If you watch Patriots games, you'll see that if Patriots running backs fumble, they get benched. If they do it again they get released. Belichick is maniacal about getting on his players about fumbling. That is a simple explanation. The team has been well-coached for a long time. If you think the Patriots' success is all from deflated balls, you need to explain how they out-scored the Colts 28-0 in the second half (and didn't fumble in horrible conditions).
Over the past two seasons there have been 9 total fumbles by Patriot running backs - only 1 all this year. All of those backs are still employed by the Patriots. Over those two seasons, the majority of fumbles came from Brady and Edelman.
Of the backs that fumbled in 2012, only Woodhead is gone. He fumbled only once.
Two backs fumbled in 2011, once each. Woodhead (who is gone) and Ridley, who is still a Patriot.
Patriot backs simply don't fumble. Brady and Edelman do, and Welker did a bit. Your explanation isn't supported by the data.
EDIT - I'm not sure my source differentiates fumbles from lost fumbles, although that doesn't seem to impact the conclusion regarding parent's comment.
No one is claiming the Patriots aren't good. They are claiming that, with extremely good evidence at this point, they also cheated.
There are other teams that try really hard to train their players not to fumble, including taking them out until they learn not to fumble. Belichick has been otherworldly good at this training.
The Patriots were not always otherworldly at not fumbling. In fact, this acumen started the same year the NFL changed the rules so that the team was allowed to have full control of the balls after pregame inspection.
This isn't a minor issue. Turnovers are hugely predictive of game outcomes.
The Patriots were caught with deflated footballs. They had deflated footballs for a reason.
Fumbling players being treated harshly by their coaches is true of every team as far as I know. That said, I still think it's more likely that the Patriots have some unique practice/drilling regimen that results in less fumbles than they are regularly using deflated balls to their advantage. This is interesting in and of itself, so no matter what, I think this is an interesting analysis. But it's hard for me to believe that they were regularly using under-inflated balls for FOUR YEARS before being detected (or perhaps I should say reported).
Of course, giving the context of its publication, we know what it's trying to imply.
The author of this article did a follow-up post in which he compared individual players before, during and after playing for the Patriots, and found very suspicious trends. On average the players were only good at fumbles when they were playing for New England. Of course, one can still argue that Belichick's focus on fumbling is only effective during the time that players are employed by New England, but you'd still expect to see SOME carryover to players' later teams if only because of whatever good habits they picked up playing for NE.
"But in 2007, something happened to propel [the Patriots] to a much better rate."
The author is using a 5-year average, and then concluding that something must have happened in a single year that is suddenly different. What that implies to me, is that they had a particularly terrible year in 2002. So, when the really bad year slides off of the 5-year moving average, then the 5-year average suddenly looks much better.
Also, while the article ultimately looks at both, the "money chart" is for fumbles lost, rather than total fumbles. I'm pretty sure the stat guys at footballoutsiders.com have more than once run the numbers to show that fumble recovery is pure chance; hard to see how having easier to handle balls increases those odds.
As someone who doesn't follow the NFL I am surprised that they allow the teams to supply their own balls. Seems it would be less complicated and achieve an even playing field if everyone had to use the same balls supplied by the league.
Does this happen in baseball/ basketball as well? From an Australian perspective it seems unusual.
Quarterbacks like their footballs to be broken in a bit, and they all have their own preference for doing it. They lobbied the NFL years back to let them break in the game footballs and the NFL said OK. They have to use official NFL footballs and they are SUPPOSED to be properly inflated at game time. Each team uses their own footballs while on offense.
I doubt this happens in basketball because the same ball is being handled by numerous people on both teams, so it wouldn't be fair to let one player or team break the ball in to their own preferences. The same would be true of your AFL. In the NFL, teams are using their own broken in balls, and the quarterback is (usually) the only guy who has to actually throw it.
Baseballs only last a couple of pitches and offense/defense are completely different games, so I seriously doubt anyone is allowed to do anything to any ball before the game. When a pitcher gets a new ball it is already pre-rubbed in a special mud, and they can rub it in dirt a bit but they can't put anything that will stick to the ball on it as it gives the pitcher an advantage.
Baseballs are heavily regulated in game due to the long legacy of doctoring the ball to achieve otherwise impossible movement on pitched balls. Each ball in play goes through the home plate umpire before making it to the pitcher/catcher.
