Report: NFL 'May' Release PSI Data Collected During 2015 Season In Weeks Leading Up To Super Bowl
By Michael Hurley, CBS Boston
BOSTON (CBS) -- The NFL, as ever, remains the world's most popular soap opera.
Last year at this time, the NFL owned the national news cycle. The network news programs, as well as the 24-hour cable networks, covered the "cheating scandal" in New England as if the President of the United States had just been caught committing treason. White House reporters flocked to Foxboro to ask Tom Brady to please think of the children.
For the NFL, it was perfect. Free advertising for a league which already didn't need any, all leading up to the largest sporting event of the year.
And for as much as the folks who run the league made themselves look like buffoons throughout the entire ordeal known as "DeflateGate," they're not complete dummies. And so, on Monday night, Mike Florio from Pro Football Talk reported this:
"The league has not yet committed to making any of the PSI information [gathered during games this season] public. However, a source with knowledge of the situation tells PFT that the league may be releasing a summary of the data between the conference title games and the Super Bowl."
Did you catch that? "Between the conference title games and the Super Bowl."
The league is actually planning its national attention heist in advance this year, again choosing the route of pounds per square inch.
The data was collected at "random" games during the NFL season, and based on the work of every single scientist who weighed in on the topic and was not being paid by the NFL to say what the NFL wanted, the data should show what is scientific fact: air pressure drops inside footballs when they're moved from warm rooms into cold weather.
Yet we saw last January that certain aspects of recording PSI data proved difficult for the NFL. Likewise, the NFL seemed to enjoy leaking some PSI numbers that -- whoops! -- weren't even close to being the numbers that were actually recorded. In that time between the conference championship game and the Super Bowl, if there was a narrative to be pushed by way of dealings with the media that were shrouded in secrecy, then the NFL jumped at the opportunity.
And considering the NFL has invested millions of dollars in "investigating" Tom Brady and the Patriots, and considering the legal expenses have only multiplied since then as Roger Goodell continues his fight in a federal court of appeals to this day, the league is in no position to suddenly reverse course after a full year on the offense. The league is much more inclined to drum up interest in its sport by any means possible.
This much was clear as far back as last May -- May! -- when the story had already lived much longer than it needed to live. Back in May, I wrote this:
It's "more probable than not" that above all else, the NFL lives for the soap opera. The folks who run the league know that the NFL is much, much bigger than any one player, owner or franchise. The NFL is a juggernaut, and while many have wondered how the league benefits by painting the Super Bowl MVP as "Mr. Cheat," the reality is simple. The league loves the drama.
...
Whether Tom Brady comes out of this thing smelling like roses or wearing a proverbial orange jumpsuit, the folks running the league don't really care. They just want to keep you tuned in and waiting for more. And they're pretty damn good at it.
Eight months later -- eight months! -- nothing has changed.
Getting scolded by a federal judge on a national stage was not enough to make Goodell feel shame. Seeing dozens of scientists, including a Nobel Prize winner, debunk the NFL's accusations using only the most basic of scientific principles, was not enough for Goodell to feel embarrassed. So surely, whatever these numbers recorded at games this season might say, you can bet on one thing: Roger Goodell will never admit he's wrong. And the league will not submarine its only federal court appeal case by releasing numbers that show -- whoops! -- every team's footballs "deflate" just like the Patriots' footballs.
But in the week after the conference championship games, when the league is desperate to keep all of America's eyes on its product, Goodell will drop some crumbs to keep the public interested but starving for more.
It's coming. It's best to start mentally preparing now.
DeflateGate.
Month 13.
Year 2.
No end in sight.
You can email Michael Hurley or find him on Twitter @michaelFhurley.