Deflategate (2004) to top ⤴home ⇐awards ⤵
TEAM: The Philadelphia Eagles
SEVERITY:
SUMMARY: Ex-Eagles and retired Pro Bowl quarterback Jeff Blake confessed in an interview that removing air from footballs was common when he played in the NFL from 1992-2005.
"I'm just going to let the cat of the bag, every team does it, every game, it has been since I played," the ex-Eagles QB said Wednesday in a radio interview on the "Midday 180" show on Nashville's 104.5 The Zone. "Cause when you take the balls out of the bag, they are rock hard. And you can't feel the ball as well. It's too hard.
"Everybody puts the pin in and takes just enough air out of the ball that you can feel it a little better. But it's not the point to where it's flat. So I don't know what the big deal is. It's not something that's not been done for 20 years."
Blake says that he'd order ball boys to let air out of his footballs just before the start of games during his entire NFL career, which included time with the Eagles in 2004.
VICTIM: The entire league
PUNISHED? No but ... it's more probable than not that this was cheating
PUNISHMENT: He admitted doing it
SHARE: http://YourTeamCheats.com/PHI#Deflategate-2004
Inflategate (2008-14) to top ⤴home ⇐awards ⤵
TEAM: The Green Bay Packers
SEVERITY:
SUMMARY: Mike Reiss of ESPNBoston.com, noted that during the November 30, 2014 game between the Packers and Patriots on CBS, Jim Nantz and Phil Simms discussed the preference of Green Bay Packer quarterback Aaron Rodgers for overinflated footballs.
"'I like to push the limit to how much air we can put in the football, even go over what they allow you to do and see if the officials take air out of it,'" Simms said Rodgers told them before the game. Rogers' believes that "It's not an advantage when you have a football that’s inflated more than average air pressure. We’re not kicking these footballs."
Former quarterback Phil Simms said that Rodgers' preference is the exception as most quarterbacks prefer a softer football.
VICTIM: The entire league
PUNISHED? No but ... it's more probable than not that this was cheating
PUNISHMENT: Rodgers' ball-manipulation is different than what Tom Brady was accused of being "at least generally aware" of. Rodgers inflated his footballs to an illegal level before the game-day inspection and hoped that the illegal balls slipped by an unsuspecting official. More seriously, based on Simms report, the officials may actually have conspired to help Rodgers by adding a puff of air for him.
Said Simms: "You know, the officials do check those footballs and sometimes maybe even get lucky and put an extra half pound of air in there to help Aaron Rodgers out." This is a very serious charge. Are the officials helping some quarterbacks cheat?
I'm sure the league is looking into Rodgers' statement about illegally tampering with his footballs and allegedly receiving help from friendly officials to introduce illegally inflated balls into football games. It's a matter of fairness and the integrity of the game, after all.
SHARE: http://YourTeamCheats.com/GB#Inflategate-2008
Deflategate (2006) to top ⤴home ⇐awards ⤵
TEAM: The Houston Texans
SEVERITY:
SUMMARY: In a November 3, 2006 article in the New York Times, former Houston Texans quarterback David Carr, like several other quarterbacks, said Denver was one of the toughest places to play. He said he thought the ball expanded slightly at the altitude and felt slick because of the lower humidity.
Before Houston’s August 27, 2006 preseason game at Denver, as Carr proudly admitted to the reporter, he instructed the Houston ball boys to let a little air out of the Texans' footballs.
Uh oh, good thing Carr is no longer in the league, or I'm sure he'd be looking at a 4-game suspension. I assume, however, that NFL commissioner and former Jets public relations intern Roger Goodell will be fining the Texans $1MM and docking their 1st and 4th round draft picks...waiting...waiting...Roger, you there?
VICTIM: Denver Broncos
PUNISHED? No but ... it's more probable than not that this was cheating
PUNISHMENT: You can toss out the "more probable than not" BS. Carr admitted to tampering with the footballs and utterly obliterating the integrity of the game. We won't know until Ted Wells' report is finished (waiting...waiting...Teddy? Pick up the phone!) for how long the Texans quarterback employed this heinous practice.
SHARE: http://YourTeamCheats.com/HOU#Deflategate-2006
Deflategate (2015) to top ⤴home ⇐awards ⤵
TEAM: The Indianapolis Colts
SEVERITY:
SUMMARY: After an exhaustive -- but ultimately inconclusive -- 107-day examination of the filthy balls of the Patriots and Colts, "independent" investigator Dr. Ted Wells (note: not a real doctor) determined that the balls of both the Patriots and the Colts were a little too limp and squishy during the first half of the 2015 AFC Championship Game.
