Bill Belichick has never met a distraction that he couldn’t summarily destroy.
Those who thought DeflateGate would tear apart the Super Bowl XLIX-bound New England Patriots apparently haven’t been paying attention to Belichick’s 15-season run. This is the same guy who made questions about Aaron Hernandez’s murder investigation and a Tim Tebow signing go away in the same summer.
Deflated footballs were really going to get the best of Belichick? Ha.
His method: Address the issue, and in the same day, make it well known that any question about the matter will be met with an answer that’s neither helpful nor friendly. Then he tells his players to either offer a “no comment” or an answer that’s so boring that readers will want to tear their eyes out of their head rather than continuing to digest it.
We the media are Belichick’s Pavlov’s dogs, and eventually, when “deflated footballs?” is met with “we’re just trying to execute on game day,” we will give up and move on. It’s time-tested and true because pounding one’s head against a door won’t suddenly make it open.
The NFL finally announced its investigation into DeflateGate Friday, and between that, some speculation that the Patriots could be inflating footballs in a sauna, and his own scientific studies into how footballs gain, lose and maintain pressure, Belichick decided to hold an impromptu news conference on a Saturday afternoon.
This was Belichick’s second time adamantly denying any wrongdoing in the controversy, and quarterback Tom Brady offered his own rebuttal Thursday. Belichick filled the air with enough scientific mumbo-jumbo that without a physics professor in the media workroom, there was little chance for a proper response. Equilibrium? Huh?
Was Belichick telling the truth? Maybe. Maybe not, but here’s what we know about DeflateGate based on what the NFL has told us: The Patriots’ first-half footballs were under-inflated.
The NFL didn’t say how under-inflated, the exact process that officials went through to test the Patriots’ footballs during pregame nor offer any evidence that the Patriots purposefully under-inflated their footballs with intent to gain an advantage.
There hasn’t even been a report that has suggested how the Patriots deflated their footballs or whether it was done purposefully.
Here’s what we know based on what Belichick told us: The Patriots’ process in preparing footballs causes them to lose pressure once out on a football field. Belichick claimed that Brady cares far more about the texture of a football than the inflation, and the process to get that proper tackiness involves vigorously rubbing the football, artificially adding one pound per square inch of pressure before it’s given to the refs.
Belichick said the Patriots then give those footballs to the refs and say “fill them up to 12.5 pounds per square inch.” Belichick offered deniability that the officials actually did as they were told.
“What exactly they did, I don’t know,” Belichick said.
Belichick’s study concluded that the Patriots footballs wind up at 11.5 PSI when they’re actually out on the field. He essentially managed to admit to under-inflating footballs while also denying that it was intentional, or that the Patriots inflated their footballs under any nefarious circumstances (in a heated room).
He also gave himself an out in case the Patriots’ footballs were tested lower than 11.5: It’s the officials’ fault.
This puts the onus on the NFL to trust that the officials “did their job” and to prove that vigorously rubbing a football would be done to lower air pressure rather than improve the texture.
It also would force the NFL to question any other team that vigorously rubs their footballs, which one would have to guess is many.
So, here’s the deal: Until the NFL or a report offers evidence of wrongdoing by the Patriots or proof that their methods wouldn’t produce an under-inflated football, then those choosing to assume Belichick is guilty are doing so not based on facts but on conjecture and reputation.
Belichick was guilty of Spygate — a matter than he managed to acknowledge, admit to and defend in just a few sentences at the end of Saturday’s news conference — so perhaps deflating footballs must be something that he and Brady also would intentionally do.
If the NFL manages to prove Belichick wrong or guilty, then the head coach will look like a liar and a cheater, and his reputation further will be tarnished. But for now, it’s one man’s word against an investigation that produced facts to which Belichick is willing to admit.
This also should make DeflateGate start to disappear, allowing the Patriots to focus on the real task at hand: beating the Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl XLIX.
Thumbnail photo via Steven Senne/Associated Press
