Lena's Mud and Goodell's Balls - A Brief Commentary

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by pgellis

Peter, I think you are wrong. Even if the officials noticed something, they need a team to make a complaint. It's much like in baseball last year when Michael Pineda had about a pound of pine tar on his neck. It may have been apparent to the umpires, but they needed the Red Sox to make a formal complaint before they could do anything.
Once the Colts intercepted a pass, they made their complaint.

To blame the officials does not lessen the fact that the Patriots cheated.

So an NFL referee notices that there is something wrong with a game ball, and he is powerless to do anything about it? I haven't consulted the rulebook but that is very hard to fathom and if so it's a really stupid rule.

By the way my point is not to blame the officials but to suggest that this supposed deflation may not even have been perceptible.

Finally, they could have put a grapefruit out there and Brady would have outplayed Luck.