Quote:
Originally Posted by Lapkritis
No. The question is incorrect. More than 12 balls were used by the Pats.
No, not always. Knowingly using one is. Balls lose pressure all the time during normal play and use; given not 11 at once unless they were as Neil De Grass Tyson states - they were using 125F air to fill them. Is there a rule against filling with hot air? If there isn't then you can safely assume they would use that to their advantage and that's not cheating. 
Neil deGrasse Tyson, Ryan Leaf Chime In With DeflateGate Hot Takes | New England Patriots | NESN.com |
See my post above. The air going into the balls was indeed well over 125F. The delta T required for the balls to drop to 10.5 psig @ 52F was around 40 degrees. This means that the INTERNAL temp of the ball only needed to be 90-95F for a 2 psi drop.
The more underinflated a ball started out, the higher the internal ball temp, and then more likely the ball to drop in temp.
Finally - If the picture I presented above is fairly standard for the NFL game officials filling balls, they are NOT using precision pumps and gauges. There is no way that gauges (car tire pressure gauges!) are better than 0.5 psi in precision, let alone accuracy. They are not checked against a standard. So they could have been pressurized, and then checked with a different gauge and the pressure readings would have been different.
This is a distraction.