Revenge of the Nerds: SCIENCE, DEFLATEGATE AND THE NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE
The dark cloud of DeflateGate has enveloped the national stage, and seems poised to remain through Superbowl Sunday and beyond. Did the New England Patriots break the rules by letting air out of their footballs or didn't they? It has been a fascinating, tortured soap opera, vexing most of us and bring out the worst in some (hi there ESPN). What keeps it going and going? Is it that our minds just can't reconcile the confident denials from quarterback Tom Brady, Coach Bill Belichick and team owner Robert Kraft with the physical reality of footballs that were clearly deflated well below the allowed limit? Even Brady himself insists he doesn't have an explanation for what happened… and DeflateGate just rages on.
Most in the media, fandom and the public at large have coped with this maddening situation by jumping to the conclusion that the Patriots must have cheated, and then gone on to argue whether it’s no big deal or whether they deserve swift and severe punishment. The media has been riveted to this public debate, this spectacular controversy, this national shouting match, this excruciating uncertainty.
Meanwhile, here and there a few lonely voices have struggled to be heard above the din. These voices understand that this mystery is not a sinister conspiracy, but rather a comedic farce awash with fools, but lacking any real villains (except maybe former Raven linebacker, the dreaded Ray Lewis). What these quiet voices know is something called "science". With this strange knowledge, they are able to grasp how and why the events reported to have taken place in a cold, wet, windy Gillette Stadium on Sunday January 25, 2015 might have inevitably lead to significant deflation of footballs. It is not really a mystery at all. In fact, the mathematical relationship between air pressure and temperature was established in its current form way back in 1834, and has been taught in high school physics class for over a hundred years.
INTRODUCTION
To determine if the New England Patriots have violated NFL rules about ball inflation, the main question is, "Was the observed drop in ball pressure due to natural causes or due to tampering?" As Coach Belichick explained last Saturday, the best way to truly answer this question is to do an experiment. Before such an experiment, a scientist will need to form a testable hypothesis, a prediction, based on the facts of the situation and what is known about natural laws. In this case, the relevant physical law is the Ideal Gas Law (Pressure x Volume = n x R x Temperature) combined with the fact that friction generates heat.
Check out this informative video which also explains the science behind the pressure-drop:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hf8oQ4rhR-A
THE FOUR PHYSICAL PHASES OF DEFLATEGATE
Knowing the conditions at the AFC Championship game and how the Patriot’s footballs were treated, it’s not hard to anticipate the result based on the four different physical phases the balls went through. The logical prediction is that ball pressure would drop significantly below the NFL minimum 12.5 psi.
1) Rubbing Phase - Before the AFC Championship game, the balls were kept at 70-75 degrees in the locker room. They were then rubbed vigorously for a substantial preparation period. The rubbing created heat from friction. The heat increased the air Temperature in the footballs above the indoor temperature, so their Pressure increased.
2) Cooling Phase A - The warmed footballs were given to referee Walt Anderson, who was asked to set the pressure to 12.5 psi. The balls stayed in the official's locker room for over 2 hours and gradually cooled back to the indoor temperature. This initial drop in Temperature resulted in a corresponding drop in Pressure (approx 1 psi per Belichick).
3) Cooling Phase B - 10 minutes before kickoff, the balls were taken to the sideline. The temperature was approximately 50 degrees, but was lower on surfaces exposed to rain, wind-chill and being thrown spinning through the air at 50-60 miles per hour. Over the course of the first half, the balls cooled to below 50 degrees. This second drop in ball Temperature resulted in a further drop in ball Pressure.
4) Stretching Phase – When the football's leather skin got soaking wet, it stretched, increasing the Volume inside, resulting in a third drop in ball Pressure.
THE UNFINISHED PHASE, THE NEXT STEP
Taken together, these physical and climate factors dropped football pressure below the NFL minimum 12.5 psi with no need for tampering. This is not a possibility, it is a certainty. Left unanswered though is, "How much would it have dropped?" When some scientists, not lawyers, eventually solve this mystery, it will likely be in the Patriots favor and the NFL will come out looking incompetent... again. Just how incompetent may be surprising.
THE BUREAUCRATIC PHASE, AN NFL CATCH-22
The real scandal is that cold weather pressure-drop has been ignored in NFL ball management rules for years. It is a physical reality that footballs set to the allowable pressure range indoors often drop out of range once on the field (unless artificially kept warm), putting teams at risk of accusations of cheating. Undoubtedly, in nearly all of the many past cold weather games across the league, both teams have been guilty either of tampering with their balls by warming or reinflating them, or (more likely) of playing with underinflated balls.
