Link to home page: www.BetterDialogue.com/DeflateGate (and sorry for the primitive site formatting — the time went into content, not formatting)

Below is the letter I emailed to the New York Times 9/26/2015

More info against The Times’ Science-Against-Patriots report

Dear corrections department and journalism integrity department,

Here are additional concerns and additional evidence beyond my prior emails. [ed. note: letter 1 | letter 2]

Another way to tell The Times’ report conclusion was wrong:  NFL/Wells’ “scientists” Exponent never claimed to be unable to explain Patriots/Colts pressure difference.

Exponent never claimed they couldn’t completely explain the Patriots/Colts pressure difference through natural causes.  If they could have claimed that, they would have.  Therefore they knew they had an explanation.  Therefore they knew the science worked for the Patriots, rather than against the Patriots (details in appendix to this email).

One of the sources used by the reporter to validate the Exponent report has since changed his mind:

Email from Alan Nathan:

When I talked with the NYT reporter, I had only briefly skimmed the report.  I spotted the name Dan Marlow, whom I know by reputation, and essentially said that if he puts his stamp of approval on it, that is good enough for me.

Since then, I have read the report more carefully and have come to a different conclusion.  The investigative work reported there was done very sloppily and leaves a lot of room for doubt about the conclusions (two gauges reading different pressures; confusion over which gauge was used and when; heating up of the balls at halftime; etc.)  Had I read the report more carefully before talking to the NYT, I would have said something very different (e.g., the investigators would have failed their Physics 101 laboratory report!).

But I have decided not to get involved any more.  I think nearly everyone has decided to move on and I have too.  So I thank you for reaching out, but I think I’ll take a pass.

Best…Alan Nathan

The other source the reporter used, Professor Timothy Gay, seems likely to change his mind if pressed:

When I spoke with him, believed, as I do, that the bag would make a big difference in the warming rate as compared to footballs being out of the bag.  This is further evidence that if you were to ask him to scrutinize the report carefully with respect to the warming simulation, he would soften or reverse his position on the report.  That is especially true if you ask him to review all the information I have provided to The Times.

The reporter for The Times story appears to have been stripped of reporting responsibilities since the problems with the Wells/Exponent report surfaced:

Based on The Times landing page for James Glanz, Mr. Glanz had written many reports for years, but that reporting ceased in June 2015, which I believe is likely not merely by coincidence the time the problems with the Exponent report were being publicized.

Mr. Glanz outgoing voice mailbox message says that he works in the investigations department.  If he were still a reporter I’d expected it to say so.

When I spoke with Professor Gay, The Times had still not contacted him.  To me, that suggests that either The Times is not serious about investigating journalistic integrity or, more likely, the Times had already concluded that the reporter’s journalism was poor and thus had no need for further confirmation.

More reasons for doubt, plus journalistic integrity issue:

The reporter noted that Professor Gay knew Patriots’ Coach Bill Belichick.  That is irrelevant to the point the article, especially since the Wells report cleared Bill Belichick of any awareness or involvement in the matter.  Therefore even if it turns out to be factually correct in some narrow way, it still needs to be removed from the article to avoid misleading readers or casting innuendo.  Does The Times correct only things that are factually completely wrong, and leave those that are misleading or cast inappropriate innuendo in the context where they appear?

The reporter noted that the report language was “fussy” and yet looked only to academic researchers to validate it, rather involving lawyers or other people with expertise in dissecting lawyered-up language.   Insufficient time was available for the interviewed researchers to have dissected such a lengthy report with fussy language, whether or not the professors felt they had reviewed the “science” or not.

The article erred in not making note that Professor Marlow was paid by the NFL (as noted in the Wells Report that the article was responding to.) This is particular egregious given that the report called out Professor Gay as knowing Bill Belichick. It is far more relevant that professor Marlow was paid by the NFL than it is that Professor Gay knows Bill Belichick.

More journalistic integrity, corrections-department integrity issues:

I believe it shows an ongoing lack integrity on the part of The Times to recognize that a reporter committed major problems in writing an article but fail to revise, soften, or otherwise correct the article.

