I'll bite! Deflategate gets my former defense lawyer "spidey sense" a-tingling. I think the NFL may have laid an egg on this one. First, I've now read some reports that suggest that the original leaked insinuation -- that the 11 under-inflated balls were all about 2 PSI below standard -- is not accurate. The NBC pro-football-talk maven, Florio, cited a different NFL source that only one ball was 2 PSI under, and that others ranged from .5 under to most being about 1.0 PSI under. Why would that matter?
Well, every report I've seen that has actually tried to recreate the conditions at issue -- inflating balls at room temp, then hours outside in dropping temperatures with precipitation -- has said that there was a significant drop in air pressure. Home cooking, you suggest? Those fellas at MIT love Tom Brady more than Science? Well, Pittsburgh is no center of Patriots love, and a sports lab in Pittsburgh reported that when they conducted a test using actual footballs and recreating the dropping temperature and precipitation (as opposed to Bill Nye the Science Guy, who just kinda talked about stuff and didn't, you know, experiment), the average drop was 1.8 PSI -- about 1 PSI from the temp and about .7 extra with rain added. (Google "Head Smart Labs" and they've got a written discussion and YouTube video)
Many people have said, how could the Colts balls not have de-pressurized? How, indeed? The league has only said that their balls were within specs. The Colts were open that they inflate up to the max. If they inflated to 13.5 PSI, and the balls de-pressurized 1 PSI, they are still within the 12.5 PSI specs. (We also don't know where and when their balls were tested -- if tested inside post-game, how long after they'd been inside, in warmer temps, for example? ) But, you say, the Colts balls didn't deflate 2 PSI, or they'd have been under specs. This is where it's significant -- see the first paragraph above -- that the NFL may have been exaggerating (or unhelpfully failing to correct a wrong assumption) the level of deflation. If most of the Patriots balls deflated about 1 PSI, then that could be due to the weather, could be commensurate with what happened to the Colts footballs, and yet the Pats' footballs would be under specs.
Finally -- the smoking gun! The league leaked that a ball attended carried the balls away into a LOCKED ROOM ON HIS WAY OUT TO THE FIELD! Gasp! Folks, I think the only leak here is the one the guy was taking. Heading out to the field for a six-hour shift and passing by a bathroom -- wouldn't you stop for the pause that refreshes? And if you've ever brought your bags or purse or anything valuable into a bathroom -- it's not so crazy to bring in the footballs that you are responsible for inside with you. Why didn't that initial NFL leak mention it was the bathroom, or that the stop was 90 seconds? My ice hockey forum buddy LITS probably has some insights into how a selective release of information -- accurate but without context -- can sway public debate.
I come back to where I started -- it appears that the science supports the assertion of the Patriots that the temperature and rain -- and nothing more -- could cause the drop in pressure. If that's the case, then this assumption of guilt (the balls deflated, therefore a human being deflated them) is unwarranted. Robert Kraft and Bill Belichick certainly went all-in on unequivocal denials. In my experience, well-advised individuals (like rich people with access to good legal counsel) don't do that unless they are very, very confident that they did nothing wrong.
We shall see -- unless then again we won't see -- because the NFL will avoid, for example, weighing in on the scientific debate and will just say "we talked to people and nobody admitted anything."