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL PHASE, THE BLIND LEADING THE BLIND
During this fascinating, frustrating, all-consuming week of DeflateGate, some might wonder how could so many intelligent, highly paid NFL executives and officials have established such a flawed rule, a rule that appears ignorant of the fact that cold weather drops ball Pressure. Sadly, most journalists and commentators also lack this knowledge and have plunged ahead recklessly with false accusations and little curiosity about the basic facts of the matter. Emboldened by ignorance and sinister suspicion, they have proclaimed “the Patriots are cheaters!” They think that for the ball pressure to drop significantly, someone must have surreptitiously let the air out… they just know it. But shouldn't they know better? Why have so many been so blind to their ignorance?
The answer to this question comes from the other important scientific field at play in DeflateGate: Cognitive and Social Psychology. Discussion of this is complex and goes way beyond the physics of football pressure, but is extremely relevant to the media and to society at large. If you are interested, please look up "Cognitive Bias" and "The Dunning-Kruger effect: Why The Incompetent Don’t Know They’re Incompetent" (see references).
The science of cognitive bias is necessary to help us to understand how overconfident NFL officials established unworkable inflation rules. It also helps us to better understand why so many media pundits have failed to appreciate the scientifically obvious reasons for football deflation in a cold wet game, yet have gone on to lob accusations of cheating with great confidence and righteous indignation (and a few tears courtesy of Mr. Mark Brunel).
THE FINAL PHASE, A DEFINITIVE SOLUTION
The fix for NFL ball pressure is simple:
1) Keep the current process of the teams giving their game balls to the officials 2-3 hours before kick-off. The officials have time to inspect the balls and correct any problems.
2) At least 90 minutes before kick-off, the officials place the balls in breathable tamper proof bags or other containers, seal the containers with tamper-proof fasteners, and take them down to the field. This will allow the air inside the footballs to equilibrate to the climactic conditions (i.e. temperature) on the field.
3) The bags are placed in plain sight of both teams, fans and officials in the center of the field. In any case, they must not be left near sideline heaters or cooling fans.
4) The outside of the containers are reflective White in color. (If the containers are black or other dark color and left in the sun, they will heat up the balls and prevent equilibration).
5) Whether to keep the balls dry from any rain will have to be determined.
6) The officials break open the tamper-proof seals 10-20 minutes before kickoff, remove the balls, and adjust air pressure to NFL specifications.
7) Representatives from each team observe and confirm the pressure test readings, and can object at that point (avoiding unprovable accusations later on).
8) Officials are allowed to check and readjust ball pressures at half-time or other times during the game.
Problem solved, free of charge. League officials will probably have to set up a task force and then hire expensive consultants to get to the same answer, if they don't screw it up instead.
SUMMARY
DeflateGate is the unfortunate outcome of irrational rules for pregame football inflation that have been adopted by NFL executives, lawyers and business owners who clearly lacked common sense and a knowledge of basic high-school physics. Robert Kraft’s indignation is certainly justified, but should be tempered by the realization that he joined so many others in implementing these rules. While apparently competent to manage business and legal matters, one wonders about the competency of NFL officials to handle all the other important matters facing the unprecedented sport of American football (like the epidemic of concussions and head injuries, for which there is also a simple scientific solution – see
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ainissa-g-ramirez-phd/footballs-paradigm-shift-_1_b_4428032.html ).
DeflateGate is not about who said what to who, about whether a coach or player is popular or likeable, about whether anyone should have felt a drop in football pressure by squeezing the ball, about how long it takes a ball-boy to relieve himself before heading to the sideline, or about whether deflation makes it easier or harder to hold, throw or catch a football. At least, this is not what it should be about. No, this controversy is simply about the pressure-drop in footballs during a cold, wet game. To determine whether or not pressure would have naturally dropped without tampering, the NFL needs a few scientists, not a team of lawyers on a witch hunt in need of a conspiracy. Most importantly, there is a simple, science-based process that NFL referees can easily follow to prevent similar problems in the future. It involves leaving the balls in sealed white bags at midfield for 90 minutes then adjusting ball pressure 15 minutes before kick-off.
Sometimes, in order to win the day, the jocks just need to stop, shut up and listen to the quiet voices of the geeks. While we await the definitive experiment in this case (here's looking at you ESPN Sport Science, you can do it... just be sure to rub the balls properly first), the laws of nature are almost certainly on the side of Tom Brady, whether he knows it or not.
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REFERENCES
http://www.nfl.com/rulebook/ball
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideal_gas_law
http://www.spring.org.uk/2012/06/th...-incompetent-dont-know-theyre-incompetent.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning-Kruger_effect
http://www.psmag.com/health-and-behavior/confident-idiots-92793
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