I believe it shows a lack of integrity on the part of The Times that nearly a week after being asked to correct the assertion that the Wells/Exponent report had “noted” something, The Times has failed to either make the correction or explain to me where the report “noted” that.  The former reporter still works for The Times.  The Well’s report is public and text-searchable.  How hard could it be to either find the passage The Times alleges to “note” something or agree that there was no such “note?”  This is a simple attribution error of the kind The Times typically corrects within 24 hours.  The Times claims that in the event they elect not to make a correction, they explain why.   It seems as if The Times corrections policy is only followed when there is little or no consequence to the public or to The Times.

Folks trust The Times; The Times says the Patriots almost certainly cheated.  One of those things needs to change.  I prefer the latter, which is where the corrections department and integrity department come in into play.  Admitting the error is what gives readers the confidence that if there are problems found in any Times reports, readers will be notified and the problems will be fixed.   To quote the Patriots’ coaching philosophy, “Do your job.”

Sincerely,

Robert Young

Appendix regarding lawyered-up language and Exponent never claiming to not have a complete an innocent explanation for the Patriots/Colts pressure difference.

The public and even the defense lawyers thought the concluding paragraph of the NFL/Exponent “Science” report said:

Based on the information available to us and our experiments, we found no “good” explanation for the difference between Patriots and Colts ball pressures.

Oops!! Legally speaking, what it says is:

The “game characteristics” is the wrong place to look for the answer to why the Patriots and Colts balls had different pressures.

How much difference is there between the perception of the conclusion and the legal meaning of the conclusion? So much that, without any contradiction, the concluding paragraph could have added this:

When we looked at the information and research we did outside of the “game characteristics,” we found that the pressure difference was completely explained by those factors, and so we conclude the Patriots could not have cheated.

If the defense lawyers had noticed how narrow the concluding claim was, they could have turned around the whole case by pointing out this:

Had Exponent been able to claim their work had not found a complete explanation, they would have said so. [ed.: see note below] Therefore, from Exponent’s concluding paragraph, we can tell that Exponent knew that their work found a completely innocent explanation.

The convoluted wording is evidence that Exponent sought to confuse readers into believing there was no good explanation without, legally speaking, telling a lie.

More importantly, because Exponent knew there was a complete explanation for the pressure difference, Exponent knew the Patriots did not cheat

Note: How can we tell that Exponent would have made a stronger conclusion if they could have?

• The question in everyone’s mind was “did the Patriots cheat”, not “was it the on-field events that caused the pressure difference or some other innocent factors”?
• The scope Exponent claimed for their report was wider than just investigating the effect of “game characteristics”. The scope claimed by Exponent included “any physical or environmental factors present on the day” (see page IX, last paragraph), which encompasses many more variables, including the locker room environment.
• Exponent sought to support the NFL’s position that cheating seemed likely. (For proof, see the materials at www.BetterDialogue.com, including the amicus brief, and also the work of Robert Blecker, as noted in the Wikipedia page on reaction to the Wells report: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deflategate#Reactions_to_the_report )

So far, the NFL/Exponent lawyers were brilliant in deceiving the defense lawyers. Later below see how the NFL/Exponent lawyers fooled themselves. But first…

Because uncovering the deceptive-but-not-lying wording trick turns the entire scandal on its head, it’s important to understand the lawyered-up trick that the defense lawyers missed. Key word: “within”

Here’s the full concluding paragraph of the Exponent “science” report to the NFL:

In sum, the data did not provide a basis for us to determine with absolute certainty whether there was or was not tampering as the analysis of such data ultimately is dependent upon assumptions and information that is not certain. However, based on all of the information provided to us, particularly regarding the timing and sequencing of the measurements conducted by the game officials at halftime, and on our testing and analyses, we conclude that within the range of game characteristics most likely to have occurred on Game Day, we have identified no set of credible environmental or physical factors that completely accounts for the additional loss in air pressure exhibited by the Patriots game balls as compared to the loss in air pressure exhibited by the Colts game balls measured during halftime of the AFC Championship Game.

