We don't know if they went from 13.5 to 12.5 or how much they DID change
the Coltermakers have refused to comment on any aspect of the controversy. One team is open and transparent, the other will only say "no comment"
It would appear that they inflated them not to 12.5 but to at least 13.5. As Belichick mentioned, different lots of balls respond very differently, different ball surface preparation procedures affect how the balls equilibrate to the environment, different balls even within a lot behave differently since we are not talking about a uniform synthetic material like rubber, but animal skin. There are an awful lot of variables. Perhaps the Colts balls that were not put in play were kept a bit drier than the Patriots balls that were not put in play and thus the waterlogging effect (see video) was not in play to the same extent .
We cannot discount the possibility that the Colts cheated and overinflated the footballs after inspection. It was their trap they were trying to spring in this Colts-created controversy. They cheated in '06, they cheated with crowd noise, they literally fixed games that decided playoff berths by tanking vs. contending teams, and of course they cherish their SUCK FOR LUCK campaign.
We simply do not know know the Colts prepared the footballs or to what psi they inflated them. Only they know that, and to my knowledge they have not been willing to comment on anything whatsoever.
The Patriots have re-created exactly what they did on game day and proved that the data from their footballs does not arise from ball tampering. Period. EXCLAMATION POINT!
Only the Colts are in a position to re-create what they did, because only they know what it is that they did, and it seems to be a big secret plan locked away in Irsay's meth lab somewhere.
This post was edited on 1/24 11:00 PM by outside shooter