luuked
Hall of Fame Poster
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The refs don't notice because it's only a slight difference and they weren't looking for it as they handled the footballs. The Colt's LB didn't notice until he handed the ball off to the Colts equipment manager because he wanted to keep it (intercepting Brady in the AFC champ). He immediately noticed because he's the equipment manager and he handles the footballs on a daily basis.
So from the info that's currently out it seems that all balls passed inspection prior to the game and at some point between kick off and half time 11 balls were deflated to 11 PSI. This isn't the weather people. The weather isn't deflating 11 balls to exactly 11 PSI but all Colts balls pass inspection. It's looking more and more like someone on the Patriots deflated the balls.
Is it cheating? Yeah, technically. Do all teams do this? Probably, but like Spy Gate we don't know for sure. Is it THAT big of a deal? No. Does it effect the outcome of the game? No.
But it does leave another black mark on the Brady/BB Patriots, which kinda sucks.
God are you trolling or is the entire thing still too complicated for some people?
The reason the balls were deflated is 100% the weather. It doesn't matter one bit that the Colts balls were less/not affected because they were definitely not pumped up in the same room as the Pats balls were.
I am willing to bet that we inflated our balls in a very warm environment (80+degree). They passed inspection because at that point they were still above the 12.5 threshold but after multiple hours outside they were not anymore.
This is the most likely scenario and there is not a single rule that was violated.
The league will not punish us at all and in the offseason the rules will be rephrased to make everything more specific.