The Colts used the same balls so that would negate the advantage. Still, any attempt to cheat should result in severe penalties. Of course forfeiting the game wouldn't even be considered.

The Colts used the same balls so that would negate the advantage. Still, any attempt to cheat should result in severe penalties. Of course forfeiting the game wouldn't even be considered.

The NFL is the one who should be investigated , for letting the Patriots play a second rate team like the Colts in a Championship Game

The home teams provides 30 balls, and hands them over to the referees. The referees hand the balls out to the teams on the field.
So, if New England underinflated the balls, the Colts would have been playing with the same balls. No advantage.

Further, it seems like the refs would have an air pressure gauge, and would check the balls.

Really weird how a deflated ball helped NE but not Indy?!?

The NFL is the one who should be investigated , for letting the Patriots play a second rate team like the Colts in a Championship Game

Just heard the league if investigating.

I watched the game & the only team that had their balls deflated were the Colts.

The NFL is the one who should be investigated , for letting the Patriots play a second rate team like the Colts in a Championship Game

The home teams provides 30 balls, and hands them over to the referees. The referees hand the balls out to the teams on the field.

Digest of Rules Main
Ball

The home club shall have 36 balls for outdoor games and 24 for indoor games available for testing with a pressure gauge by the referee two hours prior to the starting time of the game to meet with League requirements. Twelve (12) new footballs, sealed in a special box and shipped by the manufacturer, will be opened in the officials� locker room two hours prior to the starting time of the game. These balls are to be specially marked with the letter "k" and used exclusively for the kicking game.

45 to 7 blowout and some sore losers are out looking for a conspiracy to account for it....LOL! It's like the Colts never showed up.

They could have given the Colts deflated balls to use all day and it wouldn't have mattered....some people can find a conspiracy when they get a parking ticket. Hilarious!

The NFL doesn't maintain control of the balls during the game and they are surprised by this?

I was never a follower of NASCAR, but is the NFL going in the same direction?

Much ado about nothing.

If this was anybody but the Pats it'd be a non-story.

Yeah, a pattern, : something that repeats itself.

No I don't, but they are dumb enough to get caught.

Again my only question is why?

you complainers are just pissed because you picked the wrong team and you're wives are giving you hell cause you spent the rent money.

It had little to do with the outcome but does show a pattern of these types of things coming out of that organization.

My question is why, it was obviously intentional, Brady is lying through his teeth. No way a ball boy or equipment manager makes that call without his input. So again why?

Should be a good game!

Right, once every 7 years? Got it. lol

They've been CAUGHT twice in 7 years. How many times have they gotten away with breaking the rules that haven't been caught?

They've been CAUGHT twice in 7 years. How many times have they gotten away with breaking the rules that they haven't been caught?

The Patriot fans defending their "team" reminds me of the parents who defend their criminal kids.

Not nearly as clever as the Giants intercepting Vikings radio signals during a playoff game... kinda disappointed in the Patriots lack of creativity.

So basically what you're saying is, the Patriots are the only team in the NFL that might be cheating and no other team cheats? Got it.
Haters gonna hate. lol

The Patriot fans defending their "team" reminds me of the parents who defend their criminal kids.

I can tell you for sure that the REDSKINS do not cheat. Hell they have trouble just finding the freaking field!! Much less the balls....

If they do then they suck at that too.

If you've been struggling to care about the Patriots being accused of deflating footballs, and have been hoping the whole thing would just blow over so we could get to talking about a truly excellent and fascinating Super Bowl matchup, you, my friend, are [bleep] out of luck. Ballghazi is real, and it is just the thing to fill an off-week.

ESPN reported last night that a league investigation has discovered that 11 of the Patriots' 12 footballs used in their whupping of the Colts were underinflated, and by a significant margin: two pounds per square inch below the acceptable 12.5-13.5 psi range. The NFL, per Chris Mortensen's source, is "disappointed ... angry ... distraught," not because there might be shenanigans going on here�no one should be shocked at that�but because the league now has to deal with this bullshit. ("Distraught!" This is the best, dumbest scandal.)

The more context that emerges, the more it feels like messing with footballs is akin to pitchers doctoring baseballs: everybody does it, and nobody looks too closely until an opponent publicly complains. Aaron Rodgers says he likes his balls overinflated. Brad Johnson says that before the Super Bowl, he paid "some guys" $7,500 to illegally rough up 100 game balls. Quarterbacks are understandably particular about the feel of their footballs, and teams seem to have an unspoken agreement to respect each other's freedom to squeeze and scuff and shine their own balls to their preference, as long as it stays within the bounds of decency. Either the Patriots went beyond those bounds, or the Colts were extra-salty and felt they had nothing to lose.

It remains to be seen�and I don't know it could ever be proven either way�just what happened to those footballs. The rules state that 12 footballs are provided to each team before the game to be inspected and broken in (a 2006 rule change pushed through by Tom Brady and Peyton Manning; prior to that, the home team was responsible for both teams' balls), then returned to the officials for approval two hours and 15 minutes before kickoff. Were the Pats' balls acceptable when they turned them in to referee Walt Anderson? If so, what happened to them to deflate them by the time they were put into play? And why, in 2015, are we still handling footballs this way?

Bill Polian has a simple, obvious solution:

"Just treat the footballs exactly like the K-balls," he said, referring to the balls used for kicking. "Keep them in the officials' custody until right before the game, and once they've been inspected, give them to a neutral person to handle them during the game on the sidelines."

But now is not the time for sense. Now is the time for screaming, and settling old scores, and reveling in a scandal that's goofy but genuinely revealing of the tenuous web of gentlemen's agreements that allows the NFL to even function. The fractally expanding rulebook is impossible to follow to the letter, so players and teams and officials have carved out an unwritten shadow rulebook, with its own, more realistic bounds of acceptability. Linemen are allowed to get away with a modicum of holding. The Seahawks secondary can commit pass interference on every single play. Tom Brady can [bleep] with his footballs. The NFL's existence is predicated on winks and nods, and it's hilarious (if worrying) that the whole thing can collapse thanks to one bitter team appealing the letter of the law.

What should happen, and what probably will happen, is that the Patriots will be fined some token amount, and everyone will move on, but not before making a billion jokes about balls, and not without this relatively victimless crime tainting everything the Patriots have ever done, no matter how illogical that is. Because, damn it, it's fun to needle Pats fans about Spygate and Eli and now this, because why should they be allowed to have nice things?

It won't be so simple as all that, thanks in large part to the boredom caused by the two-week Super Bowl break and the many, many column inches to fill. There will be calls for blood, and recriminations, and conspiracy theories galore. The Ravens are already alleging the Patriots got to their kicking balls. Roger Goodell's cozy relationship with Bob Kraft is being brought up.


Nothing can happen easily around here, because the NFL is a control-freak league uniquely unsuited to the practical exercise of that control. And we, the unaffiliated fans and unabashed scandal-groupies, are all better off for it. Buckle up, because we've got 11 more days before the Super Bowl, and the NFL is going to keep a firm grip on Tom Brady's balls.

OMG, that was funny!

Seems like NE has the dynasty.

The home teams provides 30 balls, and hands them over to the referees. The referees hand the balls out to the teams on the field.
So, if New England underinflated the balls, the Colts would have been playing with the same balls. No advantage.

Further, it seems like the refs would have an air pressure gauge, and would check the balls.

check out the cialis parody on youtube. I do not know how to add it here but it's pretty funny too