DeflateGate: Stop Breakin' My Balls

Source:  Gronk's Twitter

The New England Patriots are headed to another Super Bowl which means one thing, more allegations of New England cheating.  The allegations this time focus on the inflation or rather, the deflation of the Patriot's balls.

Quarterbacks typically have a peculiar relationship with their balls.  Aaron Rodgers likes his balls big so he can grip them more completely, while former Buccaneers QB Brad Johnson paid equipment staff to have access to the balls so he could manipulate them and scuff them before the Super Bowl.  Kickers prefer their balls a certain way, allegedly microwaving them before the league cracked down on ball manipulation.

The mystery to me is: refs touch balls all the time, wouldn't they know right away if the Patriots had been manipulating balls?  Why did the Colts have to feel the Patriots balls to know something wasn't kosher?

This will go down in NFL history as a minor infraction.  When you look at the allegations of steroid use in professional sports and the NFL in particular, one thing is certain:  the Patriots aren't the only ones playing with deflated balls.