The Super Bowl is still over a week away, and everyone is most interested right now in Deflategate. On that topic, I have two thoughts.
More than 40 years later, Watergate is still the standard. Anytime there’s a controversy in any arena – sports, politics, entertainment – it tends to pick up that “gate” suffix. Spygate, Monicagate, Contragate, Weinergate, Bountygate, Tattoogate. There’s a Wikipedia page that has over a hundred such listings.
The line needs to be drawn somewhere, but I think it’s reasonable for the NFL to give teams some leeway in choosing what kind of ball they’d like to play with. If a team wants to go down to 11 pounds per square inch, is that such a bad thing? In college, each team brings its own balls, and they can play with different brands. If letting quarterbacks play with a slightly harder or softer ball means I don’t have to watch as many passes get thrown 5 yards over a wide receiver’s head, I’m for it.
But we’ll see what the NFL decides. Rules stipulate that balls must be inflated to 12.5 to 13.5 pounds per square inch. If the league concludes that the Patriots sneaked in a bunch of underinflated balls, some punishment will be in order.
But for today, let me look briefly at some actual on-field stuff.
In front of me, I’ve got the inside-the-5 stats for each team. These include both regular plays and three 2-point conversion attempts, which I’ll also include because I think they’re meaningful.
In their 18 games, New England ran more than twice as many plays inside the 5 – 71 to 32.
Tom Brady was far more prodigious inside the 5 than Russell Wilson. In that part of the field, Brady attempted three times as many passes and threw 10 more touchdowns (actually 11 more touchdowns, since one of Wilson’s scores was a 2-point conversion).
| PASSING INSIDE THE 5 | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Player | Att | Comp | Pct | TD | Sack | TD% |
| Brady, N.E. | 33 | 16 | 48% | 14 | 1 | 41% |
| Wilson, Sea. | 11 | 7 | 64% | 4 | 2 | 31% |
Marshawn Lynch, no surprise, was the busiest runner inside the 5, but the Patriots as team actually ran the ball on 18 more plays than Seattle inside the 5. It’s just that they used a bunch of different players – five had 5-9 rushing attempts for them.
New England scored 4 more rushing touchdowns than Seattle inside the 5-yard line.
| RUSHING INSIDE THE 5 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Player | Att | Yds | Avg | TD | TD% |
| Lynch, Sea. | 15 | 28 | 1.9 | 7 | 47% |
| Gray, N.E. | 9 | 16 | 1.8 | 5 | 56% |
| Blount, N.E. | 8 | 12 | 1.5 | 4 | 50% |
| Wilson, Sea. | 4 | 11 | 2.8 | 3 | 75% |
| Vereen, N.E. | 9 | 4 | .4 | 2 | 22% |
| Ridley, N.E. | 5 | 5 | 1.0 | 2 | 40% |
| Brady, N.E. | 5 | 9 | 1.8 | 1 | 20% |
| Develin, N.E. | 1 | 0 | .0 | 0 | 0% |
| Patriots | 37 | 46 | 1.2 | 14 | 38% |
| Seahawks | 19 | 39 | 2.1 | 10 | 53% |
Finally, here’s the breakdown for the pass catchers. Tight ends have been big for New England, with Rob Gronkowski and Tim Wright combining to catch 9 of 11 passes, all for touchdowns. Julian Edelman has been surprisingly ineffective in that part of the field, catching only 2 of 9 passes.
| RECEIVING INSIDE THE 5 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Player | Att | Comp | Pct | TD | TD% |
| Gronkowski, N.E. | 7 | 5 | 71% | 5 | 71% |
| Wright, N.E. | 4 | 4 | 100% | 4 | 100% |
| Vereen, N.E. | 6 | 3 | 50% | 2 | 33% |
| Edelman, N.E. | 9 | 2 | 22% | 1 | 11% |
| LaFell, N.E. | 3 | 1 | 33% | 1 | 33% |
| Develin, N.E. | 2 | 1 | 50% | 1 | 50% |
| Willson, Sea. | 1 | 1 | 100% | 1 | 100% |
| Lynch, Sea. | 1 | 1 | 100% | 1 | 100% |
| Turbin, Sea. | 1 | 1 | 100% | 1 | 100% |
| Moeaki, Sea. | 1 | 1 | 100% | 1 | 100% |
| Baldwin, Sea. | 4 | 2 | 50% | 0 | 0% |
| Amendola, N.E. | 2 | 0 | 0% | 0 | 0% |
| Kearse, Sea. | 1 | 0 | 0% | 0 | 0% |
| Harvin, Sea. | 1 | 1 | 100% | 0 | 0% |
| Richardson, Sea. | 1 | 0 | 0% | 0 | 0% |
| Patriots | 33 | 16 | 48% | 14 | 42% |
| Seahawks | 11 | 7 | 64% | 4 | 36% |
—Ian Allan