Of course in baseball you'll still occasionally see the pitcher with a hidden "foreign substance" used to doctor the ball once they get ahold of it. Back 20ish years ago it was not too rare for a pitcher to be discovered with a nail file or scratching the ball on their belt buckle. Generally this is seen as "part of the game", and well, there are admitted spitballers/nail-filers in the hall of fame and nobody really cares. Nowadays, if a pitcher gets caught with a "foreign substance" (usually pine tar), they are usually suspended for a few games, the media goes into a frenzy, and retired baseball players say they all did it too.
We have to remember that the NFL, after everything is said and done, is a business. They want to make money any way they can. A great way to do that is by having its teams score lots of touchdowns. But not just any touchdowns: passing touchdowns. There's nothing as exciting to watch as a quarterback throwing a hail marry into the end zone and having the receiver diving for it. Those kinds of plays are more likely to happen if the ball is broken in to the quarterback's liking.
The ruling seems weird, but that's probably why the NFL allows its teams to supply their own game balls, instead of providing fresh ones for every game.
plays per fumble is not a very good metric - as fumbles go down it increases exponentially. If you look at the total fumbles, the patriots are #1 but only 7 ahead of #2. The two worst teams are 10 behind the next two teams. I didn't run the numbers, but eyeballing it, it seems like the Patriots are pretty easily within a couple standard deviations there.
It's not as damning for the Patriots. But very interesting that it suddenly started in 2007, the same year the NFL changed the rules to allow visiting teams to use their own balls.
For those of you who aren't keeping up with the up to the minute minutae of the New England Patriots (American football team) scandal (presumably because you have lives), head coach Bill Belichick gave a press conference a few hours ago where he provided a hypothesis of what might have happened: as many people know, quarterbacks like their game footballs prepared in specific (sometimes elaborate [0]) ways prior to use in games. Belichick says that the team went over the process they use for games a few days ago and they determine that the preparation process they use for their footballs (which he claims they do right up to the point they are given to officials for pre-game testing) increases the air pressure in the balls by about 1 psi [1]. Therefore, the balls appear legal when tested by officials, but after a few hours of sitting around, the pressure reduces to below the legal limit. He doesn't specify the process used by the team, but presumably it's some kind of rubbing that heats the ball up, and when it cools down the interior air pressure is reduced accordingly.
I'm sure someone will test this out and verify or discredit the claim.
Going from 75 degrees to 50 produces something like a 1.5 psi reduction. 85 -> 35 wound be closer to a 2psi drop. Water vapor increases the drop. Funny thing is searching for the calculation produces highly variable results.
Analyzing outlying statistics across all the available variables would be an interesting technique to try to predict other potential rules violations. This could apply to many different types of sporting events.
I wonder if anyone is working on this problem?
Despite a few nit picky issues I have with this particular analysis of the Patriots fumble data it's probably the strongest evidence I've seen so far that there has likely been a persistent rules violation.
it's probably the strongest evidence I've seen so far that there has likely been a persistent rules violation.
That's only true if ball inflation tracks with fumbles. There have been lots of assertions that's the case, but I haven't seen any evidence.
Two counter examples:
- If you look at AFCC, that's Patriots had 1 fumble in the first half playing with an underinflated ball in dry weather conditions, and had zero fumbles in the second half playing with properly inflated balls, and in wet conditions.
- Aaron Rodgers is on record stating that he likes his footballs to be inflated as high as possible. But if you look at GB's fumble data in the link, they're #6 behind NE in total fumbles.
There are a whole bunch of confounding variables here, including coaching techniques (look at how Tiki Barber's corrected his fumble problems in one year after coaching changes).
I'm not convinced that it's okay to just remove all the dome-teams from the plot. Using the author's data, here's a plot of all the teams and total fumbles (not 'fumbles lost' that the author focuses on):
The Patriots are not even the top team! It's actually the Falcons that have the most plays per fumble. If it's "nearly impossible" for the Patriots, what does that say about the Falcons? The author focuses on "fumbles lost" because that number is more dramatic if one is trying to prove that the Patriots did something wrong. That number in isolation only shows that the Patriots were extremely good at recovering their own fumbles.
Looking at the graph, there is a notable bend at the top 4 teams. Either the top 4 teams have fewer fumbles through training, or the top 4 teams are all cheating somehow. It's hard to call the Patriots statistics impossible when they're in 2nd place.
