Yahoo Finance 
Here's the NFL's explanation for how the Patriots deflated the footballs before the AFC title game
(CBS)
In the NFL's massive report concluding that the New England Patriots probably deflated balls on purpose before the AFC title game, investigator Tedd Wells goes into great detail on what happened to the balls on gameday.
The NFL investigation found that there was "no set of reliable environmental or physical factors" that could have caused the balls to deflate by themselves.
The Patriots' footballs were all measured at 12.5 PSI before the game. When they were remeasured at halftime, all of them were below the legal range.
The NFL's suggestion — which the Wells report lays on pretty thick — is that a Patriots employee, who was seen on a surveillance video taking the balls into a bathroom by himself 20 minutes before kickoff, deflated them.
The Patriots employee in question, a 48-year-old officials' locker room attendant named Jim McNally, referred to himself as "the deflator" in a text message to team equipment manager John Jastremski before the 2014 season.
(NFL)
The Wells report states, "We believe that McNally and Jastremski were aware that the inflation level of the Patriots game balls following pre-game inspection by the game officials would be approximately 12.5 psi and planned for McNally to deflate the balls below that level following the pre-game inspection using a needle provided by Jastremski."
In a text message from earlier in the year, Jastremski referenced providing McNally with a needle:
(NFL)
With that in mind, here's the timeline of what went down with the balls on gameday, according to the report:
3:45 p.m. (two hours, 55 minutes before kickoff) — Referee Walt Anderson starts inspecting the footballs. The NFL isn't required to log inflation data, but Anderson says the Patriots' balls were all set to either 12.5 PSI or 12.6 PSI. While he was measuring them, Anderson says McNally told him something along the lines of, "Remember, Walt, Tom likes them at 12.5."
6:25 p.m. (25 minutes before kickoff) — McNally is seen sitting on a trunk near the two bags of game balls in the officials' locker room. The officials' locker room is packed, with everyone waiting around to go to the field after the game's kickoff was pushed back from 6:40 to 6:50 because the NFC title game went to overtime.
6:30 p.m. (20 minutes before kickoff) — McNally takes the two bags of balls into a single-toilet bathroom that's at the end of the tunnel that leads to the field, surveillance video shows. He doesn't tell the referee or anyone on the officiating crew. He locks the door and stays in there for one minute, 40 seconds, which the NFL says was long enough to deflate the balls with a needle.
6:32 p.m. (18 minutes to kickoff) — McNally is seen on video leaving the bathroom and walks to the field with the balls.
6:35 p.m. (15 minutes before kickoff) — The refs realize the balls are missing. According to the report, "Anderson was visibly concerned and uncharacteristically used an expletive when the game balls could not be located."
6:36 p.m. (14 minutes before kickoff) — The refs send NFL security representative Richard Farley to look for the balls and take the field themselves. Shortly after, they discover that McNally had already taken the two bags of balls out onto the field without their knowledge.
The rest is history. The Colts intercepted a pass in the first quarter, thought the ball was a little light, and had the refs re-measure them at halftime, the report says. When they did, the balls were under-inflated.
According to the report, McNally told NFL Security in an interview the night of the game that he walked the balls directly to the field from the officials' locker room. It wasn't until a second interview a day later that he mentioned that he went to the bathroom.
The report says McNally told NFL investigators in February that it's not unusual for him to take the balls to the field alone, and that he was never told he had to inform the officials when he was doing so. According to the report, that characterization was contradicted by numerous other people familiar with how these procedures work, concluding, "Indeed, all of the officials interviewed disagreed with McNally‟s description of the standard practice at Gillette Stadium."
The reason the report softened its conclusion by saying it's only "probable" that the Patriots tampered with the footballs is obvious: they still don't know what happened in the bathroom.
Based on the report, we know the balls were properly inflated before the game, McNally took them to the bathroom without the referee's knowledge in an unusual move that broke protocol, he stayed in there for two minutes with the door locked, and when the balls were remeasured at halftime, they were deflated.
Patriots owner Robert Kraft released a statement saying, "To say we are disappointed in its findings, which do not include any incontrovertible or hard evidence of deliberate deflation of footballs at the AFC Championship game, would be a gross understatement."
Read the report in full here >
NOW WATCH: Here's what happens when you get bitten by a black widow
More From Business Insider
