The halftime testing of the footballs even caused some confusion at the start of the second half and might have distracted the Patriots, though if that was the Colts' plan it didn't work. The Colts ended up losing 45-7, a second year in a row the Patriots booted them from the playoffs.
But the outcome of the "Deflategate" controversy -- even if it turns out that there was no intentional deflating of the footballs -- will help the Colts and other competitors in the years ahead, since the Patriots will lose a first- and fourth-round draft pick in 2016 and may have to play without their starting quarterback for a quarter of the upcoming season.
For a decade and a half, the Patriots have been the most consistently successful team in the NFL, winning four Super Bowls (including in 2015) and regularly qualifying for the playoffs. This success has understandably upset many of the teams that compete against them, creating an incentive to get the NFL to intervene to make the Patriots less competitive.
It's a bit like handicapping a horse race by making the favorite carry more weight than the others, but that approach is itself an assault on the competitive fairness of the NFL, what Commissioner Roger Godell claims he is upholding in "Deflategate."
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