[Anechoic]

it's probably the strongest evidence I've seen so far that there has likely been a persistent rules violation.

That's only true if ball inflation tracks with fumbles. There have been lots of assertions that's the case, but I haven't seen any evidence.

Two counter examples:

- If you look at AFCC, that's Patriots had 1 fumble in the first half playing with an underinflated ball in dry weather conditions, and had zero fumbles in the second half playing with properly inflated balls, and in wet conditions.

- Aaron Rodgers is on record stating that he likes his footballs to be inflated as high as possible. But if you look at GB's fumble data in the link, they're #6 behind NE in total fumbles.

There are a whole bunch of confounding variables here, including coaching techniques (look at how Tiki Barber's corrected his fumble problems in one year after coaching changes).

[jonjenk]

I agree that we don't have a controlled study in this case. However, it will be interesting to look at this data at the end of next season. If the Patriots fumble stats revert to pre 2007 levels it will certainly raise some interesting questions.

[twoodfin]

Why? Fumbles are rare and highly variable.