One hour ago, a video was posted on YouTube by a random woodworker who has multiple tools to test multiple measurements. For each of temperature and pressure, he has a fancy tool and a simple tool.
INDOORS: Inflating the ball to 13 PSI with a hefty electronic pump and removing the needle quickly, and then testing it with a manual tire pressure tool, removing the needle quickly, and going back to the electronic pump, shows the ball now at 11 PSI. That's because you always lose a bit of air by testing again. The other issue is that even a fancy pump is only accurate to 0.5 PSI, so that's already 0.5 PSI leeway in favor of the Patriots. Basically, just testing the ball over a 5 hour period indoors will show a loss of PSI.
OUTDOORS: Inflating the ball indoors to 13 PSI with the electronic pump, and bringing it outside to Foxborough weather for only 30 minutes, dropped the pressure to 9 and 9.5 PSI. Seriously.
Remember that in the real game, the balls had 4+ hours to adapt to the outdoors.
Did the Colts cheat and over-inflate their balls to 16 PSI, which the referees allowed, so that they were still valid later in the game once they lost air pressure?
Of course nobody would say that. The most logical answer is that their balls were inflated outdoors (or stored in the un-heated luggage compartment inside their bus) and likely kept them on the bus next to the practice field and handed them off directly to the officials once they were ready to practice so they didn't have to leave them inside with the hosts. There was no pressure change for Colts to deal with.
Did the Patriots cheat and remove air after giving the balls to the referees?
Of course not. This video shows the most logical explanation that a Wilson ball can lose 4 PSI in 30 minutes once it's brought outside. The hosts store and pump up their game balls inside, as there is no reason to store or bring the balls outside 2.5 hours ahead of the time in the cold and heavy rain when the referees can check them indoors away from heavy rain.
If cold temperature brings the air pressure down by 4 PSI in a cheaper Wilson after 30 minutes, we can assume that air contracts just the same in a more expensive ball, especially after 4-5 hours, too. The air doesn't care how fancy the container is, assuming that synthetic leather stretches and conducts temperature fairly similarly to real leather.
If the real game balls deflated by only 2 PSI after 4-5 hours, then it looks like the media owes the Patriots an apology.
According to reports, referees do not normally measure the air pressure at half-time, and often do not measure the balls before the game, either. Therefore, the NFL must repeat this simple test with real game balls, which I'm sure the Patriots have already lent to the NFL to make the test as real as possible (new balls might behave differently.) And even in the case something doesn't add up, they would have to guess how much of an effect it had in the first half, which is none.
Unfortunately, the Patriots could not simply inflate the balls themselves once they deflated without being called cheaters (we would have InflateGate instead of our current MediaGate).
This needs to be sent to the NFL pronto.
