FOXBORO, Mass. — Bill Belichick only has one regret from Sunday night.
The New England Patriots like their footballs on the more deflated side of the 12.5-to-13.5 inflation range allowed by the NFL. Belichick will make sure footballs are more inflated in the future to avoid any further controversy.
“I’ve learned about the inflation range situation,” Belichick said Thursday morning in a news conference at Gillette Stadium. “Obviously, with our footballs being inflated to the 12.5-pound range, any deflation would then take us under that specification limit. Knowing that now, in the future, we will certainly inflate the football above that low level to account for any possible change during the game.
“As an example, if a football deflated from 13.2 to 12.9, it wouldn’t matter, but if it deflated from 12.5 to 12.3 it would — as an example. We will take step in the future to make sure we don’t put ourselves in that type of potential situation again.”
Belichick brings up an interesting point. If the Patriots inflate their footballs to 12.5 pounds per square inch 2 hours and 15 minutes before the game, and they’re approved by the NFL, then it shouldn’t matter if they deflate during a game. The biggest question is whether 11 footballs would deflate by two pounds per square inch in an hour of 50-degree weather during a low-pressure storm.
Belichick claimed that he has nothing to do with the preparation of footballs during the pregame process.
“Based on what I knew Sunday night, thinking back on this as I have done several times, I really can’t think of anything I would have done differently based on what I knew then, what I know now,” Belichick said. “I told you the one change I would make with the original start level of the football pressure, but that’s about it.”
Thumbnail photo via Elise Amendola/Associated Press
