to take out a velvet hammer and lessen the suspension. The Patriots now face playing the first four games of the season—including the Sunday night season-opener against the tough Arizona Cardinals—with unproven Jimmy Garoppolo starting for the first time in his NFL career.
My stance here has been clear: There is significant and damaging circumstantial evidence in the case against Brady and the two Patriots operatives who, the Wells Report alleges, tampered with footballs to take air out of them before the AFC Championship Game in January 2015. But I’ve never been convinced that it is clear and overwhelming, and there are holes big enough in the Wells Report to throw a Brady spiral through.
The two judges, however, were clear in their ruling that Goodell has the power, via the CBA, to do what he wants in cases like this one. He doesn’t have to have an independent investigation of a case. He doesn’t have to have the kind of incontrovertible evidence you’d need in an American courtroom to convict someone. He can do it, essentially, by having a sort of 51-49 balance of evidence if he chooses. Wrote Chin and Barrington: “The parties contracted in the CBA to specifically allow the commissioner to sit as the arbitrator in all disputes …
They did so knowing full well that the commissioner had the sole power of determining what constitutes ‘conduct detrimental,’ and thus knowing that the commissioner would have a stake both in the underlying discipline … Had the parties wished to restrict the commissioner’s authority, they could have fashioned a different agreement.” Of this there is no dispute.
But I’ve always thought in this case there was, and still is, one absolutely vital piece of evidence missing. It’s a piece of evidence that once and for all could have determined whether there had been any monkey business with the footballs in the hour before the AFC title game.
The NFL should have measured the footballs before, at halftime and after all 267 regular-season and postseason games in 2015—not just selected games, which is what the league did. That would have determined the effect that weather had on footballs, to see if the league’s questionable science in the Wells Report withstood the rigors of an NFL season.
The fact that the NFL did so only in scattered games (according to Goodell) simply to ensure no team was cheating this year totally missed the point—if the league was ever trying to find out the truth. To me, the NFL’s scattershot 2015 testing tells the world it never wanted to find out the effect of weather on footballs.
To recap: In his report, Wells wrote that the Patriots footballs should have measured between 11.32 pounds per square inch and 11.52 psi, according to the weather that day and the effects of the Ideal Gas Law. The 11 footballs that were measured at halftime of the championship game were tested on two gauges. The average of all 22 readings was 11.30 psi … 0.02 lower than what the league’s Ideal Gas Law science would have allowed for balls that started the day at the Patriots’ level of 12.5 psi.
This is enough to whack Brady four games, take $1 million from the Patriots, and dock them a first-round pick in 2016 and a fourth-round pick in 2017?
I’ll go back to the word used by an executive of a team that has jousted with the Patriots often in the past when the discipline first came down: “draconian.”
And nothing, to me, has changed in the months since Goodell’s ruling. He killed an ant with a sledgehammer. Now the Second Circuit Court of Appeals has let him do it. —Peter King
Brandt: Goodell’s Power Confirmed, Thanks to a Player-Approved CBA
The tea leaves were right. As I remarked after sitting in on the Second Circuit’s review of the Tom Brady case on March 3rd, two of the three judges were as pro-NFL in the appellate court as Judge Richard Berman was pro-Brady in the lower court. Judges Denny Chin and Barrington D. Parker were sympathetic to the NFL's arguments stressing the power of the commissioner and his broad discretion over “conduct detrimental.”
They were quite strident regarding NFLPA and Brady attorney Jeffrey Kessler, cutting him off repeatedly and bringing up factual issues unfavorable to his side, such as the destruction of Brady’s phone. As turned out to be the case, it appeared those two judges had their minds made up even before writing today’s 2-1 opinion: Roger Goodell was well within his rights to suspend Tom Brady.
After a stretch of defeats for the NFL in cases involving Ray Rice, Adrian Peterson and Brady, this has been a good month for Goodell’s cherished CBA powers over player conduct. A couple of weeks ago an arbitrator upheld the content and enforcement options of the NFL’s conduct policy, one reshaped following the missteps of the Rice case. The policy—featuring an exempt list and leave with pay as elements that the commissioner can apply toward players whose conduct is under scrutiny—was crafted with little to no input from the union, which opposed both the list and leave with pay. Now, after that decision went in favor of the league, an appeals court has given similar approval of the commissioner’s powers over player conduct.
