Deflated NFL footballs
“When I came in Monday morning I was shocked to learn of the news of course about the footballs,” he told reporters at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough. “I had no knowledge whatsoever about this process. I had no knowledge of the various steps involved in the game balls and the process they went through from between when they were prepared and when they went to the officials. I had no idea what they went through.”
The press conference was devoted to questions about the 11 under-inflated footballs, under-inflated by two pounds during New England’s 45-7 win in the cold over the Indianapolis Colts. It’s not known how many got into the game and the issue may have been dealt with early in the second half.
The NFL said they are still investigating the whole scenario and did not say when they’d complete that investigation. However, it seems obvious they would like to move beyond it and focus on the game between the Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks on Sunday, Feb. 1 in Arizona (6:30 p.m. E.T.). Belichick didn’t take a single question about the game, everything focused on Deflate-Gate.
“I think we all know that quarterbacks, kickers, specialists have certain preferences on footballs,” Belichick said. “They know a lot more about it than I do. Tom’s personal preferences on his footballs are something he can talk about in much better detail and information than I could possibly provide.”
Over-inflated NFL footballs
The coach that controversy follows around like a defensive lineman after a stumbling quarterback, said that down the road he’ll learn more about it and make sure it doesn’t happen again. In fact, he said he’ll go over the low limit to make sure everything is by the NFL book. So balls are supposed to be at the least 12.5 pounds per square inch?
He can do better than that.
“In the future, we will certainly inflate the footballs above that low level to account for any possible change during the game,” he said. “As an example, if a ball deflated from 13.2 to 12.9 it wouldn’t matter, but if it deflated from 12.5 to 12.3 it would. We will take steps in the future to make sure we don’t put ourselves in that type of situation again.”
Are we ready to move on now?
