NFL commissioner Roger Goodell told Sports Illustrated’s Peter King over the weekend that he believes the investigation into the New England Patriots allegedly deflating footballs during the AFC Championship Game is nearing its end. Patriots owner Robert Kraft wasn’t nervous about the results two months ago, and his feelings have not change.
While speaking with reporters at the NFL owners meetings in Arizona on Monday, Kraft expressed confidence that his team will be exonerated.
“I know that there’s no smoking gun here. I’ve chatted with our people,” he said, per Christopher Price of WEEI.com. “I think I said it pretty well the week before the Super Bowl. We’re worried about the 2015 season and that’s our focus.”
If there was information or evidence that could incriminate the Patriots, you would think Kraft would know about it by now.
Kraft was downright defiant when he addressed the media regarding Deflategate in the weeks leading up to the Super Bowl, even demanding that the NFL apologize if no hard evidence against the Patriots is uncovered. He has since softened that stance a bit.
“I want to clarify,” Kraft said. “First of all, when I spoke a week before the Super Bowl, I was speaking to the league office. (Goodell) is in charge. I think he has a pretty tough job. As a matter of fact, some of my friends say there’s two jobs they don’t want: President of the United States and commissioner of the NFL. He has a very hard job. I think he does a very fine job at what he does. It’s tough, but he needs to make sure all the people working in the system are also doing it.”
Goodell and Kraft are buddies, and I would not be surprised if they have buried the hatchet in the past month or two. As for the report that the NFL tried to catch the Patriots in the act, Goodell told King he personally had absolutely no knowledge of footballs being under-inflated before New England faced the Indianapolis Colts.
At this point, it would not be a surprise if the Ted Wells investigation is focusing as much on an NFL employee stealing balls and selling them for profit as it is on balls being under-inflated. The entire situation has been a mess.