Wells Report Appendix 1: Exponent report page 68, item 13 (Emphasis added)

Take a closer look at what they “concluded”:

we conclude that within the range of game characteristics most likely to have occurred on Game Day, we have identified no set of credible environmental or physical factors that completely accounts for the additional loss in air pressure exhibited by the Patriots game balls as compared to the loss in air pressure exhibited by the Colts game balls measured during halftime of the AFC Championship Game.

(Note: Exponent did not format the words to have strikethroughs)

Simplify it a bit (without materially changing the meaning) by deleting the struck-through words:

we conclude that within the game characteristics we have identified no factors that completely account for the additional loss in air pressure exhibited by the Patriots game balls as compared to the loss in air pressure.

Re-order the phrases (without changing the meaning) to be clearer:

we conclude that we have identified no factors within the game characteristics that completely account for the additional loss in air pressure exhibited by the Patriots game balls as compared to the loss in air pressure

Notice that the statement is silent about factors outside the game characteristics.

Scientifically, it turns out that a large factor behind the pressure difference was that, while in the warm half-time locker room, the cold Patriots’ footballs, unlike the Colt’s footballs, had been kept in a damp bag until measured.

A New York Times reporter, while incorrectly asserting that the Patriots almost certainly cheated, falsely claimed that the Exponent report had noted that the Patriots’ and Colts’ balls had been handled in a similar way. Nowhere does the report actually say that. Its data proves the opposite if you know where to look.

Note: on 9/18/2015 I requested that The Times correct the story. They told me on the phone they are looking into it. They claim that when they make a decision, they will explain why. No word back yet (as of 9/25/2015).

Anyone suspicious of the NFL/Exponent would know where to look if they hadn’t been fooled by the lawyered-up description of the simulation of the half-time period.

Apparently nearly everyone thought Exponent had said this:

We simulated the half-time period as best we knew how

When, legally speaking, it really said this:

We disavow any attempt to accurately simulate the half time period, other than that we used the same two gauges and measured at the times as happened on game-day.

In contrast to previous parts of the simulation description, which went out of their way to specify how similar bags were used in the same was as happened on game-day, the half-time-in-locker-room part of the simulation description went out of its way to excluded simulating how the bag was used on game-day.

Had the defense lawyers not been fooled, they would have smelled blood and had someone look for the technical data that proved that the Colts footballs had not stayed well sheltered in the bag.

To see the lawyered-up trick, see what Exponent said and then google the definition of “namely.”

The procedure used to generate the halftime measurements during Game Day was replicated. Namely, the Logo and Non-Logo Gauges were used.
–Source: Bottom of Exponent page 56.

Namely… adverb… [first definition] that is to say;
Source: Google.com, search for definition of namely. Above retrieved most recently Sep 25, 2015.

Thus the description becomes:

The procedure used to generate the halftime measurements during Game Day was replicated. [That is to say], the Logo and Non-Logo Gauges were used.

Or in other words:

We do NOT say that we replicated the procedure; we only guarantee the same gauges were used in our simulation as were used on the day of the game.

Where the NFL/Exponent lawyers fooled themselves

Based on the above, it’s clear that the intent was to deceive without, legally speaking, lying. Unfortunately, the NFL/Exponent lawyers screwed up and allowed one important “conclusion”, the one used by the NFL to punish the Patriots, to be, legally speaking, a lie:

Experimental Simulations Conclusion

In both the Non-Logo Gauge and Logo Gauge simulations, we see that the average measurements for the Colts footballs are generally at or near the line representing the average measurements from Game Day. In contrast, all of the average measurements for the Patriots footballs generated by the simulations are noticeably higher than the line representing the average measurements from Game Day. Therefore, subject to the discovery of an as yet unidentified and unexamined factor, the measurements recorded for the Patriots footballs on Game Day do not appear to be completely explainable based on natural causes alone.

Source: Exponent report, page 61 (7 pages before the final conclusion of the report)

Recall that the lawyered-up wording I explained first (final conclusion, use of the word “within”) proves that the NFL/Exponent lawyers knew that Exponent knew that they could explain the pressure difference based on natural causes. Therefore, totally irrespective of the simulation, they knew the pressures were explainable.