Although the Wells investigation was hired by the NFL to dig up dirt implicating the Patriots, it actually unwittingly uncovered the Colts own ball deflation cheating. At halftime AND at the end of the game, four Colts' footballs were tested and in both cases 3 out of the 4 footballs were found to be deflated below the legal 12.5 PSI minimum on at least one official's gauge (p 69 & p 73 of the hugely expensive Wells Report).
Speculates Kerry Byrne (of ColdHardFootballFacts.com) on why the officials only tested four Colts footballs: "Consider this scenario: Imagine if 11 of 12 Colts footballs checked in under 12.5 PSI by at least one official. And, remember, 3 of 4 did. Those results certainly would have taken the wind out of the sails of the SS Witch Hunt. And that must have appeared like a very real probability once officials checked the first four Colts footballs. Seems 'more probable than not' that NFL officials stopped out of convenience rather than a genuine interest in the truth or integrity."
The Wells Report evidence clearly suggests that it was more probable than not that the Colts played the entire AFC Championship Game with illegally deflated footballs. The report doesn't mention if the Colts balls were tested at the same time as the Patriots or after the Patriots were all tested and reinflated with air. It actually matters, because if the Colts balls were in the warm locker room longer than the Patriots balls, they would have had a longer period of time to reverse the effects of the Ideal Gas Law effect, hiding some of their deflation in relation to the colder Patriots balls.
See thumbnail below
Oops. NFL commissioner and former Jets public relations intern Roger Goodell would like to have a word with you in his office. This muddies the narrative that the Patriots are the NFL's only serial-cheater. You knew what you were hired to do Teddy Wells. What happened?
UPDATE: On May 14, 2015 council for the New England Patriots issued a comprehensive rebuttal to the Wells Report. One significant point was that the Colts broke a written league rule when they tested the air pressure of the intercepted football during the game. The Wells Report never flagged that as an issue.
VICTIM: New England Patriots (The illegally deflated balls may have unfairly robbed the Pats of a shutout)
PUNISHED? No but ... it's more probable than not that this was cheating
PUNISHMENT: Colts quarterback Andrew Luck is one of the best young quarterbacks in the league (side note: how on earth were the Colts able to land him?) There is no way that a professional of his skill and experience would not notice that he was playing with illegally deflated footballs.
Your Team Cheats executive vice president Voy Trincent therefore rules that there is substantial and credible evidence to conclude that Luck was at least generally aware of the actions of the Colts' more probable than not deflation of their AFC Championship footballs. As punishment, all future references to Andrew Luck* on this site must be appended with and asterisk. As well, he will never again receive the benefit of the doubt when involved in future cheats and we will only use unflattering photos of him, where required.
Because of their prior history of significant rule bending (SuckForLuckgate, PEDSgate, Noisegate, etc.) and the fundamental attack on the integrity of the game that this ball deflation infraction represents, the Colts organization is assessed a 3.0 CheatPoint penalty. This is the same severity as this site's numerous other ball manipulation cheats because, unlike NFL commissioner and former Jets public relations intern Roger Goodell, we like to show some fairness in punishing similar cheats with similar penalties.
SHARE: http://YourTeamCheats.com/IND#Deflategate-2015
Ballsgate (2003) to top ⤴home ⇐awards ⤵
TEAM: The Tampa Bay Buccaneers
SEVERITY:
SUMMARY: Prior to Super Bowl XXXVII, former Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Brad Johnson paid some guys $7,500 to scuff and break in the 100 footballs that were to be used in the Super Bowl.
Johnson, who led the Buccaneers to a 48-21 victory over the Oakland Raiders in Super Bowl XXXVII, says he broke the rules to make sure the footballs in the game were more comfortable in his hand. According to Rick Stroud of the Tampa Bay Time, Johnson struggled to grip wet, cold or out-of-the-box footballs and was forced to wear a glove in the preceding NFC Championship game. With the NFL supplying 100 new footballs for the Super Bowl, Johnson said that he made sure the balls would be prepped to his liking.
Admitted Johnson, "I paid some guys off to get the balls right. I went and got all 100 footballs, and they took care of all of them."
VICTIM: The entire league
PUNISHED? No
PUNISHMENT: Although Raiders QB Rich Gannon threw five interceptions in the loss, he was allegedly informed by Johnson about the planned ball manipulation. It doesn't matter much, though, because the NFL wouldn't really care about teams manipulating footballs until 12 years later. Nonetheless, what Johnson confessed to was not legal.
SHARE: http://YourTeamCheats.com/TB#Ballsgate-2003
I didn't look up all 32 teams, but ball doctoring has been going on for a long time:
