Photo by Barry Chin/The Boston Globe via Getty Images
Tom Brady throws what could have been a deflated ball at the 2015 AFC Championship game against the Indianapolis Colts.
- A 10-year-old won his local
science fair because of a project that appeared to show how Tom Brady allegedly cheated during the 2015 AFC Championship game against the Indianapolis Colts. - One of the biggest controversies in modern sports was born out of the game, becoming known as "Deflategate."
- Brady probably knew deflated balls were to be used in the game, and was eventually slapped with a four-game suspension. The Patriots were fined $1 million.
- Ace Davis, a schoolboy, threw footballs of different weights to find out whether deflating them gave an advantage.
- His research was clear: Brady is a cheater.
Tom Brady cheated, everybody. It's science.
Well, it's a 10-year-old boy's science. But his project, which concluded that the New England Patriots "were found guilty of doctoring footballs" in the 2015 AFC Championship game against the Indianapolis Colts, took first place at a local science fair in Kentucky, and that may well be enough to settle "Deflategate" once and for all.
Deflategate, one of the most controversial moments in modern NFL, involves the allegation that Brady probably knew deflated footballs were going to be used in the 2015 game to gain an advantage during offensive plays in the playoffs.
Brady dismissed the allegations at first, calling the claims "ridiculous." However, he was eventually suspended for four games, and the Patriots were fined $1 million and lost two draft picks.
Four years on from the initial scandal, Ace Davis, a schoolboy at the Millcreek Elementary in Lexington, tried to prove that Brady cheated once and for all.
In a science fair project, Davis argued that underinflated footballs provide a competitive advantage in a game.
To prove this, he and his family threw footballs "of different weights (psi-pounds per square inch)" in the yard. The results, Davis said, showed that the most inflated balls travelled the shortest distances and the least inflated balls travelled the farthest.
This means Brady and the Patriots would have had a clear advantage in the 2015 game.
The project's conclusion is clear: "Tom Brady is indeed a cheater."
The student's father posted the project on Facebook, and it's been liked more than a thousand times.
The project impressed the science fair judges, who awarded Davis with the win in the fourth grade at the elementary school fair.
If Davis ever met Brady, he would reportedly tell him to retire, according to CBS News.
He also said he would give Brady this message: "Give me some of your money. You don't deserve it."
The Patriots, meanwhile, were back in the AFC Championship earlier this month, beating Kancas City Chiefs 37-31 to progress to Super Bowl LIII. The Pats play the LA Rams at the Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia on February 3.