The lawyered up wording described next, about the half-time part of simulation (key word “namely, exponent page 56) shows that Exponent knew the simulation did not match game-day events. Therefore Exponent knew that just because the Patriots’ game-day pressure didn’t match the simulation results doesn’t mean that the Patriots’ game-day pressure wasn’t exactly where it was supposed to be.

To make the above not a lie, legally speaking, they should have said that “we conclude that if the simulation accurately reflected reality as best we knew how to do, then the pressure difference was not completely explainable by natural causes. To be honest, they would have added: The simulation does not accurately reflect reality. When we adjust for the upward bias in our simulation, we conclude that the Patriots footballs had just the right pressure, so therefore we can tell that the Patriots did not cheat.

Legally speaking, I’m curious about this: If someone intends to intentionally deceive, but they screw up by actually stating something they had meant to trick people into believing they had stated, is that, for the purpose of an anti-defamation suit, lying. For that matter, even if they deceived without lying, is that sufficient for a public figure injured by the deception to recover damages. I hope the answer to both is “yes.”

For those looking for a quick hint as to what those factors “outside” of “game characteristics” were which explained the Patriots/Colts pressure difference:

• Most important: When the ref finished inspecting the footballs before the game, the Colts’ footballs had more pressure than the Patriots’ footballs.
• Almost as important: The Patriots footballs, because they were kept in a damp bag, warmed several times slower, so had several times less pressure increase per minute than would footballs freely exposed to the air. In contrast, there is no testimony that the Colts balls were kept in the bag the whole time. In fact, the pressures that were measured in the Colts balls could not have happened if the Colts balls measured were typical of 11 that had remained in the bag until tested.
• Least-important: The Colts balls had much more time to warm up (and thus have their pressure increase) before they were measured than did the Patriots

For those interested in how the Exponent data proves the Patriots were unlikely to have cheated at all, and could not possibly cheated by an amount detectable by the testing, and could not possibly have cheated by an amount that makes a discernable difference in game play, please see the materials at www.BetterDialogue.com/DeflateGate.

The above shows strong logical evidence that Exponent knew the Patriots did not cheat. The detailed analysis on the website proves that the Exponent data proves the Patriots did not cheat.

I hope that when the pundits react, the message will be not be “yet another problem found NFL/Exponent work” but rather “Scandal over: NFL data proves the Patriots did not cheat.”

It would be misleading and lazy journalism for the headline to be merely that there is yet another problem with the Exponent report.

Another way to tell The Times’ report conclusion was wrong:  NFL/Wells’ “scientists” Exponent never claimed to be unable to explain Patriots/Colts pressure difference.

Exponent never claimed they couldn’t completely explain the Patriots/Colts pressure difference through natural causes.  If they could have claimed that, they would have.  Therefore they knew they had an explanation.  Therefore they knew the science worked for the Patriots, rather than against the Patriots (details in appendix to this email).

One of the sources used by the reporter to validate the Exponent report has since changed his mind:

Email from Alan Nathan:

When I talked with the NYT reporter, I had only briefly skimmed the report.  I spotted the name Dan Marlow, whom I know by reputation, and essentially said that if he puts his stamp of approval on it, that is good enough for me.

Since then, I have read the report more carefully and have come to a different conclusion.  The investigative work reported there was done very sloppily and leaves a lot of room for doubt about the conclusions (two gauges reading different pressures; confusion over which gauge was used and when; heating up of the balls at halftime; etc.)  Had I read the report more carefully before talking to the NYT, I would have said something very different (e.g., the investigators would have failed their Physics 101 laboratory report!).

But I have decided not to get involved any more.  I think nearly everyone has decided to move on and I have too.  So I thank you for reaching out, but I think I’ll take a pass.

Best…Alan Nathan

The other source the reporter used, Professor Timothy Gay, seems likely to change his mind if pressed:

When I spoke with him, believed, as I do, that the bag would make a big difference in the warming rate as compared to footballs being out of the bag.  This is further evidence that if you were to ask him to scrutinize the report carefully with respect to the warming simulation, he would soften or reverse his position on the report.  That is especially true if you ask him to review all the information I have provided to The Times.

