[yesthatjallen]

Yes.

This allegation would never happen again if the NFL provided the balls.

It's a simple, common sense solution.

[jjotto]

https://operations.nfl.com/the-game/gameday-behind-the-scenes/nfl-game-ball-procedures/

[lepton]

This allegation would never happen again if the NFL provided the balls.

---

That would have solved nothing. The issue was that the NFL league officials didn’t understand outdoors. Interestingly, the Ravens claim of Patriot manipulation of footballs was a League official stealing footballs set to go to charity, and the Colt prior claims were for a game where their own ballboys held the Patriots footballs.

Now there was an example of illegal manipulation of ball pressure outside the “legal” range: During a Jets pre-game, the game official inflated many of the Patriots balls to around 16 PSI, which is high enough to start spreading the seams, and apparently what got Brady and the training staff to find out what the actual pressure rules were and start informing the Referees - so they’d get it right.