Deflate-gate: What is going on?

Deflate-gate has been the main topic of the first few days following championship Sunday. Everyday more information is released about what seems to be the next big “scandal” in the NFL. So lets start from the beginning.

More from New England Patriots

• 5 Players the New England Patriots gave up on way too early
• New England Patriots upgrading their ground attack
• Patriots looking to sign a former star running back for 2023
• NFL: Mike McCarthy and 4 Head Coaches on the hot seat heading into 2023
• New England Patriots QB options in 2024 if Mac Jones fizzles out

It all started with D’Qwell Jackson‘s interception of Tom Brady in the AFC championship game. After that interception, Jackson believed that the ball felt under-inflated, and gave the ball the Colts equipment manager, so that he could check the pressure of the ball. From there on in went to head coach Chuck Pagano and then to GM Ryan Grigson, who reported it to NFL officials. According to ESPN.com’s Chris Mortensen, the Colts already had concerns about under-inflated balls in their week 11 matchup in Indianapolis.

One thing that should be quite obvious to everybody is that the Patriots did not win this game because of under-inflated balls. The final scored was 45-7 and under-inflated balls do not make up for a 38 point difference. Colts tight end Dwayne Allen seems to agree:

In the same article linked above, Mortensen also reported that 11 of the 12 Patriots balls were under-inflated according to the NFL. This basically rules out the belief that maybe one or two balls were under-inflated, and therefore it was an accident, or a ball was defect. It is definitely not a good sign for a Patriots team that is still heavily scrutinized for their Spygate “scandal” back in 2007. Now it is the NFL’s job to figure out what happened, who knew about it and what a good punishment would be, if rules were broken.

I personally can not picture the Patriots letting air out of the balls on the sideline in plain sight of any cameras, but it seems to be the only way they could have altered the ball, because the balls are only in the hands of officials prior to the game. If they did in fact alter the balls, both Brady and Belichick must have been in on it, especially Brady since he is gripping the ball the entire game and is the player that would benefit most from it being altered. Still, the NFL must gain proof that the Patriots knowingly deflated the balls in order to gain an advantage in the AFC championship.

The other likely option could be that the officials are the ones to blame for this entire thing. Did they follow all the regulations and accurately check all the balls prior to the game? If they didn’t, the Patriots could have just under-inflated their balls, and gotten by with it because the officials did not do their jobs, and they should get most of the blame. As ESPN’s Mike Reiss notes, Aaron Rodgers likes to over-inflate his balls, so if those also go undetected, maybe referees have not been doing their job very accurately.

Especially because it is the Patriots, who so many people consider to be cheaters, everyone is giving their imput to this situation, but many people have been way to drastic. On ESPN’s First Take, Stephen A. Smith said that Belichick should be suspended for an entire season. A lot more people seem to believe that if the Patriots are found guilty, they will likely lose draft picks.

Nobody actually knows what exactly happened yet, and people should not jump to conclusions about “Deflate-gate.” This will not tarnish Tom Brady’s career, and it shouldn’t tarnish Bill Belichick’s as well. The Patriots deserve to be in the Super Bowl and will play in Arizona in about a week and a half.  The Pats will have to deal with any consequences, but I do not believe that those consequences will be very harsh. It could be a large fine, but the worst case scenario that I could see playing out is the loss of a draft pick in the 5th round.

The Patriots themselves will focus on preparing for the Super Bowl, and not on all the news surrounding the Deflate-gate. I do hope the NFL will finish their investigation quickly, so that the attention will go back to the Super Bowl. No matter what happens, there will always be doubters who will say the Patriots cheated their way to another championship, but if the Patriots take home the Lombardi trophy on Feb. 1st, none of them are going to care.