The NFL decided against keeping records of PSI ball testing.
On Tuesday, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell told NFL Networks’s Rich Eisen that the NFL did not log any data collected while inspecting the PSI of footballs this season. The purpose of randomly testing footballs, Goodell explained, was to create a “deterrent effect.”
The fallout from last year’s Deflategate was that this season the NFL would use “spot checks” to ensure that footballs were being properly inflated. In the interview with Eisen, Goodell stated that “there were no violations this year. We’re pleased that we haven’t had any violations and we continue the work, obviously, to consistently and importantly enforce the integrity of the game and the rules that are designed to protect it.”
This season, the NFL announced that it would randomly select different batches of game day footballs to test. It was assumed that once this season was over, that the data collected by the NFL would be released to the public.
Furthermore, in the interview, Goodell explained that the spot checks were not a “research study.” According to Goodell, the NFL did not record any data from the PSI tests, the league was simply ensuring the balls used during a course of a game were legal.
But maybe the NFL should have conducted a research study.
In 2015, the NFL gave the New England Patriots a $1 million fine for the team’s participation in a ball-deflation scheme (known as Deflategate). The Patriots were also stripped of two NFL draft picks — first and fourth-round selections in 2016. Additionally, Patriots quarterback Tom Brady was suspended four games. Eventually, after the case was heard in a federal court, the suspension against Brady was vacated. Soon after the suspension was lifted, the NFL filed for an appeal which begins this March.
When the NFL returns to appeals court, the league will need to prove that the Patriots did indeed deflate the team’s balls. Ever since Deflategate first came about, plenty of scientists have argued that the balls used by the Patriots which were under-inflated due to the Ideal Gas Law.
The NFL would have benefitted from knowing if footballs naturally deflate substantially when used in cold environments. Unfortunately, the data which could have helped prove the Patriots guilt or innocence was not recorded.
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