The reporter for The Times story appears to have been stripped of reporting responsibilities since the problems with the Wells/Exponent report surfaced:

Based on The Times landing page for James Glanz, Mr. Glanz had written many reports for years, but that reporting ceased in June 2015, which I believe is likely not merely by coincidence the time the problems with the Exponent report were being publicized.

Mr. Glanz outgoing voice mailbox message says that he works in the investigations department.  If he were still a reporter I’d expected it to say so.

When I spoke with Professor Gay, The Times had still not contacted him.  To me, that suggests that either The Times is not serious about investigating journalistic integrity or, more likely, the Times had already concluded that the reporter’s journalism was poor and thus had no need for further confirmation.

More reasons for doubt, plus journalistic integrity issue:

The reporter noted that Professor Gay knew Patriots’ Coach Bill Belichick.  That is irrelevant to the point the article, especially since the Wells report cleared Bill Belichick of any awareness or involvement in the matter.  Therefore even if it turns out to be factually correct in some narrow way, it still needs to be removed from the article to avoid misleading readers or casting innuendo.  Does The Times correct only things that are factually completely wrong, and leave those that are misleading or cast inappropriate innuendo in the context where they appear?

The reporter noted that the report language was “fussy” and yet looked only to academic researchers to validate it, rather involving lawyers or other people with expertise in dissecting lawyered-up language.   Insufficient time was available for the interviewed researchers to have dissected such a lengthy report with fussy language, whether or not the professors felt they had reviewed the “science” or not.

More journalistic integrity, corrections-department integrity issues:

I believe it shows an ongoing lack integrity on the part of The Times to recognize that a reporter committed major problems in writing an article but fail to revise, soften, or otherwise correct the article.

I believe it shows a lack of integrity on the part of The Times that nearly a week after being asked to correct the assertion that the Wells/Exponent report had “noted” something, The Times has failed to either make the correction or explain to me where the report “noted” that.  The former reporter still works for The Times.  The Well’s report is public and text-searchable.  How hard could it be to either find the passage The Times alleges to “note” something or agree that there was no such “note?”  This is a simple attribution error of the kind The Times typically corrects within 24 hours.  The Times claims that in the event they elect not to make a correction, they explain why.   It seems as if The Times corrections policy is only followed when there is little or no consequence to the public or to The Times.

Folks trust The Times; The Times says the Patriots almost certainly cheated.  One of those things needs to change.  I prefer the latter, which is where the corrections department and integrity department come in into play.  To quote the Patriots’ coaching philosophy, “Do your job.”

Sincerely,

Robert Young

Appendix regarding lawyered up language and Exponent never claiming to not have a complete an innocent explanation for the Patriots/Colts pressure difference.

The public and even the defense lawyers thought the concluding paragraph of the NFL/Exponent “Science” report said:

Based on the information available to us and our experiments, we found no “good” explanation for the difference between Patriots and Colts ball pressures.

Oops!! Legally speaking, what it says is:

The “game characteristics” is the wrong place to look for the answer to why the Patriots and Colts balls had different pressures.

How much difference is there between the perception of the conclusion and the legal meaning of the conclusion? So much that, without any contradiction, the concluding paragraph could have added this:

When we looked at the information and research we did outside of the “game characteristics,” we found that the pressure difference was completely explained by those factors, and so we conclude the Patriots could not have cheated.

If the defense lawyers had noticed how narrow the concluding claim was, they could have turned around the whole case by pointing out this:

Had Exponent been able to claim their work had not found a complete explanation, they would have said so. [ed.: see note below] Therefore, from Exponent’s concluding paragraph, we can tell that Exponent knew that their work found a completely innocent explanation.

The convoluted wording is evidence that Exponent sought to confuse readers into believing there was no good explanation without, legally speaking, telling a lie.

More importantly, because Exponent knew there was a complete explanation for the pressure difference, Exponent knew the Patriots did not cheat

Note: How can we tell that Exponent would have made a stronger conclusion if they could have?

