Over a year has passed since the New England Patriots beat the Indianapolis Colts in the 2014 AFC Championship, but it remains one of the most talked about games to the day.
That, of course, has little to do about the Patriots’ win on their way to a fourth Super Bowl championship, though, and everything to do with Deflategate.
With the one-year anniversary in the books and the Patriots playing in another AFC Championship Game this weekend, New York Times columnist Joe Nocera wrote a scathing column Friday about Goodell and the NFL’s handling of the entire situation.
A portion of the column is dedicated to Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor John Leonard’s work looking into the science the NFL used to make the case against Patriots quarterback Tom Brady and the organization. His findings were a lot different than the league’s, and he concluded that the Ideal Gas Law could have contributed to the drop in PSI’s in the Patriots’ footballs, which Exponent dismissed in its analysis for the league.
And if you’re one of Leonard’s students, we wouldn’t recommend using the methods Exponent used.
“I would force (a student) to repeat the experiment and correct the analysis.” Leonard told the Times.
He added: “I am convinced that no deflation occurred, and that the Patriots are innocent. It never happened.”
The controversy still is ongoing, and the league and Brady will return to court this offseason. But if you ask Nocera, there’s no question that the science backs the Patriots.
“You can’t ignore the laws of science,” he writes, “unless, of course, you’re the NFL.”
Thumbnail photo via Brace Hemmelgarn/USA TODAY Sports Images
