When a gas is pressurized, its temperature rises. If these balls were filled quickly, the inside temperature would have been higher than the room temperature — possibly above 95*F. After a few minutes, the inside of the ball would have reached room temperature, and thus have a lower pressure. However, unless the league rules mention all those variables; the balls might actually have been in compliance, when they were filled.
It shouldn’t be difficult to conduct an experiment, supervised by league officials. Fill a ball indoors — to the minimum allowable pressure. Take outdoors and wait for a half hour or so, and check the pressure.
An excellent suggestion.
For your scheme, you just need an air compressor delivering 95 F air !
It requires that you get the officials check the ball air pressure before they have time to cool off.
What is the rate of cooling of an NFL football?
I had heard it was a 2lb drop below legal. That’s a pretty large drop for a football.
Odds are it’s not some deep conspiracy but just a callous “cheat” of the rules that they got too slack on and went too far.
The most damning thing was when a guy claimed on the radio that their stats are atypical for cold weather performance.
Let’s see if the NFL treats this more serious than a coach telling his players to play hard.
Pinging you, because it seem that you might have called this first.
I believe that the balls were in compliance with NFL rules, right up until the time that someone on the sideline let the air out of them...