Imrem: Why is it even necessary to regulate the football?
Sorry, the NFL's football manipulation issue isn't nearly resolved yet.
The league reportedly has consulted a Columbia University physicist and estimates the Deflategate investigation will take two more weeks.
One of the mysteries still to be solved is … why does the condition of the football have to be regulated anyway?
If it were open-ended, Marc Trestman might still be the Bears' head coach. All he had to do was pump a football up or down so Jay Cutler would throw to teammates instead of opponents.
Heck, they might be playing for a championship on Sunday.
Yes, that's all that stood between being fired and being in the Super Bowl: Getting Brandon Marshall to blow hot air into a football or suck the life out of one.
Instead, suspicions persist that Patriots coach Bill Belichick and quarterback Tom Brady are in Arizona only because they tampered with game balls.
Suddenly, the Patriots have made PSI as prominent an acronym as ISIS, CIA, FBI, PTA, CTA and RTA, and way ahead of NBA, NHL and MLB.
One Google site has 197 entries for PSI, among them Pet Sitters International, Pertito Socialista Italiano and Portuguese Stock Index.
This week the most prominent PSI is pounds per square inch, though nobody knows why that wouldn't make it PPSI.
(Sorry, it's one thing to have to study law, medicine and accounting to be a sports writer, but the line has to be drawn at the physics of football.)
Was Belichick responsible for the ball brouhaha? Was Brady? Was it a locker-room attendant? Was it all of them? Was anything sinister perpetrated to be responsible for in the first place?
"I believe unconditionally the New England Patriots have done nothing inappropriate," Pats owner Robert Kraft said this week.
Maybe that'll be determined next month or maybe it never will be.
If the Patriots did do something inappropriate, airing out a football is such an egregious offense that the NFL should punish them severely by, say, taking away an eighth-round pick in a seven-round draft.
After all, a rule is on the books, and rules are rules, and even absurd rules are rules made not to be broken.
Which brings us back to this: Why is it necessary to regulate the football anyway?
The NFL should allow each quarterback to fill his football with as much air as he likes, or as little air, or no air at all.
Opposing quarterbacks aren't required to handle the same ball, so it shouldn't matter what each of them prefers.
The NFL sells offense, so allow teams to play with any football they think they can matriculate into the end zone.
If Brady believes that he can score more points by throwing a meatball to Rob Gronkowski, let him try.
If Seattle quarterback Russell Wilson would be more comfortable in the Super Bowl handing off a matzo ball to Marshawn Lynch, let him.
You want high octane? Let Brady throw a pigskin with hog breath on it … let Wilson throw a balloon filled with Snapple … my goodness, the final score might be 61-58.
People think this is a joke, but it's 100 percent serious until somebody explains why a rule is needed to dictate what a football looks like, is made of or is filled with.
If Jay Cutler wants to play with a football that has oatmeal innards next season and it helps the Bears get to the Super Bowl, would anyone around here complain?
John Fox, Marc Trestman's successor, might even last longer than two season as Bears head coach.