Fwiw
Brian Billick was just on Mike and Mike and led off his comments by adamantly denying (and being slightly incensed by) the notion that everybody does this. He says that everyone does scuff up the balls to their liking, mostly so as to take off a layer of lacquer that comes with new footballs, but that the inflation rules are there for a reason. Given that the balls are checked by the ref and there is only a limited time for them to be altered, I suspect the league does take it seriously--why have the refs undertake a meaningless act?
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If we are to have another contest in the near future of our national existence, I predict that the dividing line will not be Mason and Dixon's but between patriotism and intelligence on the one side, and superstition, ambition and ignorance on the other. - Ulysses S. Grant, military commander, 18th US President.
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