[Hot Tabasco]

One thing I can't figure out is if the balls were under inflated, how could the referees not have noticed it themselves since they had to pick up and place the ball after virtually every play in the game........?

And as a side note, I suspect that every team in the NFL adjusts the pressure in their footballs to the satisfaction of their quarterbacks prior to each game........

[lepton]

When footballs cool, they get stiffer, not softer, even though they lose pressure. There are many games a year where the footballs are outside the rule limits - probably nearly all except a few games in the south or in domes once November comes around.

In the case of the playoff game, it was also raining, so the footballs (and the refs) were wet too.