Ultimately, as I have always said, these disputes always end up where they started: with the collective bargaining agreement. In the 2011 CBA negotiations, an early priority of the NFLPA was to rein in Goodell. However, that took a back seat to others priorities in the swirl of horse trading that characterizes deal-making, and Goodell retained his powers. Everything that has gone on in court since then has been an attempt by the union to claw back some of those powers. As noted, there have been some successes, but this was a big win for management over labor.
Speaking of the win, we now await the next step. Brady and the NFLPA can attempt to (1) petition the entire Second Circuit for a rehearing en banc (the full group of 22 judges), or (2) petition the United States Supreme Court for review. While I do not pretend to be an appellate lawyer, my sense is that it could be difficult to gain entry into either forum. The NFLPA has said it will review its options, but it now faces an uphill battle.
As for the NFL, the likelihood is that, absent further appeals, it will reimpose the suspension. However, I wonder if they would be open to compromise on this. The league now has the precedent it wanted, an affirmation of the commissioner’s power, and have a ruling in place that will deter players from running to court after receiving an unfavorable ruling from Goodell. So maybe, just maybe, the league would be open to not rubbing Tom Brady’s nose in this and accepting something less than four games. Is that likely? No, but having won its “precedent,” it remains a possibility.
Finally, while the timing and substance of Brady’s contract restructuring may be totally unrelated, he and his representatives may have financially prepared for the suspension. Brady reduced his salary from a scheduled $9 million to $1 million (with the same salary next year) in exchange for receiving a $28 million signing bonus as part of a restructured deal.
Assuming the suspension is imposed on the reworked contract—the NFL could challenge the application as to this year’s number compared to last year’s—he will lose a total of $235,000 instead of the $2.12 million he would have forfeited under the terms of his old deal. Again, this may be completely coincidental, although I think not, but the Patriots and Brady worked to save the player almost $2 million.
We are where we started 10 years ago: the Conduct Commissioner lives on. —Andrew Brandt
Mackeyser
Supernovas are where gold forms; the only place.
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- Mack
Are you kidding? I want Brady to get hit like that when he gets up to grab the remote!!!
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- Peter
http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.co...les-petition-for-rehearing-of-federal-appeal/
Brady files petition for rehearing of federal appeal
Posted by Mike Florio on May 23, 2016
Getty Images
As expected, Patriots quarterback Tom Brady has decided to continue to fight his four-game suspension arising from the #Deflategate controversy.
On Monday, Brady and the NFL Players Association filed a 15-page petition for a rehearing before the original three-judge panel or a rehearing before the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
The assault against Commissioner Roger Goodell’s decision begins quickly in the documents filed by the lawyers, accusing Goodell of “falsely portray[ing]” the Ted Wells investigation as independent and calling Goodell’s internal appeal ruling “biased, agenda-driven, and self-approving.” The petition also claims that the ruling from a divided three-judge panel “will fuel unpredictability in labor arbitrations everywhere and make labor arbitration increasingly capricious and undesirable for employers and employees alike.”
Tracking the dissenting opinion in the underlying ruling from Chief Judge Robert A. Katzmann, the petition points to the fact that Goodell’s conclusion on appeal was based on “new grounds that were not part of the disciplinary decision” and that Goodell “completely ignored the collectively bargained schedule of penalties for equipment-related violations.” The petition specifically emphasizes Judge Katzmann’s comparison of football deflation to the use of Stickum, which triggers only a four-figure fine for a first offense, not a suspension.
The problem, as argued by the petition, isn’t that Goodell considered the Stickum comparison and rejected it but that Goodell never even mentioned it, relying instead only on the purported comparison between deflation of football and the use of PEDs, which triggers a four-game suspension for a first offense.
“Under the panel majority’s misguided approach,” the petition argues, “an arbitrator is now free to ignore critical provisions a CBA reflecting collectively bargained penalties.”
It remains to be seen whether that’s enough to trigger a rehearing. For a rehearing before the full Second Circuit, at least seven of the 13 active judges must agree to do it. Presumably, the Chief Judge counts as Vote No. 1.
Brady files petition for rehearing of federal appeal
Posted by Mike Florio on May 23, 2016
As expected, Patriots quarterback Tom Brady has decided to continue to fight his four-game suspension arising from the #Deflategate controversy.
