Hang with me for a minute, this is going to get tinfoil hat level crazy.
What if Bill, and Tom sat down and concocted a plan. A plan to put other QB's who were bending the rules a little back in line.
During the season we had seen things, and heard things about other teams doing stuff to balls, Rodgers over inflating, the vikings heating them up mid game, the Jets game the balls were SUPER over inflated. What if Bill and Tom saw this, and started to wonder why nobody was doing anything about it, The patriots were always playing by the rules since cameraplacementgate, and now there was this big thing where teams were BLATANTLY breaking a rule, and nobody gave a ****. So there drinking a bottle of i dunno 600 year old whisky, dry aged or whatever it is super genius's drink.
Lets bring all those other QB's back to earth. So they set in motion a plan to get the spotlight put on them, we'll play with minimally legally inflated balls, the cold weather will know the psi down, and we'll leak to a couple of those whiney teams that maybe our balls are improper, because they won't have any doubts that those teams will whine and cry about it.
Of course they didn't think the league would throw AS big of a hissy fit, but they did expect that the league would be more strict in enforcing the psi levels,
And looks whats happened. Peyton is done, Aaron rodgers looks pedestrian. Nobody is even close to bradys level.