Science! One Way To Deflate a Football Without Even Touching It

The Patriots did not necessarily have to alter or deflate the football in order to beat the system and play the AFC Championship Game with footballs that were easier to grip and catch.

Martin Schmaltz, a Professor of Physics at Boston University, explained the truths and myths of Deflategate to boston.com, and helped outline a theory where the Patriots could have easily passed the NFL’s pregame tests with the same footballs that failed to meet the league’s mandated standards at halftime.

“One complication with the pressure units that we usually use, in this case PSI (Pressure per Square Inch) is that we are measuring the pressure above the atmospheric pressure,” Schmaltz said. “Air at a fixed volume- and I assume the size of a football stays pretty much the same whether it has a PSI of 13 or 11- if the size stays the same, and you change the temperature of the air, the pressure inside the football changes as well.”

The key question, as outlined by Schmaltz, is where the balls were tested prior to the game. If the balls were tested indoors, where the temperature was likely above the 50 degree temperature outdoors Sunday, then the pressure inside the ball would drop once the ball is moved outdoors and begins to cool off.

“If they had inflated the balls inside the building and put it to the minimum amount, and then brought it outside to temperatures that were about 30 degrees lower, that would drop the PSI by between 1 and 2,” Schmaltz explained.