They in fact just couldn't tell the difference after handling them every play, then another thing is maybe the legal range should be expanded. Beyond that, I'm not even fully sure why teams can't have their footballs inflated/deflated to whatever they like anyway. If both teams were allowed to do it, what would be the issue? I'm digressing though.

Honestly, I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around all these refs handling he balls evey play and not noticing anything, and then a player who never touches the football suddenly being like "this one feels different"

But whatever. Maybe...