So that brings it back to why the league puts the balls back into the care of a team. And how’d the refs miss it when they were handling the balls in between plays? If the defender spotted it so easily it kind of beggars the imagination that the refs didn’t. Heard an ex-ref on the radio pointing out that the story so far has the refs alerted in the first half, giving them half time to fix it, though we don’t know if they did. But that brings up another question of if they did nothing why? And if they did then the Pats had “proper” balls for the second half when the game turned into a route. There’s a lot to wonder in why the league enforces this rule the way it does.
The difference between a 12.5 PSI football and a 10.5 PSI football is not easy to feel (unless you're a pro and squeezing it!)
Mike Greenberg said on his own show this morning, that he was on one of the network morning shows, and they gave him a 13.0 PSI football and a 9.0 PSI football, and even knowing there was a difference, he could barely feel it.
During a game, the refs just focus on placing the ball correctly, so they're not really feeling it carefully.
“So that brings it back to why the league puts the balls back into the care of a team.”
Maybe this is simply endemic? Like the refs normally just roll with it, and this time they didn’t, maybe because the other team complained in a big game and no one normally does? I guess I would find that hard to believe because each NFL game means so much money wise, you think the other team would complain all the time, as opposed to something like Billy Martin asking about pine tar.
Freegards