I know it won't be particularly liked here, but I ran across this in a comment thread elsewhere and it pretty much hits all my feelings on this
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"OK, after reading all the technical part of the report and bits of the others (especially the text message bit), I've come to a few conclusions.
It's clear that McNally probably broke the rules and was intentionally deflating balls in violation of the NFL procedures, on more than one occasion. Jastremski was also apparently in the know, and may even have been the instigator.
It's not clear that McNally or Jastremski intended to deflate the balls to below the 12.5 psi spec. The relatively damning text messages indicate that balls were sometimes inflated to over the desired spec of 12.5 psi, and possibly to be out of spec on the high side, so their intent, or their "job", may have been to make sure nothing was overinflated, rather than to intententionally under-inflate.
The physics analysis pretty clearly indicates that thermodynamic effects account for underinflation of some of the balls, and for all but approximately 0.1 - 0.4 psi of underinflation for the other balls. McNally may have just gone through and stuck the needle in a few of the balls that felt harder, and dropped a few to something like 12.2 psi.
It's clear that Brady was, in some sense, "generally aware" of what is going on. But it's not clear that he actually did anything technically wrong, and certainly there is no evidence that he actually ordered the deflation.
He was providing autographs or similar kickbacks to Jastremski and McNally. However, that in and of itself is not really that damning. These two were, respectively, the guy who inflated the balls and the guy who was supposed to make sure that the refs properly re-inflated to the correct level. Since he's picky about his ball inflation level, giving the autographs to them is likely akin to me being nice to my admin who plans all my travel, so that I don't end up with 3-stop flights and stays in a Motel 6. Similarly, knowing how much of a perfectionist Brady is and how he will get really angry at people, I'm sure anytime a ball in a game felt too hard, he would light into Jastremski and/or McNally for it, whether it was their fault or not.
Given all that, it's likely that Brady asked them to make sure the balls were "soft", that is, inflated to at least the low end of the spec. There is no evidence that he deliberately asked them to deflate them, but I don't ask my admin her secret tricks to getting me the awesome flights that don't show up on Orbitz. There's also no evidence that he indicated to them that the balls should be illegally out of spec, i.e. below 12.5 psi, but he certainly wasn't checking them with pressure gauge, and if they were extra soft, I don't think he would have complained. Just like I don't complain if I find myself booked in a hotel that's above per diem.
So, long and short, it is probable that part-time Patriots employees, being pressured by Tom Brady to make sure the balls weren't too hard, violated game-day procedures and sometimes let some air out of balls.
It is probable that Brady knew they were going "above and beyond" to keep the balls from being too hard, but impossible to prove (unless McNally or Jastremski comes forward and says that they did it and that Brady was aware of it).
It is possible that their intent was to reduce the pressure below 12.5 psi, but also possible that they were merely trying to make sure the balls were at 12.5 psi, i.e. at the low end of the spec. Not enough evidence one way or another.
It is doubtful that Brady directly instructed them to specifically deflate the balls to be out of spec. So his claim that he never intentionally tried to break the rules could be technically true, technically.
It is doubtful that the balls used in the AFC CG were significantly out of spec at kickoff--probably less than half a psi.
It is certain that this had no effect on the outcome of the game."
Rich Hill@PP_Rich_Hill
