Quote Originally Posted by sharpe1027 View Post
I agree that they probably planned to deflate the balls after the refs inspected them, and that is exactly what they are being accused of doing. It violates the rules which require the referees to inspect the balls. Whether the balls got below 12.5 or not does not matter at that point, they already went outside the rules. They do have evidence, both the camera and the text messages are evidence.

As for Tom merely being an asshole, why was he offering a big signing day? You are being the reverse of a conspiracy theorist.

*edited for typo
I like evidence for my conspiracies. Just because I believe that the Pats might have been prepared to deflate after inspection, it doesn't seem likely in this case (90 seconds is long enough to deflate, but not long enough to deflate and measure). And there is no physical evidence it occurred. Without that, the punishment for phone shenanigans (which is obviously not paramount or Goodell would have used the info eventually provided by Brady) is ludicrous.