How serious is deflate-gate? Yahoo Sports does its own ball-deflating test

When news first surfaced that the New England Patriots might have played Sunday night's AFC title game with slightly deflated footballs, reaction ran from outrage to titillation, with accusations of cheating and middle-school jokes vying for social media supremacy. Here at Yahoo Sports, we're not above a few deflated-ball jokes, but we wanted to dig deeper into deflate-gate. So we did a little hands-on experiment: just how important is air pressure to a football?

Join us as we investigate the most enduring mystery of this week.

You know the background: The Patriots allegedly deflated 11 footballs by 2 pounds per square inch (psi) each. NFL regulations state that balls should be inflated to a pressure of 12.5 to 13.5 psi. Reducing that pressure, logically, would make the ball both easier to grip and throw and tougher to kick and punt.

With that in mind, we sought to answer several questions:

• Is there a difference in feel between regulation psi and regulation-minus-2 pounds?
• Is there a grip and/or kick advantage?
• Is there a visual or weight difference between two pressure levels?
• How hard would such a scheme be to pull off?
• Can I get Yahoo to buy me a football and let me throw it around on company time?

The answer to the last was an emphatic yes. Since the footballs in my garage are stained with the dirt and heartbreak of Turkey Bowls past, I hit the local sporting goods emporium and bought a new, regulation-sized football and pump. (I kept waiting for the cashier to make ANY kind of Patriots joke, but he didn't take the bait. Come on, man, my story needs quirky details!)

I then drove to a local park to do a little private football minicamp. Now, bear in mind that I am not an NFL quarterback (even though I am next in line to be selected to the Pro Bowl if Andy Dalton goes down). I'm also not an NFL kicker. But, like you, I've played enough football and tossed around enough pigskins to have a vague idea of what feels right and what doesn't. So let's begin right there, shall we?

Conditions of the Experiment

This experiment was conducted in 50-degree sunshine in suburban Atlanta, so we're already a pretty far distance from Foxborough in the freezing rain. I also didn't inflate the ball indoors in 70 degrees and play with it outside in 45-degree precipitation, or whatever creative preemptive explanations Patriots defenders are devising. I also used an off-the-shelf Wilson Premier model, not the ultra-high-end Duke model used in games. Remember, this is not an exact science. We roll with what we've got.

Feel: Not as different as you'd think

You have no idea what a properly inflated football feels like. I guarantee it. If you grab a football, squeeze it, and think, hey, that could use a little air, chances are it's less than half its regulation pressure level. If you squeeze it and say, that's good, it's probably still three to four psi low. You cannot squeeze a football inflated to regulation pressure to any more than the tiniest degree, and some of that depends on the sponginess of the football's outer layer.

Ah, but what about a deflated football? I started at 13 psi, midpoint of the NFL's legal pressure window, and deflated the ball to 11 psi. Here's the thing: football squeezeability (scientific term) doesn't descend in a straight line as psi drops. The difference between 13 psi and 11 psi is not nearly as sharp as, say, the difference between 7 psi (mushy but still fine for a backyard game) and 5 psi (lumpy in your hand).

Again, I'm not an NFL quarterback, and I'm certain they can tell the degree of difference between psi with a far greater degree of certainty than I can. But, and this is key, once you get into double-digit psi, you really have to squeeze the ball hard to tell the difference. In other words, referees, particularly in a Gillette Stadium downpour, would have to be actively squeezing the balls, not just picking them up and tossing them to the sideline, to sense a pressure differential.

Verdict: There's a definite change in feel, but it's not nearly as sharp as you'd expect. And in game conditions ... I can't believe I'm saying this, but given the Biblical downpour and the presumption of previous checking, I'm letting the refs off the hook for not noticing the pressure differential once the game had already begun. I mean, look at this dude:

FOXBORO, MA - JANUARY 18: Umpire Carl Paganelli #124 holds a ball on the field after a play during the 2015 AFC Championship Game between the New England Patriots and the Indianapolis Colts at Gillette Stadium on January 18, 2015 in Foxboro, Massachusetts. It was reported on January 19, 20015 that the league is looking into the apparent use of deflated footballs by the New England Patriots during their game. (Photo by Elsa/Getty Images)

That's Carl Paganelli, umpire during the AFC Championship game, and he looks absolutely miserable, dealing with rain and cold and loud Boston fans all at once. If he assumes that someone on his crew properly checked the balls, the last thing he's going to be worried about is a minute pressure differential. Again, though: the key there is that he's assuming someone on his crew has already checked the balls. We'll get to that part later.

Weight: Negligible

A football weighs 14.5 ounces, discounting air. At 13 psi, the air inside the ball weighs about one-third of an ounce, or about the weight of two sheets of paper. At 11 psi, the air weighs about one-fourth of an ounce.

Verdict: If you can tell the difference between one-third and one-fourth of an ounce of air inside a one-pound football, you are lyFing.

Appearance: Also negligible

It's a football. It looks exactly the same at 13 or 11 psi. Take two pounds out of a regulation-inflated ball and it doesn't suddenly become a Salvador Dali-esque melting chunk of leather.

Verdict: Either way, it's a football, not this:

#DeflateGate If Bill Belichick takes up painting. http://t.co/nRMiWDWYaZ @indystar #Cheatriots pic.twitter.com/ckhZUC0dCH
— varvel (@varvel) January 21, 2015

Performance: Definitely improved by deflation

Now, this is tricky, because as noted above, I'm not an NFL quarterback, and presumably neither are you. (If you are, get in touch and tell me how wrong I am.) I noticed a slight grip improvement on the deflated ball, and my throwing distance was ... well, let's just say I won't be turning heads at the combine, but there's a measurable distance improvement when you're able to get slightly more grip on the ball. But kicking a properly inflated ball is definitely a bit harder than the slightly deflated one, though that could be confirmation bias on my part.

Verdict: If a sportswriter decades past his athletic prime can notice a difference in performance, an elite NFL athlete certainly can.

Scheme: Not exactly a diamond heist

So how hard is it to pull two psi out of a ball? Even easier than you'd expect. Pop a needle into the ball and you can drop two psi faster than you can say "two psi." Granted, there are some chain-of-custody issues here; someone looking to do this would have to gain access to the balls, which are supposed to be under the referees' control prior to the game.

Verdict: If someone were to do a Mission: Impossible-style break-in of the football vault, they could deflate all 12 footballs inside of 30 seconds ... or miss one, if they're sloppy.

So what have we learned? This: deflating footballs is a perfect cut-the-corners gambit. It's an advantage that's simple to execute, not easily detectable, but with measurably positive results. Also, throwing around footballs on company time is pretty sweet. Enjoy Deflate-gate, everyone!

source: Yahoo Sports