I'm fairly confident in the structural integrity of popular brand footballs since they have been tested for and stand up fairly well to kicking and other forms of user induced abuse such as over-inflation and excessive use. It's those little bags of Fritos and potato chips in the snack basket that scare me. At a cabin altitude of 7,000', the sea level pressure air trapped in the bag exerts an astounding pressure of around 3 PSID across the surface of the bag. Structural failure of the bag material could allow the snack bag air to escape into the cabin, or in extreme cases, explosive de-compression of the bag. Hazarous particles of toxic snack-food debris could then contaminate innocent passengers! Not to mention that "pop" sound they make when failure occurs. Most alarming! It's a wonder more people aren't concerned about this most grave of issues. And the government stands by and does nothing to protect us from this dangerous item, as usual. A payoff to officials from the big snack manufacturers perhaps? If we can ban nail clippers and other dangerous goods from flights, why not snack bags? What do the experts have to say about it? Urgently awaiting answers.
Well, it may be an overly simplistic approach in comparison to the significance of the problem, but I’d vote to use the banned nail clippers to inflict a small, but sufficient, pressure relief opening in each potato chip or Frito bag to avoid the catastrophic results you’ve described. I would think this would be effective in that a similar pressure relief mechanism is apparently operational in the cranial support structure of those who are worried about explosive footballs.