'Deflategate' latest: Underinflated footballs and fumble rates


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SALT LAKE CITY — Just ahead of the Super Bowl, “deflategate” continues to take attention away from the big game, and one numbers guy is pointing to a pattern and asking just how long the Patriots have been playing with underinflated footballs.

According to the findings of football metrics man Warren Sharp, the New England Patriots saw an unusual shift in its fumble rate starting in 2007.

Sharp found from 2000 to 2006, the Patriots’ fumble rate was 42 touches per fumble. From 2007 to present, the Patriots’ averaged 74 touches per fumble.

Sharp noted in published reports that he made no definitive conclusions on those findings but also observed that quarterbacks Tom Brady and Peyton Manning lobbied for a rule change after the 2006 season that permitted teams to bring their own footballs to games.


One trick that the author played was to look at the fumble rate in terms of touches per fumble instead of fumbles per touches. It would kind of be like measuring your car speed in hours per mile. You know, it just wouldn't make sense.

–Ken Pomeroy


Not everybody is sold on the fumbles stat, including Salt Lake City’s Ken Pomeroy, creator of the popular college hoops analytics and ratings site kenpom.com.

“One trick that the author played was to look at the fumble rate in terms of touches per fumble instead of fumbles per touches,” Pomeroy said. “It would kind of be like measuring your car speed in hours per mile. You know, it just wouldn’t make sense.”

Pomeroy observed the difference between the Patriots and other NFL teams is not as wide as the touches-per-fumble stat makes it appear.

“The Patriots do have some skill in not fumbling the football,” Pomeroy said. “It’s clear over the last 7 or 8 years, they’ve been very good at not fumbling the football. Whether that’s some sort of technique or whether that has something to do with what they’re doing with the ball, can’t really say. It’s probably mostly technique.”

Pomeroy also said luck could play a factor.

“Maybe over time they just haven’t been hit as hard as other teams – it’s hard to say,” Pomeroy said. “There’s always going to be some variations. There are 30 teams in the league and the teams at the top usually have benefitted from good skill and good luck.”

There is more room, Pomeroy acknowledged, to study the impact of underinflated footballs.

“It’s too bad that the Super Bowl has popped up on us so quick,” Pomeroy said. “I think there is some more analysis that could be done to really see just how real the Patriots’ advantage has been. Has it been purely luck, or is it something bigger in terms of their technique, or is it just something random where they just run the right plays, they have a really good quarterback and that’s the reason for their advantage in fumbling?”

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