Cheating’s OK as long as it isn’t noticed until it’s too late to do anything about it. /s
That is not what I said - nor did I even imply it.
if the Patriots wanted to be butts, and supply the ref balls at check-time with 5 lbs of pressure in them, that wouldn’t be cheating. it’d be obnoxious, but not cheating.
The only cheating would be if after the balls were returned to the ball boy, just prior to the game start, that the balls were then deflated, by the team. Unless that can be proven, this is on the Refs...and still not a big deal.