Centers also handle the ball on every offensive play. Most centers are intelligent and kinesthetic players who would be as sensitive as the QB to the feeling of the ball. Someone needs to tough-talk the Pats center about this.
Assessing Belichick's attitudes toward fumbles is subjective, not objective. The number of player fumbles is objective. Anyone know an NFL coach who likes fumbles? Brady has fumbled multiple times and still starts.
Listen, engineers and scientists: 11 out of 12 balls, markedly different and underinflated compared to the other team's balls? This is a priori evidence of tampering. Any jury would convict. We don't need a Perry Mason-type confession; we don't need to identify the culprit. The team should be strongly punished for breaking the NFL rules. I think the NFL should do an extensive investigation, after the initial punishment, which justly would be done BEFORE the Super Bowl. This investigation needs to determine whether the Pats have cheated with underinflated balls over a period of months and years. It can be done. Then is the time for scientific analysis, testimony by physicists, and so on.
My point is: We don't need to identify the person responsible, and we don't need a confession. Guilt is obvious, a priori. Punishment should be swift.