Eleven? Eleven.

Eleven footballs the New England Patriots brought to Sunday's AFC championship game have now been determined by the NFL to be under-inflated – by 2 full pounds – according to ESPN, which cited the preliminary findings of a league investigation.

Eleven.

The home team in an NFL game is required to provide 12 footballs (plus 12 backups). Yet almost all of them came in at the same, illegal level, 2 pounds lighter? The ball is supposed to be inflated to between 12.5 pounds and 13.5 pounds per square inch, so 16 percent below the legal minimum.

View photos Bill Belichick will be at the center of the storm on Media Day on Tuesday. (USA TODAY Sports) More

That's not a little. Not the number of under-inflated balls, not the amount they are under-inflated. Some gamesmanship of trying to pump up or down a ball is understood. Everyone is always trying to gain an edge. This isn't that. This isn't a coincidence. And, because it's the Patriots and because it's in the run-up to the Super Bowl at the end of a season when the NFL has been consumed by scandals, it's a huge story. Fair or not, that's life in the big city. Bill Belichick and company will have to deal with it.

Unless there is a reasonable explanation, and neither New England nor the NFL has offered one yet, the Patriots should worry about losing draft picks as punishment. Their reputation may never be fully recovered.

Forget overturning the victory over the Indianapolis Colts. It's not happening per NFL rules. It'll be New England-Seattle on Feb. 1 in Arizona • but not before Belichick's sure-to-be-legendary Media Day session on Tuesday. And Tom Brady's, too, because if anyone would know about this, it's the quarterback.

This is a brutal black eye to the reputation of a franchise that has tried desperately to move past Spygate. It's chum to its legion of critics. There may not be an explanation or exoneration that can change public opinion at this point. It's a situation that winds up being an insult to what we'll assume is the overwhelming number of players who don't know anything about mandated-inflation levels but have to have their hard work and accomplishments questioned.

This is a strange story that keeps getting stranger, a scandal that creates only more questions as it grows.

Let's start with this: How the heck didn't the refs notice?

The NFL has a detailed protocol when it comes to game balls. Per Rule 2, Section 1 of the book, each team is supposed to bring 12 official Wilson brand balls "bearing the signature of the Commissioner of the League, Roger Goodell." (More on him in a moment.)

Precisely two hours, 15 minutes prior to kickoff, all the footballs are checked in the referee locker room by the head ref, in this case Walt Anderson.

"The Referee shall be the sole judge as to whether all balls offered for play comply with these specifications," the rulebook reads. "A pump is to be furnished by the home club, and the balls shall remain under the supervision of the Referee until they are delivered to the ball attendant just prior to the start of the game."

View photos Before Tuesday's report, Tom Brady called suspicion of an under-inflated ball ridiculous. (Reuters) More

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