On Monday, Brady and the NFL Players Association filed a 15-page petition for a rehearing before the original three-judge panel or a rehearing before the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
The assault against Commissioner Roger Goodell’s decision begins quickly in the documents filed by the lawyers, accusing Goodell of “falsely portray[ing]” the Ted Wells investigation as independent and calling Goodell’s internal appeal ruling “biased, agenda-driven, and self-approving.” The petition also claims that the ruling from a divided three-judge panel “will fuel unpredictability in labor arbitrations everywhere and make labor arbitration increasingly capricious and undesirable for employers and employees alike.”
Tracking the dissenting opinion in the underlying ruling from Chief Judge Robert A. Katzmann, the petition points to the fact that Goodell’s conclusion on appeal was based on “new grounds that were not part of the disciplinary decision” and that Goodell “completely ignored the collectively bargained schedule of penalties for equipment-related violations.” The petition specifically emphasizes Judge Katzmann’s comparison of football deflation to the use of Stickum, which triggers only a four-figure fine for a first offense, not a suspension.
The problem, as argued by the petition, isn’t that Goodell considered the Stickum comparison and rejected it but that Goodell never even mentioned it, relying instead only on the purported comparison between deflation of football and the use of PEDs, which triggers a four-game suspension for a first offense.
“Under the panel majority’s misguided approach,” the petition argues, “an arbitrator is now free to ignore critical provisions a CBA reflecting collectively bargained penalties.”
It remains to be seen whether that’s enough to trigger a rehearing. For a rehearing before the full Second Circuit, at least seven of the 13 active judges must agree to do it. Presumably, the Chief Judge counts as Vote No. 1.
Roman Snow
H.I.M.
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- 2,615
- Name
- John
Thanks a lot. I feel like a cat watching a bird in a cage for like...4 hours. There goes my productivity today.
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- May 8, 2014
- Messages
- 37,205
What folks are missing here is the advantage it conferred to the Cheatriots: http://www.sharpfootballanalysis.co...iots-mysteriously-became-fumble-proof-in-2007
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
May 7 2015 Update: Please also review my response to the Ted Wells report.
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:
(click to enlarge)
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:
(click to enlarge)
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.
__________________________
Because I was asked so often for the data that I used in the first analysis, as a courtesy, I am going to link an excel file with all the summary data used to create the graphics shown above. Support Data
Warren Sharp of sharpfootballanalysis.com is an industry pioneer at the forefront of incorporating advanced analytics and metrics into football analysis. A licensed Professional Engineer by trade, Warren applies the same critical thought process and problem solving techniques into his passion, football. After spending years constructing, testing and perfecting computer models written to understand the critical elements to win NFL football games, Warren’s quantitative analytics are used in private consulting work, and elements of which are publicly shared on sharpfootballanalysis.com. To contact Warren, please email[email protected] or send a direct message on Twitter to @SharpFootball.
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
May 7 2015 Update: Please also review my response to the Ted Wells report.
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:
(click to enlarge)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:
(click to enlarge)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.
__________________________
Because I was asked so often for the data that I used in the first analysis, as a courtesy, I am going to link an excel file with all the summary data used to create the graphics shown above. Support Data
Warren Sharp of sharpfootballanalysis.com is an industry pioneer at the forefront of incorporating advanced analytics and metrics into football analysis. A licensed Professional Engineer by trade, Warren applies the same critical thought process and problem solving techniques into his passion, football. After spending years constructing, testing and perfecting computer models written to understand the critical elements to win NFL football games, Warren’s quantitative analytics are used in private consulting work, and elements of which are publicly shared on sharpfootballanalysis.com. To contact Warren, please email[email protected] or send a direct message on Twitter to @SharpFootball.
Roman Snow
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Fixed it for ya.Let's all talk about this until we are sick to our stomachs.
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Because:
a) He's a Punk ass winning Bitch! and
b) The Players association is paying all the Legal Fee's so he got nothing to lose!
Even though, by all accounts, he stands a very small % chance of way less the 1% of being successful in this appeal or even IF he tries to take it to the Supreme Court.
I just hope they don't take there sweet time refusing him!!
Legatron4
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RaminExile
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Everyone knows Brady is just king to filibuster this again and again so that he never actually misses a game due to it and then when he runs out of appeal room he'll just retire as he would have anyway so he suffers no I'll consequence despite having found by an independent report to be generally aware of what was going on.
drasconis
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