There really is no such thing as overkill when it comes to talking about balls. Big balls. Small balls. Old balls. Squeezed and unsqueezed balls. In the last week, no stone has been unturned on the topic.
PolitiFact’s Jon Greenberg gave Patriots coach Bill Belichick the “Punditfact treatment.” He’s ‘s no scientist, but he says balls can get smaller when they’re not in a controlled environment.
So is he out of his mind or what?
PolitiFact looked to physicists and other experts to come up with their ruling.
“The question in this case is what physics tells us about Belichick’s point that conditions outside (basically temperature and humidity) would bring down the pressure of a football by about 1.5 pounds per square inch.”
The results show that the experts are divided.
They take readers through a law of physics that’s annoying and hard to follow. But if you’re geeky and you understand that sort of thing, the scientific formulas will interest you.
After all that, “In short, taking the balls outside would bring the pressure down one square inch.”
PolitiFact‘s ruling: Mostly true.