OK. So maybe the balls were a little bit under-inflated. Does it matter? Is it worth all this fuss?

“Overinflated bullstuff!” ranted David Orino, of Lewiston. “Patriots haters trying to let the air out of their supremacy and albeit tainted legacy. The balls were handled, tested and approved before the game.”

It’s a solid point, and one that wasn’t overlooked by anyone paying attention.

“I think it’s funny,” said Stephanie S. Bourget, of Auburn, “that none of the refs noticed anything odd about the balls. They handled them over and over. If something was questionable, why wasn’t it brought up during the game?”

The National Football League, after what we assume was an exhaustive investigation, found that 11 of 12 game balls were under-inflated by league standards. By two pounds per square inch, to be exact. How to explain that?

“Any change in the balls had to have been slight and caused by changes in the atmospheric pressure,” Bourget said. “The end.”

If only.

All day, every day since the Patriots walked all over the Indianapolis Colts, it’s been a nonstop discussion about whether the balls used by the New England offense were a little shy on the PSI. And whether it matters one way or another: The Patriots won 45-7, after all, and dominated the entire game.

“They could have played with a basketball,” said Mike Brown, of Winthrop, “and still won. The only team that showed up to work on Sunday is playing in the Super Bowl.”

Zing!

Allegations of ball-tampering come eight years after the Patriots were caught videotaping defensive signals on the first game of the 2007 season. Whether the latest charges had any impact on the AFC championship, some fans feel it diminishes the win.

“Disappointed,” said Tim Lajoie, of Lewiston. “Taints the whole legacy. I wish the league investigation were more comprehensive and the Colts’ balls were weighed, too, to be sure it was tampering and not environmental. I don’t think it’s the big scandal everyone is making it out to be — if the league thought ball-tampering were a big deal, the fine would be more than $25,000.”

Still, to Lajoie, it stings a bit.

“Rules are rules,” he said. “It was a stupid one — and a minor one — to break. But I think, in the end, the price to pay in lost reputation and credibility will prove to be high and in the end, not worth it.”

On social media, its been a nonstop barrage of memes, photos with funny captions depicting the Patriots’ win and the controversy that followed. For many Pats fans, these things are hilarious, more souvenirs for the scrapbook.

For anyone who cheered for the Colts, the controversy is one brittle straw to be clutched in the aftermath of the devastating defeat.

“The losing team,” suggests Sally Townsend Theriault, of Rumford, “is just trying to justify the loss.”

Not all of them, though. At least one Colt, who was actually out there bashing bones against the Pats, has publicly stated that the better team won. Tight end Dwayne Adams wrote on Twitter: “They could have played with soap for balls and beat us. Simply the better team.”

Surely that is enough to put it to rest.

Not even close.

A USA Today sportswriter declared that the Patriots should be disqualified from the Super Bowl.

Deadspin was calling it Ballghazi, a refreshing deviation from Ballgate or Deflategate. Gates of any kind are so Nixon-era.

One wit produced a parody featuring Tom Brady and Bill Belichick in a faux Cialis commercial.

Sports departments all over the place where conducting their own ball-deflation experiments.

Meanwhile, Patriots fans were mostly rolling their eyes. It was, don’t forget, a 45-7 game.

“Look,” said Gelson Miranda, of Winslow, “the reality is under-inflated or not, Brady still had to make the throws, the receivers still had to make the catches and the backs still had to run the ball. Something the whiny babies on the other side couldn’t seem to accomplish.”

You mad, bro?

For some, the ruckus raises questions about the very nature of the game. Eric Kaiser of Auburn wondered how many NFL teams engage in such trickery without getting caught. He wondered about the roles of the refs and ball boys. He wondered whether the controversy would ever go away.

“As far as what should be done to the Patriots?” Kaiser said. “If they broke the rules, pay the fine or whatever the punishment is and move on. Nothing to see here.”

One Patriots fan went so far as to imply, we think, that these allegations of cheating are something close to unconstitutional.

“To me,” said former Sun Journal editor Rick Denison, “this extremely willing suspension of disbelief — or guilty until proven innocent attitude, if you prefer — manifested by fans and many writers, especially online, reflects how much the country outside New England loathes the Pats. Now it won’t matter what the NFL decides. If it finds the team violated the rules even innocently, all the Pats-haters will say, ‘See? Spygate! Belicheat! We told you!’ If the team is exonerated, nobody will believe it and claim the league is protecting its fair-haired boys. Right now the truth doesn’t really matter. The Pats have lost in the national court of public opinion.”

It’s like the Patriots are in a no-win situation. Except, of course, that in less than two weeks, they stand a fine chance of winning it all.

Copy the Story Link