Last week, Commissioner Roger Goodell said he doesn’t know whether the PSI measurements taken randomly throughout the season will be released to the public.
They should be.
“[I]t’s a big mistake if kept under wraps,” writes Peter King of TheMMQB.com. “It has to be made public, or else the public’s going to think the NFL is hiding the results. The NFL can’t simply say, ‘The balls were in compliance.’ Goodell said before the Wells report was released that the league would be totally transparent and we would know what Wells knew when Wells finished the report. So why is this different? I can guess. The NFL wants to reserve the right to not issue the measurements if it makes the league’s case against Tom Brady look bad.”
Peter is right. It’s a point that was made during a recent visit from Tom Curran of CSN New England to PFT Live. If the numbers support the notion that the Patriots deflated the footballs, the numbers are more likely to be released. If the numbers don’t, the numbers are less likely to be released.
Goodell said that the purpose of the random checks will be to ensure compliance with the rules. The reality is that the NFL still has woefully incomplete data regarding the effects of temperature and weather conditions on PSI. Every ball used in every game should be measured, both at halftime and after the game ends, which would provide extensive data for determining whether the footballs used by the Patriots lost air pressure due to foul play or the natural operation of the Ideal Gas Law.
Why wouldn’t the league want that? Because the league doesn’t want to be made to look worse that it already does for how it mishandled #DeflateGate. If the limited PSI numbers make the league look bad, the league will do everything it can to keep the media and the fans from getting a look at them.