Grew up in C-Town and their Eliot Ness Lager is phenomenal! Kills me you can't get it in NYC. Time for a walk down memory lane: it has a wonderfully creamy texture that's rare for a lager. The malts are very pronounced, and have a nice carmel sweetness. The way the fullness of the body combines with the carbonation…

Maybe the refs were inflating the balls in a sauna?

HI-YOOOOOOOOOO!

Could be, but that still strikes me as an extraordinary result.

Of course there can be explanations for outliers and, again, I'm not saying this is conclusive, but when outlier has a deviation as wide of the range of all others, that's one hell of an outlier.

I never said it was conclusive proof. I said it was a major anomaly.

Yeah, you really hate to see people base their beliefs on evidence that can be independently verified through testing.

From a scientific point of view, seeing a deviation that enormous is a serious red flag. Typically when you're talking about outliers you see something on the order of 10 to 15% in extreme cases. 500% is the mother of all anomalies. In a lab, when you see something that unusual it's a good idea to check your…

Except anyone who's taken a high school level stat class should know that a deviation of more than %500 should be statistically impossible.

Some more facts: http://www.slate.com/articles/sport… Data here is a big ol' 5-year sample of every team's fumble avoidance rates. The largest 2nd largest deviation is about 10, while the Patriots are off by a whopping 52. That isn't just an outlier, that's a goddamn curve wrecker.

The gauge pressure/absolute pressure argument, while plausible, is moot—either way is moot—because there wasn't enough relevant data collected at the right time. Any results are going to be inconclusive at best. A critical piece of information that is missing is the air temperature of the room at the time the ball was…

The air pressure argument, while plausible, is moot—either way is moot—because there wasn't enough relevant data collected at the right time. A critical piece of information that is missing is the air temperature of the room at the time the ball was inflated. Most people I've seen working out the Ideal Gas Law…

This is a pretty good argument, but it's inconclusive. The math works, but it assumes the values entered for the variables are correct. You can make formulas say anything if you supply your own data, so I'm a little skeptical. The argument that temperature change could cause the deflation is a plausible scenario that…

The second largest deviation on that graph is about 10, the Patriot's deviate by 52! That isn't an outlier, that's a goddamn curve-wrecker. Blows the argument that it's just a little air out of the water.

Thanks for the debunking. I'd read an article from a physics professor at Boston University that explained absolute pressure vs gauge pressure. I was a little suspicious because it would have necessitated that the room the Patriots used to inflate the balls was 90 degrees F. This is a pretty strong retort.

This is actually pretty compelling...and it means...(sigh)...I'm going to have to defend the Patriots. Goddamnitsomuch.

Being covered in poop is gross enough when it is you own. When it belongs to a total stranger ...Oh...oh boy...just...ugh...

Now that you've said it, I can't unsee it.