This is an incredibly damning article against the Patriots' flat footballs.

Brian Burke of Advanced Football Analytics has a study of the fumble rates of the New England Patriots that is all but a smoking gun as regards to the history of low pressure footballs since the Brady/Manning rule went into effect in 2007.

Let me quote some of the most relevant passages, but you definitely need to go to the article itself to study the data - it's alarming:

For whatever reason, the Patriots do have exceptional ball security, especially for an outdoors team. And I mean exceptional. 

I was intrigued by a link sent to me via Twitter at Sharp Football Analysis, a handicapping site. The article demonstrated that NE's ball security was an outlier to the tune of several standard deviations. The charts are convincing, and the implication is that NE benefitted from under-inflated balls is unmistakable.

NE ranks third over that period. Very good, but nothing out of the ordinary. You'd expect teams with good QBs and good offenses to have fewer strip-sacks. But the article linked above makes a good point: Many teams that play indoors are concentrated at the top of the list. Let's see how the table looks if we exclude dome teams.

Whoa. In this case NE is at the top of the list, and the next best team is a distant second. Notice how the second team (BLT) through the second to last team (PHI) have rates that are within 1 or 2 plays of each other. NE, however, is better than the next best team by 20 plays per fumble.

I'm not sticking my neck out here and saying this is evidence of anything. It's fair to say that Belichick emphasizes ball security emphatically, and is quick to bench players who drop the ball. Everyone will have their own opinion anyway. I'll just say, either way, it's worth looking at. If it's a result of an unfair advantage, that's interesting. If it's the result of good coaching, that's just as interesting.

Addendum: @brian30tw pointed out that NE's big improvement in fumble rate occurred in '07, precisely when the NFL's rule allowing visiting teams to bring their own balls went into effect. Other teams didn't have such good fortune.

To summarize: Before the rule change (championed by Tom Brady) that allowed each team (read: quarterback) to adjust the inflation of the football to their whim in 2007, the Patriots' fumble numbers were very similar to everyone else's. After the rule change, their fumble rate dropped precipitously, to the point where they are so far away from the statistical likelihood of doing so under the same conditions as the other outdoor teams that they can no longer be considered feasible.

SO, I'll go out on the limb and say it: The evidence suggests that this is a pattern of behavior that has very possibly occurred since the implementation of the Brady rule in 2007. More than an isolated cheating incident in a single playoff game, the low inflation of New England's footballs has been going on for YEARS. Their offense has not been playing with the same equipment standard as the rest of the league, the very essence of cheating.

And what's worse? They won three Super Bowls BEFORE all of this started. They were ALREADY GREAT. But remember that Spygate ALSO hit the scandal sheets in 2007... Maybe the New York Giants really are the karma police...

Go, Seattle.