An apology does not undo the knee-jerk reaction of NFL officials. It was done the New England way, by finding a way to win the SuperBowl!
It was kind of amusing to hear all of those petty NFL losers whine about the Patriots. <^..^>
Well, this is just the ball attempting to be "re-intro'd" at halftime for use by the special teams.
(Wasn't involving any of the deflated Patriot offense footballs detected; for that, we'll await the NFL investigation)
And bigger than what the Pats did or didn't do in that deflategate Colts game is the sudden 8-year turnaround the Pats did in 2007 -- the very first year the NFL allowed team offenses to supply their own footballs.
Brady went from a 61.8 to a 68.9% completion percentage -- in one season...and Brady cont'd to post much higher completion %s after that...(his annual average shot up about 3% more completions per year thru 2014)..
And the Pats, fumbling as much as any other thing in the NFL in 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002, 2001, 2000 suddenly when into almost fumble-free mode...
...Dumb Luck: The New England Patriots’ prevention of fumbles is nearly impossible...
...Essentially posting year-in, year-out "almost impossible" fumble-free stats EVERY YEAR 2007-2014... especially given the Pats are an "outdoor" team [teams with indoor facilities fumble much less]
(Well, golly gee whiz...what a coincidence!)
How so?