It would be interesting to get the stats on fumbles during kickoff/punt returns (when a neutral kicking ball is in use, not a team-supplied offensive ball), and on plays involving interceptions or fumble recoveries (where they would be using the other team's ball). If they rank highly in fumble prevention in those situations, it would suggest that this is a result of coaching, not using a particular ball.
Kickoff and punt return fumbles can be the result of other factors - players traveling at high speed over a long distance hitting a returner looking skyward is a unique football situation that only occurs on returns.
Interceptions and recoveries would be by defensive players, who would spend much less time focusing on ball handling since they rarely carry the ball.
Listen, engineers and scientists: 11 out of 12 balls, markedly different and underinflated compared to the other team's balls? This is a priori evidence of tampering. Any jury would convict. We don't need a Perry Mason-type confession; we don't need to identify the culprit. The team should be strongly punished for breaking the NFL rules. I think the NFL should do an extensive investigation, after the initial punishment, which justly would be done BEFORE the Super Bowl. This investigation needs to determine whether the Pats have cheated with underinflated balls over a period of months and years. It can be done. Then is the time for scientific analysis, testimony by physicists, and so on.
My point is: We don't need to identify the person responsible, and we don't need a confession. Guilt is obvious, a priori. Punishment should be swift.
The game against the Colts the Patriots clearly cheated. It is beyond reasonable that 11 of 12 footballs are 2psi less than the rule allows. Especially since the 12th football of regulation weight is the football used for kicking as you want the football inflated properly. But using fumbles as proof of long term violation is tough because their are too many factors to consider. Patriots are a pass heavy team and have been for a long time. They use multiple RB's and a fresh RB is less likely to fumble than one RB used heavily throughout the game due to mental and physical fatigue. WR's fumble but are less likely than RB's. An under-inflated ball is easier to grip so it would be interesting to see how WR's who left have fared on their new teams and if any returned later, after playing poorly on new team, to play well for the Patriots. Since 2007 has Tom Brady's completion % and interception ratio on the road improved drastically? All these things could be explained by an under-inflated but not definitively.
You are incorrect with respect to your explanation of "the 12th football being used for kicking". An entire separate group of footballs are used for kicking, outside control of either team. The kicking balls are brand new and are not allowed to be broken-in. They still have the waxy coating a new ball has. This was done some years ago to try to reduce the effectiveness of kickers.
[+] [-] jsyedidia|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fecak|11 years ago|reply
Of the backs that fumbled in 2012, only Woodhead is gone. He fumbled only once.
Two backs fumbled in 2011, once each. Woodhead (who is gone) and Ridley, who is still a Patriot.
Patriot backs simply don't fumble. Brady and Edelman do, and Welker did a bit. Your explanation isn't supported by the data.
Source. http://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/nwe/2014.htm
EDIT - I'm not sure my source differentiates fumbles from lost fumbles, although that doesn't seem to impact the conclusion regarding parent's comment.
[+] [-] ellyagg|11 years ago|reply
There are other teams that try really hard to train their players not to fumble, including taking them out until they learn not to fumble. Belichick has been otherworldly good at this training.
The Patriots were not always otherworldly at not fumbling. In fact, this acumen started the same year the NFL changed the rules so that the team was allowed to have full control of the balls after pregame inspection.
This isn't a minor issue. Turnovers are hugely predictive of game outcomes.
The Patriots were caught with deflated footballs. They had deflated footballs for a reason.
[+] [-] skwirl|11 years ago|reply
Of course, giving the context of its publication, we know what it's trying to imply.
[+] [-] bjterry|11 years ago|reply
http://www.sharpfootballanalysis.com/blog/2015/new-england-p...
[+] [-] asynchronous13|11 years ago|reply
"But in 2007, something happened to propel [the Patriots] to a much better rate."
The author is using a 5-year average, and then concluding that something must have happened in a single year that is suddenly different. What that implies to me, is that they had a particularly terrible year in 2002. So, when the really bad year slides off of the 5-year moving average, then the 5-year average suddenly looks much better.
[+] [-] twoodfin|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] robryan|11 years ago|reply
Does this happen in baseball/ basketball as well? From an Australian perspective it seems unusual.
