Here's my question: After the teams select their dozen balls and submit them. How rigorous is the inspection? Do the officials stick a meter in every ball every game? I can't find that info in any reporting. Do they put a meter on them or do they just look them over and give them a squeeze?
Surely that's really important.
That's part of the unknown at this point.
Per the rule, the refs are supposed to weigh the balls and use a pressure gauge to check the inflation. The home team is supposed to supply a pump and pressure gauge to be used for the footballs from both teams. If the refs find a ball out of range, they can either toss it or inflate it to the proper level.
From talk radio and talk tv, some refs have said weighing the balls rarely happens, and another one said checking the pressure can be sporadic. Another ref I heard said each game the balls are checked for pressure before each and every game bar none (preseason, regular season, post season).
I also heard that the NFL spot checks balls by randomly pulling them out of games and tests them for condition, inflation, etc. The NFL league guy I heard said they would normally pull a single game ball from each team when they do that.