• The question in everyone’s mind was “did the Patriots cheat”, not “was it the on-field events that caused the pressure difference or some other innocent factors”?
• The scope Exponent claimed for their report was wider than just investigating the effect of “game characteristics”. The scope claimed by Exponent included “any physical or environmental factors present on the day” (see page IX, last paragraph), which encompasses many more variables, including the locker room environment.
• Exponent sought to support the NFL’s position that cheating seemed likely. (For proof, see the materials at www.BetterDialogue.com, including the amicus brief, and also the work of Robert Blecker, as noted in the Wikipedia page on reaction to the Wells report: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deflategate#Reactions_to_the_report )

So far, the NFL/Exponent lawyers were brilliant in deceiving the defense lawyers. Later below see how the NFL/Exponent lawyers fooled themselves. But first…

Because uncovering the deceptive-but-not-lying wording trick turns the entire scandal on its head, it’s important to understand the lawyered-up trick that the defense lawyers missed. Key word: “within”

Here’s the full concluding paragraph of the Exponent “science” report to the NFL:

In sum, the data did not provide a basis for us to determine with absolute certainty whether there was or was not tampering as the analysis of such data ultimately is dependent upon assumptions and information that is not certain. However, based on all of the information provided to us, particularly regarding the timing and sequencing of the measurements conducted by the game officials at halftime, and on our testing and analyses, we conclude that within the range of game characteristics most likely to have occurred on Game Day, we have identified no set of credible environmental or physical factors that completely accounts for the additional loss in air pressure exhibited by the Patriots game balls as compared to the loss in air pressure exhibited by the Colts game balls measured during halftime of the AFC Championship Game.

Wells Report Appendix 1: Exponent report page 68, item 13 (Emphasis added)

Take a closer look at what they “concluded”:

we conclude that within the range of game characteristics most likely to have occurred on Game Day, we have identified no set of credible environmental or physical factors that completely accounts for the additional loss in air pressure exhibited by the Patriots game balls as compared to the loss in air pressure exhibited by the Colts game balls measured during halftime of the AFC Championship Game.

(Note: Exponent did not format the words to have strikethroughs)

Simplify it a bit (without materially changing the meaning) by deleting the struck-through words:

we conclude that within the game characteristics we have identified no factors that completely account for the additional loss in air pressure exhibited by the Patriots game balls as compared to the loss in air pressure.

Re-order the phrases (without changing the meaning) to be clearer:

we conclude that we have identified no factors within the game characteristics that completely account for the additional loss in air pressure exhibited by the Patriots game balls as compared to the loss in air pressure

Notice that the statement is silent about factors outside the game characteristics.

Scientifically, it turns out that a large factor behind the pressure difference was that, while in the warm half-time locker room, the cold Patriots’ footballs, unlike the Colt’s footballs, had been kept in a damp bag until measured.

A New York Times reporter, while incorrectly asserting that the Patriots almost certainly cheated, falsely claimed that the Exponent report had noted that the Patriots’ and Colts’ balls had been handled in a similar way. Nowhere does the report actually say that. Its data proves the opposite if you know where to look.

Note: on 9/18/2015 I requested that The Times correct the story. They told me on the phone they are looking into it. They claim that when they make a decision, they will explain why. No word back yet (as of 9/25/2015).

Anyone suspicious of the NFL/Exponent would know where to look if they hadn’t been fooled by the lawyered-up description of the simulation of the half-time period.

Apparently nearly everyone thought Exponent had said this:

We simulated the half-time period as best we knew how

When, legally speaking, it really said this:

We disavow any attempt to accurately simulate the half time period, other than that we used the same two gauges and measured at the times as happened on game-day.

In contrast to previous parts of the simulation description, which went out of their way to specify how similar bags were used in the same was as happened on game-day, the half-time-in-locker-room part of the simulation description went out of its way to excluded simulating how the bag was used on game-day.

Had the defense lawyers not been fooled, they would have smelled blood and had someone look for the technical data that proved that the Colts footballs had not stayed well sheltered in the bag.

To see the lawyered-up trick, see what Exponent said and then google the definition of “namely.”

