Peter King
The recent statement that "one ball was 2 psi under, & the others were just a tick under" makes absolutely zero sense. ALL balls were down about 1.3 psi below the pressure to which they were set. We KNOW that all the Patriots' balls were set to 12.5 psi, therefore they ALL were reading around 11.2 psi. Which is NOT "just a tick under".
Therefore that statement has to be wrong. Someone is guessing, and they are guessing wrong.
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In addition, I found this original statement from Peter King that people frequently cite as "Peter King says they checked the Colts' balls."
It appears in "Deflategate: The Pressure Is Building", MMQB, Jan 21, 2015, and reads:
"I think it's fair to assume - though it hasn't been confirmed by the league - that the Patriots' footballs that were tested at halftime Sunday had less air, and the Colts' footballs were all found to be legal. Connect the dots. Chris Mortensen reported Tuesday that 11 of 12 Patriots football (sic) had approximately 2 pounds less pressure per square inch then the mandated 12.5 psi required by the NFL. In other words, the patriots footballs were softer than allowed by rule. The obvious deduction is that all the balls, for both teams, were measured at halftime, and that New England football were found to be softer - or else the link would be investigating Indianapolis as well, and the league is clearly not doing that. This is important because it would render moot The theory going around that the cold weather could have caused the air pressure in the balls to decrease. It was the same weather on both sides."
My conclusions from reading this paragraph:
1. Peter King sucks when he attempts to play the role of Sherlock Holmes.
His assumptions are baseless.
His deductions are ludicrous.
His conclusions are wrong.
2. If King had half a brain, his first phone call would've been to Andrew luck. "Hey Andy, what pressure do you like your footballs set to?"
3. NOBODY checked the Colts' balls.
Reason: If they had, they would've found ALL FOOTBALLS reading too low, which would've sent this investigation in a completely different direction.
4. The Patriots balls were NOT softer than the Colts balls.
Reason: there is no significant, no detectable, no sensible difference between the compressibility of a cold football pressurized to 11.5 psi compared to one pressurized to 12.5 psi.
This is 100% proven by the fact that the referees handled both the Patriots' and the Colts' footballs between every play in the first half of that game, and detected no difference.
There is SO MUCH wild, baseless speculation going on here...