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According to the Associated Press, the NFL is changing the protocol for handling footballs prior to games in order to prevent any potential tampering. The news will be announced at the Owners' Meeting next Monday and does not require a vote by the members.
Regardless of whether or not the New England Patriots did anything to the footballs, it was inevitable that a rule change would have to take place. The league officials were extremely lax about protocol regarding the footballs and they didn't really follow the guidelines in place. It wouldn't be surprising if the new procedures involves the referees taking the balls from the lockers to the field, instead of utilizing a ball attendant.
I think we can all agree that this is for the best and probably already should have been a rule. There's no reason that the officials can't take the footballs to the field, and they should really be responsible for the footballs adhering to the rules.
Oh, and the current rules on the footballs are dumb. They need to change that bogus "12.5 to 13.5 PSI" language, or at least add language that says "prior to the game." There are a lot of things that need to be added- or completely removed.