I think we’re roughly in agreement that 25 degrees is in the vicinity of 1 psi, more or less.
New reports I heard today is that of the 11 balls that were said to be low, only one was “2 pounds” low, and all of the others were closer to 1 pound. Can’t say if that report is accurate, as I only heard it once in passing.
What I hadn’t heard (but can well believe) is the stretching/contracting of the leather case with moisture. I could believe it, though.
As to the Pats’ mistreatment (a/k/a ball prep), the key is whether or not it heats the ball up, what that does to the internal air temperature, how long between buffing and the time they give the ball to the refs, and what the ball’s cooldown time constant is.
I’m sure the NFL has its experts working on all of these parameters. Perhaps a /S here... politics counts, too.
The primary effect that the patriots were measuring, is the heating of the air in the ball, which they claim was a net of about 0.5 PSI, which is about 10°F - a not unreasonable figure. They also noted about a 1 PSI change and change back from moving the ball to the cold and back (loss of 1.5 psi when the ball was outside, and loss of .5 psi when the ball had warmed back up)... these appear to have been done without water.
Some example links of various types of treatment:
Slow cooling, dry:
http://www.wcsh6.com/story/news/local/2015/01/22/deflategate-patriots-football-pressure-inflated/22174475/
Quick cooling, via water:
https://www.facebook.com/PathfinderRegionalVocationalTechnicalHighSchool?fref=nf
Slow cooling while wet:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxsXFX3tDpg&feature=youtube_gdata_player