The New England Patriots are reportedly being investigated by the NFL for under inflating their game balls during yesterday’s victory over the Colts.

https://twitter.com/bkravitz/status/557189134234959872

According to a league source, via ProFootballTalk, several irregular balls were removed from the game yesterday. The phrase “DeflateGate” is being thrown around.

The NFL rule book mandates that each team makes 12 balls available for inspection before kickoff. The home team must make 12 backup balls available, and the visiting team may bring another 12 backup balls for games to be played outdoors.

While this is a newsworthy story, it wasn’t the difference between a win and a loss yesterday. The Colts looked like a high school team yesterday, and a softer ball didn’t help LeGarrette Blount run for 148 yards and 3 touchdowns.

Here is footage from the game where the refs stopped play due to the balls.

[xyz-ihs snippet=”PatsDeflateBalls”]

Hopefully a political cartoonist somewhere is drawing Bill Belichick in the Evil Emperor’s robes, waiving his hand at two refs saying, “these aren’t the balls your looking for…”.