[+] [-] skwirl|11 years ago|reply
I doubt this happens in basketball because the same ball is being handled by numerous people on both teams, so it wouldn't be fair to let one player or team break the ball in to their own preferences. The same would be true of your AFL. In the NFL, teams are using their own broken in balls, and the quarterback is (usually) the only guy who has to actually throw it.
Baseballs only last a couple of pitches and offense/defense are completely different games, so I seriously doubt anyone is allowed to do anything to any ball before the game. When a pitcher gets a new ball it is already pre-rubbed in a special mud, and they can rub it in dirt a bit but they can't put anything that will stick to the ball on it as it gives the pitcher an advantage.
[+] [-] Reebles|11 years ago|reply
Of course in baseball you'll still occasionally see the pitcher with a hidden "foreign substance" used to doctor the ball once they get ahold of it. Back 20ish years ago it was not too rare for a pitcher to be discovered with a nail file or scratching the ball on their belt buckle. Generally this is seen as "part of the game", and well, there are admitted spitballers/nail-filers in the hall of fame and nobody really cares. Nowadays, if a pitcher gets caught with a "foreign substance" (usually pine tar), they are usually suspended for a few games, the media goes into a frenzy, and retired baseball players say they all did it too.
[+] [-] zcdziura|11 years ago|reply
The ruling seems weird, but that's probably why the NFL allows its teams to supply their own game balls, instead of providing fresh ones for every game.
[+] [-] Bulkington|11 years ago|reply
http://a.espncdn.com/mlb/columns/neyer_rob/1380568.html
[+] [-] sehr|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] itsdrewmiller|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] donchipotle|11 years ago|reply
http://advancednflstats.com/index.php/home/research/general/...
It's not as damning for the Patriots. But very interesting that it suddenly started in 2007, the same year the NFL changed the rules to allow visiting teams to use their own balls.
[+] [-] Anechoic|11 years ago|reply
I'm sure someone will test this out and verify or discredit the claim.
[0] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/24/sports/football/eli-mannin...
[1] http://www.boston.com/sports/football/patriots/extra_points/...
[+] [-] zaroth|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stchang|11 years ago|reply
Why does it matter what people do for leisure?
[+] [-] maxerickson|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jonjenk|11 years ago|reply
I wonder if anyone is working on this problem?
Despite a few nit picky issues I have with this particular analysis of the Patriots fumble data it's probably the strongest evidence I've seen so far that there has likely been a persistent rules violation.
[+] [-] Anechoic|11 years ago|reply
That's only true if ball inflation tracks with fumbles. There have been lots of assertions that's the case, but I haven't seen any evidence.
Two counter examples:
- If you look at AFCC, that's Patriots had 1 fumble in the first half playing with an underinflated ball in dry weather conditions, and had zero fumbles in the second half playing with properly inflated balls, and in wet conditions.
- Aaron Rodgers is on record stating that he likes his footballs to be inflated as high as possible. But if you look at GB's fumble data in the link, they're #6 behind NE in total fumbles.
There are a whole bunch of confounding variables here, including coaching techniques (look at how Tiki Barber's corrected his fumble problems in one year after coaching changes).
[+] [-] JustinJBM|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] asynchronous13|11 years ago|reply
http://i.imgur.com/QP6LXWg.png
The Patriots are not even the top team! It's actually the Falcons that have the most plays per fumble. If it's "nearly impossible" for the Patriots, what does that say about the Falcons? The author focuses on "fumbles lost" because that number is more dramatic if one is trying to prove that the Patriots did something wrong. That number in isolation only shows that the Patriots were extremely good at recovering their own fumbles.
Looking at the graph, there is a notable bend at the top 4 teams. Either the top 4 teams have fewer fumbles through training, or the top 4 teams are all cheating somehow. It's hard to call the Patriots statistics impossible when they're in 2nd place.
[+] [-] unknown|11 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] abram|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fecak|11 years ago|reply
Interceptions and recoveries would be by defensive players, who would spend much less time focusing on ball handling since they rarely carry the ball.
[+] [-] ragtimepiano|11 years ago|reply
My point is: We don't need to identify the person responsible, and we don't need a confession. Guilt is obvious, a priori. Punishment should be swift.
[+] [-] xofer|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] asynchronous13|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _croz|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mrwarn|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joshuapayne|11 years ago|reply