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The 2014 AFC Championship Game football tampering scandal, commonly referred to as Deflategate, or Ballghazi, is a controversy in the National Football League (NFL) involving allegation of tampering with footballs by the New England Patriots, related to the accusation that the team tampered with footballs used in the American Football Conference (AFC) Championship Game against the Indianapolis Colts on January 18, 2015. The league announced on May 11, 2015, that it would suspend Patriots quarterback Tom Brady for four games of the upcoming 2015 regular season for his alleged part in the scandal. After NFL commissioner Roger Goodell upheld the suspension in an internal appeal, the matter was moved to federal court. On September 3, 2015, Judge Richard M. Berman vacated Goodell's four-game suspension of Brady, holding that "...the requisites of fairness and due process" were missing from the process leading to the imposition of the penalty. ==Background== The official rules of the National Football League require footballs to be inflated to a gauge pressure between 12.5 and 13.5 pounds per square inch (psi) or 86 to 93 kPa, when measured by the referees. The rules do not specify the temperature at which such measurement is to be made. Per the pressure-temperature law, there is a positive correlation between the temperature and pressure of a gas with a fixed volume and mass. Thus, if a football were inflated to the minimum pressure of 12.5 psi at room temperature, the pressure would drop below the minimum as the gases inside cooled to the colder ambient temperature on the playing field. Under-inflating a football may make it easier to grip, throw, and catch, and may inhibit fumbling, especially in cold rainy conditions. Prior to 2006, NFL custom was for the home team to provide all of the game footballs. In 2006, the rules were altered so that each team uses its own footballs while on offense. Teams rarely handle a football used by the other team except after recovering a fumble or interception. Tom Brady, quarterback of the New England Patriots (along with Peyton Manning, who was quarterback of the Indianapolis Colts in 2006), argued for the rules change for the express purpose of letting quarterbacks use footballs that suited them. Initial reports indicated that the magnitude of the pressure change observed in the game balls was inconsistent with that predicted analytically, suggesting that human intervention was involved; data in the Wells Report and subsequent analysis of same, however, suggest the opposite conclusion (see below). Early reports suggested that the Indianapolis Colts and Baltimore Ravens first suspected that the footballs the Patriots were using in the games against each team might have been deliberately underinflated to gain an illegal advantage during the 2014 NFL regular season,〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=NFL was ready to check New England Patriots' footballs against Colts, report says - Newsday )〕〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Report: Colts Raised Concerns About Under-Inflated Balls After Game vs. Patriots in Indianapolis )〕 although Baltimore head coach John Harbaugh denied reports concerning the Ravens. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Deflategate」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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