Bill Belichick knows nothing. Tom Brady knows nothing. So if neither
the New England Patriots' head coach nor their star quarterback called
the play, then exactly who deflated the game balls in the AFC
championship game that put their team in the Super Bowl?
In separate news conferences called seven hours apart to address the
spiraling scandal about tampering with game balls, Belichick told
reporters only Brady could talk about his "personal preferences on
footballs," and Brady said it was all a mystery to him.
“I didn’t alter the ball in any way,” said Brady, who acknowledged
joking in a video made several years ago about preferring deflated
footballs, presumably because they are easier to grip, throw and catch.
He explained that what he meant was that he liked his pigskin inflated
to 12.5 pounds per square inch, the precise bottom of the NFL range that
extends up to 13.5 pounds. Eleven of the 12 game balls managed by the
Patriots in Sunday's 45-7 win over the Indianapolis Colts were
determined by NFL investigators to be illegally below the threshold, a
situation that appears well beyond the realm of coincidence.
“I have no knowledge of anything," said Brady, clad in a gray
sweatshirt and team toboggan. "I have no knowledge of wrongdoing. I have
no problem saying that – as far as I know.”
Insisting “I don’t believe I’m a cheater,” Brady said fans are free to believe otherwise.
“If that’s what they feel they want to do, then I don’t have a
problem with that,” he said, adding that criticism is “part of being a
professional athlete."
The star quarterback praised the team's equipment managers, and said
they, too, are at a loss as to how the balls came - apparently - to be
tampered with.
“There’s a lot of people that have more information than me,” he
said. "I have questions, too, but there’s nobody that can answer the
questions I have."
Earlier, Belichick said he first heard about the controversy on Monday.
“When I came in Monday morning, I was shocked to learn of the reports
about the footballs,” Belichick said. “I had no knowledge of the
various steps involved in the game balls and the process it went through
and what happened. So I learned a lot about that.”
“I think we all know that quarterbacks, kickers and specialists have
certain preferences,” Belichick said. “Tom’s personal preferences on
footballs are something he can talk about.”
“Tom’s personal preferences on footballs are something he can talk about.”- New England Patriots Coach Bill Belichick
Asked if he had talked to Brady about what is being called
“Deflate-gate,” Belichick simply said, “I have no explanation for what
happened” before cutting the morning news conference off.
Brady likely will be forced to talk to NFL investigators, who are
taking the matter seriously ahead of the sport’s biggest game on Feb. 1.
The scandal has already cast a shadow over the event, partly because it
involves a team that has cheated before.
The Patriots were penalized a first-round draft pick, fined $250,000
and Belichick was personally fined $500,000 after an investigation by
the NFL determined the team had illegally videotaped their opponents'
hand signals during a 2007 game.
And unsubstantiated accusations of cheating have long dogged the
team, stemming from their Super Bowl wins in 2002, 2004 and 2005. The
St. Louis Rams claimed the team illegally videotaped their walk-through
practices prior to the 2002 game, and players on the other defeated
opponents have said the Patriots seemed to have inside knowledge of
their playbooks.
The Patriots lost the Super Bowl in 2008 and 2012, both times to the New York Giants.
According to NFL rules, home teams are required to provide 36 balls
for outdoor games and make the balls available for testing with a
pressure gauge prior to the game. Belichick pledged to cooperate with
the league investigation, but insisted that he is clean.
“I have never talked to any player, staff member about football air
pressure,” he said. “That is not a subject that I have ever brought up.”
While Belichick insisted he knew nothing about air pressure and game
balls, he did display extensive knowledge of preparing the pigskin for
practice, saying he deliberately made footballs hard for his team to
handle.
“My personal coaching philosophy, my mentality, has always been to
make things as difficult as possible for players in practice,” Belichick
said, explaining that he has his team work with wet, sticky, slippery
balls in practice. ”However bad we can make them, I make them.
“We never use the condition of the football as an excuse,” he added. “We play and we kick with whatever we have to use.”
In the victory over the Colts, Brady completed 23 of 35 passes for
226 yards and three touchdowns. Colts' quarterback Andrew Luck,
completed only 12 of 33 passes for a mere 126 yards.
New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick said he had no knowledge of what is being called "Deflate-gate." (AP)
Ex-players have come down on both sides about whether deflating the
balls might have given the team an edge, and one, former Tampa Bay
Buccaneers quarterback Brad Johnson, openly admitted having balls
deflated in the 2002 Super Bowl, in which his team beat the Oakland
Raiders 48-21.
But Colts tight end Dwayne Allen said his team was simply beaten by a better squad.
“They could have played with soap for balls and beat us,” Allen
tweeted. “ Simply the better team. We have to continue to build!”
The Patriots also were accused of flouting the rules in the game
before Sunday’s contest, in which they beat the Baltimore Ravens using
unorthodox formations that Ravens Coach John Harbaugh said were designed
to confuse the officials and his defense.
Super Bowl XLIX takes place Feb. 1 in Glendale, Ariz. The defending
champion Seattle Seahawks, who punched a return ticket with a 28-22 win
over the Green Bay Packers prior to the Patriots-Colts game, are a
two-and-a-half-point favorite in early betting.
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