If they were then the ball in the Colts possession would be easily identified as from a prior game. Also why would you then put all 30 plus balls into play if you could identify the 23 official AFC game balls?
According to the article they just initial them. After they're inspected they are placed in the game ball bag. Not sure why they would initial them differently for each game since it seems this was never a problem before. (read no one really cared). And who returned all the balls marked with Andersons initials including the official ACF game day balls into circulation?
I think this is going to all come down to the NFL official that was fired.
~Dee~
If they had initialed a ball previously, they may not put a second mark on the ball.
Presumably the mark is to indicate that it has been looked at by the refs and approved, so they can distinguish this from a substituted ball, that has no mark.
I think most of the concern for the refs are the kicking balls, not the game balls. There's a reason the kicking balls are "virgin" and not provided by the teams.
In the before time, teams used to do a whole bunch of funky things to make the kicking balls "better". Microwave them is one of the stranger things I've heard.
So presumably, the mark made on the kicking balls is different than what is placed on the game balls. This will let them quickly identify if the wrong type of ball is used for either type of play.
If we assume there was less concern about the play balls, which makes sense, then if it was marked with a game ball designation, and it was in spec, then there would be no need to mark it again, since the refs could distinguish it from a kicking ball, and that's all they really cared about.
If they really were concerned about the play balls, then one would assume they would document the data about size and pressure. Since they didn't that suggests they really weren't all that concerned about those values.
Of course, if you assume that the balls are not marked with something different for each game, then this does provide a pathway for some shenanigans, that I'm surprised none of the haters have brought up.
Consider the following hypothetical.
The Pats provide their 12 primary game balls to the Refs, inflated within specs.
They have prepared 12(?) other balls, that were previously initialed by Walt Coleman to be out of spec.
At some point they swap the second set of balls for the first.
If we assume it was the attendant who spent 90 seconds in the bathroom, one could easily do such a swap in that amount of time.
Maybe they have some of those old style toilets with the tanks mounted on the wall and the other balls were placed behind the tank.
The attendant, told the refs that he was going to the bathroom, no wait, he
asked if he could go to the bathroom, and the rest, well........