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If there's one thing that can be agreed upon by both sides of the DeflateGate argument (those with reading comprehension, and those that like to listen to half-baked spark notes over talk radio), it's that the officials didn't do their job when it came to the preparation and protection of the footballs prior to the AFC Championship.
They lost track of the footballs multiple times. They had multiple pressure gauges with different readings. They inflated the Colts footballs at halftime beyond the top limit. They never had a standard process with which to handle the pregame readings (it differs from crew to crew). The Wells Report had more evidence that the officials inflated the Patriots footballs to 16 PSI in October, than they did of any wrongdoing by New England at any point in time.
So, of course, the smart, reasonable thing to do would be to have increased focus on standardizing the officials' process for managing the footballs, right?
This should've been a top priority if the NFL wanted to show any legitimacy in their claims against the Patriots. https://t.co/diAUKyVecW
— Rich Hill (@PP_Rich_Hill) July 20, 2015
Possible there will be extra security or changes to chain of custody, but apparently not a major effect on refs https://t.co/cg5kOEk2gv
— Football Zebras (@footballzebras) July 20, 2015
As of this point in time, there have been no real changes for the officials with regards to how the game balls are processed.
This is dumb. Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb.
The league had an extraordinarily easy win with this process. How about the officials actually record their measurements prior to the game, at halftime, and at the end of the game? How about they actually keep the footballs in their sights at all time, and not try to pass the blame to the employee that every single person saw take the footballs, and no one did anything to stop (it's on the security cameras!)? How about having a standardized process for measuring the pressures?
There's still time for this to change. It's just July and maybe the league is waiting until Roger Goodell's verdict before issuing the changes to the football processes. But this is such an absolutely easy fix. If nothing changes for the officials, then it's even more proof that the league is dictated by a dart board.