Yeah, the league says they can be between 12.5-13.5, and if the team presents them under the limit the league can inflate them.
Trouble is, the Pats staffer took the balls on a detour after they had been checked and approved by the officials—into the men’s room, which he locked, and where he apparently took some air out of each of the balls to get them under the limit.
The texts between the Pats equipment guys even have the one who took the balls into the locked bathroom calling himself “The Deflator”. They were joking about it and the needles, how upset Brady would be and was when they weren’t deflated right, and quoting Brady as understanding how stressful it was for the guy to get them all done.
Brady also had an hour phone call, a flurry of texts, and a first-ever invitation to the more senior of the staffers into the QB room while damage control was going on—and then Brady declined to hand over the relevant texts.
He’s pretty clearly guilty. But it’s the sort of thing the various teams are always trying to pull on each other.
Then isn’t “The Deflator” the person who actually broke rules?