The story didn't go big until ESPN reported about 24 hours after the game that the NFL had discovered that 11 of the 12 footballs were measured to be more than 2 pounds per square inch below the league minimum of 12.5.
That gave a subject that almost no one knew much about context, significance and potentially sinister intent. ESPN cited a nebulous "league source" at a time when it's believed no one outside the NFL office knew the actual measurements.
Of course, that story wasn't true. It wasn't even close to true. Wells' report showed that none of the footballs, each measured twice, were that underinflated.
At that very moment, the NFL had to know the story wasn't true. Yet it did nothing.
So the league either created a fake story that was extremely prejudicial to the Patriots by leaking inaccurate information or someone else did it and the league office let it run wild rather than correct it with the actual air pressure measurements....
Even more bizarre, an NFL senior vice president emailed a letter to the Patriots stating that "one of the game balls was inflated to 10.1 psi … [and] in contrast each of the Colts game balls that was inspected met the requirements."
Those assertions were untrue.
No gameball was measured below 10.5 and most were in the 11s, which is within an acceptable range of natural deflation. Three of the four Colts footballs as measured by one gauge were below 12.5, although also within the weather realm (it's uncertain the NFL knew anything about Ideal Gas Law at the time).
Wells' report brushed this off as "miscommunication" but it's quite a miscommunication.
The NFL either had no idea what it was doing and was just making up facts without checking or, in a more draconian reading of it, it was trying to scare and/or silence the franchise into compliance by trumping up evidence.
