DeflateGate: Possibly a Non-Deliberate Act

Maybe this is some good insight into the Patriots day-to-day actions. CBS's Jason La Canfora spoke with a former Patriots staffer who had the following to say about New England's actions in inclement weather:

I spoke to someone who is very familiar with the Pats practice and game-day handling of their game balls -- someone no longer a member of the organization who has no stake in the outcome of this investigation one way or another -- who was adamant that there had never been any sort of protocol about deflating balls in the rain or certain conditions.

"We would practice in the rain, Bill would throw water on dry balls during practice and there was never anything done to deflate them because of it being wet," the former Patriot said. "That doesn't even make any sense. As anal as Tom is about the balls, there's no way he'd let some ball boy or whatever try to deflate it to a certain PSI.

"Tom knows a football, and the way he wants it, like you or I would know a kid. But there was never anything deflating or doctoring balls during a game. He knows how he wants the ball going into a game and he's not going to take any chances of someone else messing around with a ball to get it right. As anal as he is about the way he wants the balls to be, he's not going to able to tell the difference of 1psi or whatever."

It appears that there are two major factors: 1) The Patriots don't systematically deflate the ball in bad weather; 2) Tom Brady would be so particular about the ball that he wouldn't have anyone modify the ball.

Go read the rest of the article, but there remains hope that the Patriots weren't actively trying to cheat the system.