Report: Officials inspected, approved footballs before Pats-Colts kickoff

The footballs that were used by both teams in the AFC Championship Game between the Indianapolis Colts and New England Patriots were inspected by officials prior to kickoff, Pro Football Talk reports.

Prior to each game, officials are supposed to inspect each ball and use a pressure gauage to determine that each one contains no more than 13.5 PSI and no less than 12.5 PSI. According to multiple reports, the officiating crew did just that last Sunday.

It would seem that the issue with the Patriots allegedly using deflating balls arose in the first half after an interception by Colts linebacker D’Qwell Jackson. The belief is that the league then tested both teams balls again at halftime, which is when it was determined that 11 of the 12 balls New England was using were under-inflated.

This is where the biggest potential problem arises for the Patriots. If the league checked the balls and OK’ed them before kickoff, how did they lose roughly two pounds of pressure between then and halftime? Some people have speculated that the cold weather could have played a role, but it seems highly unlikely that a 50-degree night would result in that much air pressure being lost.

The NFL will say its top priority in this situation is protecting the “integrity of the game.” Having a team in the Super Bowl that cheated would be bad for the league’s image, but having that cheating go unnoticed by negligent officials would be 10 times worse. Disproving the latter is more important to the NFL.