Brian Tuohy, I respect you, but the bit about obfuscation is wrong.
More evidence came out tonight on Deadspin (and was pointed out to me by my friend) that New England systematically broke the rules to gain an unfair advantage in the AFC Championship Game.
First, as Deadspin provides, a primer:
Each team in an NFL contest is allowed to bring 12-20 of it's own game-ready balls to use in the game.
As a backup, the home team adds 12 to that total.
The kicker: Each team is allowed to use it's own game balls on offense.
This means that, in fact, the officials were swapping out "Indianapolis balls" for "New England balls" when New England went on offense.
This, in and of itself, is no problem -- it's Standard Operating (within the rules) league procedure.
The problem came apparent in the second quarter of the game, when Indianapolis' D'Qwell Jackson picked off Tom Brady with about nine minutes to go in the second quarter and returned the ball, going out of bounds on the Indianapolis bench side.
He immediately notices something and points it out to the trainers on that side. They told the head coach, the coach told the GM, New York was called immediately, and the officials were notified at halftime.
The ball, Jackson says, is badly underinflated, so the ball can be more easily thrown and caught in the conditions.
Maybe this is another reason why, since the War on Terror Three, New England has had trouble getting a fourth...
Cheaters...
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