Would anyone care if former NFL quarterback David Carr instructed equipment managers to let some air out of game balls? Apparently not.
Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk uncovered a nearly 10-year-old article in which NFL Media’s Judy Battista — formerly of the New York Times — described the process that Carr goes through to break in game balls. According to Battista, Carr told Houston Texans ball boys to let some air out.
“Carr, like several other quarterbacks, said Denver was one of the toughest places to play,” she wrote in 2006. “He said he thought the ball expanded slightly at the altitude and felt slick because of the lower humidity. Before Houston’s preseason game at Denver, Carr instructed the ball boys to let a little air out of the Texans’ footballs.”
The entire article, which was written about the rule change that Peyton Manning and Tom Brady lobbied for that allows teams to prepare their own balls, is suddenly very relevant. It includes quotes from several quarterbacks that demonstrate how particular they are about the way game balls are broken in.
Brady was one of the quarterbacks who was interviewed.
“I relate it to an old baseball glove,” Brady told Battista. “If you have a glove, when you get it right from the store, the leather is very stiff and very difficult to break in. The preservative on the football, when you get it off, it’s easier to get a grip. It’s having a ball that doesn’t slip out of your hands.”
Does that mean Brady cheated? Not exactly. If anything, Bill Belichick admitted that Brady is very picky with footballs when he turned into a science professor during a press conference back in January.
Whether Brady knowingly cheated or not, you’re kidding yourself if you think he’s the only quarterback who has gone to great lengths to assure the game balls are exactly how he wants them. We even heard a similar story about the Indianapolis Colts, though it has not been confirmed. This is a league-wide issue, if you even want to consider it an issue at all.
