The NFL on Friday released its first official statement regarding Deflategate, and it provided few additional details other than what we have already learned.
The investigation remains ongoing, though the league has determined that the New England Patriots used under-inflated footballs during the first half of the AFC Championship Game. The balls that were used in the second half were properly inflated.
“While the evidence thus far supports the conclusion that footballs that were under-inflated were used by the Patriots in the first half, the footballs were properly inflated for the second half and confirmed at the conclusion of the game to have remained properly inflated,” the statement read. “The goals of the investigation will be to determine the explanation for why footballs used in the game were not in compliance with the playing rules and specifically whether any noncompliance was the result of deliberate action. We have not made any judgments on these points and will not do so until we have concluded our investigation and considered all of the relevant evidence.”
The NFL has hired attorney Ted Wells, who led the Miami Dolphins bullying investigation, to lead the Deflategate investigation along with NFL Executive Vice President Jeff Pash. Nearly 40 interviews have reportedly been conducted and the league will continue to comb through electronic and video evidence.
One thing we can be fairly confident in after reading the NFL’s statement is that there will not be a quick resolution. As Mike Garafolo of FOX Sports noted, Wells begin his investigation of the Dolphins bullying scandal in Nov. 2013 and the findings were released in Feb. 2014.
Evidence is going to be key in determining who — if anyone — did something wrong. If the NFL can obtain a video of a ball boy or equipment manager tampering with footballs after they were inspected, the Patriots will be screwed. If not, the NFL would need to somehow prove that referee Walt Anderson did in fact test every game ball with a pressure gauge before kickoff and did not just do a squeeze test, which we wrote about in detail here.
