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Yet again, the NFL is slow to show that they actually care about deflated footballs, reinforcing that the entirety of DeflateGate is just an elongated power trip.
NFL has issued a memo to equipment managers apologizing for the fact that they still haven't gotten their new pressure gauges, per source.
— ProFootballTalk (@ProFootballTalk) August 18, 2015
According to Mike Florio, the NFL puts the blame on Wilson, the sports equipment company, for not yet delivering the new pressure gauges. Selective reading of the circumstances leads me to believe that it's more probable than not that the league doesn't want the NFL Players Association and Tom Brady to have any more evidence that the measurements performed during halftime of the AFC Championship game were less than ideal.
This isn't the first case of the league dragging their feet with the new football protocols to affect Tom Brady's appeal. On July 20th, reports surfaced that officials had not been made aware of any new protocols surrounding football measurements and protection. Of course, Tom Brady's appeal was to take place on July 23rd. Coincidentally, the league passed around updated protocols on July 26th, when it was too late to help Brady in the appeal.
The league has since changed the original protocol change from "any football presented to the officials outside of the 12.5-13.5 PSI range will be inflated to 13.0 PSI" to "eh, everything's just going to be set to 13.0 PSI." It's more probable than not this is related to the football-air-leakage issue that one of the NFL's few full time officials told the media about this past August.
Additionally, according to ESPN's Adam Schefter, last year's football packaging used to claim the "best air retention", which reinforces the fact that "air retention" is an issue. This year's packaging advises users to "keep inflated to 13 PSI" and to "avoid prolonged exposure to inclement weather", which are both key points in how and why the Patriots footballs were measured below the required 12.5 PSI limit.
Don't be surprised if gauges are conveniently distributed immediately after this Wednesday's settlement hearing between the NFL and the NFLPA. Based on the NFL's modus operandi, it's the most probable thing they'll do.