game used footballs stamping question

[pungent]

why do some game used footballs have the week number stamped on them and others don't? thanks

[NEFAN]

Just aguess, but the only one I have with the week stamped on it is a kickers ball. Others I have don't. Could it be the Kickers balls are the only ones brought to games by the Ref's?

Just a guess.

[Sabresfreak]

The refs bring the K balls to the stadium. A team representative from each club will scrub the footballs a few hours before the game.

[RaiderNationPDX]

NEFAN is correct, teams' offensive balls (the ones lasered with the team name) don't have week numbers on them. These balls are provided by each respective team (though they are inspected by the officials), whereas the K-Balls are delivered directly to and unsealed by the officials ~2 hours prior to each game.

Heavy use/intentional manipulation of a football can affect to a noticeable degree the performance of a kick, so K-Balls are much more strictly controlled by the officials. The K-Balls are printed with the week largely to prevent re-use (i.e., ball boy slips a used and doctored K-Ball from the week prior into the rotation on the home team's kicks).

[Lucas70374]

Do a search I found a great thread that had information about the dating on ball. Helped me out.