The NFL might have lost to Tom Brady in court Thursday, but the league is making sure neither Brady nor anyone else can tamper with the footballs from now on.
The league announced last spring it would be revamping its pregame football and custody procedures in the wake of Deflategate.
Among the major changes: The NFL will compare the air pressure of footballs at halftime and in the immediate postgame period with pregame PSI measurements at randomly selected games, as well as use league personnel to guard footballs closer to kickoff for all contests.
A “kicking ball coordinator” will now take possession of the 24 footballs from both teams (12 for each side) and control them until 10 minutes before kickoff. The balls then will be brought to the replay station on the field and distributed to the teams while an NFL security monitor looks on.
The pregame measurements at the randomly selected games will be handled by two members of the officiating crew, who will number the balls 1-through-12 and record their air pressure. Previously, just one official handled the footballs, the balls were not numbered and PSI was not written down.
One thing that won’t change is the NFL’s mandated pressure levels. Those will remain between 12.5 PSI and 13.5 PSI, and any balls found to be above or below those levels during inspection will be set at 13 PSI.