The procedure used to generate the halftime measurements during Game Day was replicated. Namely, the Logo and Non-Logo Gauges were used.
–Source: Bottom of Exponent page 56.

Namely… adverb… [first definition] that is to say;
Source: Google.com, search for definition of namely. Above retrieved most recently Sep 25, 2015.

Thus the description becomes:

The procedure used to generate the halftime measurements during Game Day was replicated. [That is to say], the Logo and Non-Logo Gauges were used.

Or in other words:

We do NOT say that we replicated the procedure; we only guarantee the same gauges were used in our simulation as were used on the day of the game.

Where the NFL/Exponent lawyers fooled themselves

Based on the above, it’s clear that the intent was to deceive without, legally speaking, lying. Unfortunately, the NFL/Exponent lawyers screwed up and allowed one important “conclusion”, the one used by the NFL to punish the Patriots, to be, legally speaking, a lie:

Experimental Simulations Conclusion

In both the Non-Logo Gauge and Logo Gauge simulations, we see that the average measurements for the Colts footballs are generally at or near the line representing the average measurements from Game Day. In contrast, all of the average measurements for the Patriots footballs generated by the simulations are noticeably higher than the line representing the average measurements from Game Day. Therefore, subject to the discovery of an as yet unidentified and unexamined factor, the measurements recorded for the Patriots footballs on Game Day do not appear to be completely explainable based on natural causes alone.

Source: Exponent report, page 61 (7 pages before the final conclusion of the report)

Recall that the lawyered-up wording I explained first (final conclusion, use of the word “within”) proves that the NFL/Exponent lawyers knew that Exponent knew that they could explain the pressure difference based on natural causes. Therefore, totally irrespective of the simulation, they knew the pressures were explainable.

The lawyered up wording described next, about the half-time part of simulation (key word “namely, exponent page 56) shows that Exponent knew the simulation did not match game-day events. Therefore Exponent knew that just because the Patriots’ game-day pressure didn’t match the simulation results doesn’t mean that the Patriots’ game-day pressure wasn’t exactly where it was supposed to be.

To make the above not a lie, legally speaking, they should have said that “we conclude that if the simulation accurately reflected reality as best we knew how to do, then the pressure difference was not completely explainable by natural causes. To be honest, they would have added: The simulation does not accurately reflect reality. When we adjust for the upward bias in our simulation, we conclude that the Patriots footballs had just the right pressure, so therefore we can tell that the Patriots did not cheat.

Legally speaking, I’m curious about this: If someone intends to intentionally deceive, but they screw up by actually stating something they had meant to trick people into believing they had stated, is that, for the purpose of an anti-defamation suit, lying. For that matter, even if they deceived without lying, is that sufficient for a public figure injured by the deception to recover damages. I hope the answer to both is “yes.”

For those looking for a quick hint as to what those factors “outside” of “game characteristics” were which explained the Patriots/Colts pressure difference:

• Most important: When the ref finished inspecting the footballs before the game, the Colts’ footballs had more pressure than the Patriots’ footballs.
• Almost as important: The Patriots footballs, because they were kept in a damp bag, warmed several times slower, so had several times less pressure increase per minute than would footballs freely exposed to the air. In contrast, there is no testimony that the Colts balls were kept in the bag the whole time. In fact, the pressures that were measured in the Colts balls could not have happened if the Colts balls measured were typical of 11 that had remained in the bag until tested.
• Least-important: The Colts balls had much more time to warm up (and thus have their pressure increase) before they were measured than did the Patriots

For those interested in how the Exponent data proves the Patriots were unlikely to have cheated at all, and could not possibly cheated by an amount detectable by the testing, and could not possibly have cheated by an amount that makes a discernable difference in game play, please see the materials at www.BetterDialogue.com/DeflateGate.

The above shows strong logical evidence that Exponent knew the Patriots did not cheat. The detailed analysis on the website proves that the Exponent data proves the Patriots did not cheat.

I hope that when the pundits react, the message will be not be “yet another problem found NFL/Exponent work” but rather “Scandal over: NFL data proves the Patriots did not cheat.”

It would be misleading and lazy journalism for the headline to be merely that there is yet another problem with the Exponent report.