neugey

Exactly. I may be in the minority on this, but it's all on the refs. They have the ball and get it tossed and thrown to them to handle and redistribute to the center/snapper on every single play. I would think that part of their responsibility would be to verify that the ball is suitable for play and doesn't have too much/too little air pressure. They can stop the game and stop the clock at any point if they observe that there is something wrong with the game ball(s) and correct the situation. I really don't care what the Pats personnel did or did not do with the balls, as long as the refs validated the usage of the balls throughout the entire game there should be no cheating or no punishment.

And if you don't think there is 'enough time' for refs to inspect the ball during the game, also remember there are possession changes, injuries, timeouts, penalties, reviews, measurements and a million other things that stop the game. And during all of these a referee almost always has possession of the ball in play.