The Following from a long time fan of Football: A Rocket Scientist…former head of space transportation for a major U.S. corporation…….
Being a fellow Wolverine, I’ve always liked Tom Brady. He is getting a bum rap. I can prove it.
People say temperature could not account for the temperature to make the difference between 12.5 and 10.5 psi. What they are forgetting is the air pressure in the ball is the ambient pressure of 14.7 plus the 10.5 or 12.5. If you take the ratio of 27.2/25.2 and multiply it times the absolute temperature of the field i.e. 460 plus 50, or 510 degrees absolute, you get 550.5 absolute or 90.5 degrees Fahrenheit. So the air in the ball could be 90 degrees plus at the time the ball is checked and result in a ball inflated to 10.5psi at kickoff.
Two ways the air in the ball could be that warm. You could inflate the ball in a warm room like the sauna, or you could inflate the ball shortly after the compressor compressed the air. The act of compressing the air raises the temperature. The air in the compressor plenum could be well over 100 degrees by going through the same analysis as above since that pressure could be 50 or 60 psi.
The second scenario should absolve ball boys and equipment managers also, because that could have been an innocent situation.
Anonymous Rocket Scientist