After days of silence and no comments, the NFL confirmed on Friday that game balls used by the New England Patriots in last Sunday’s AFC championship game against the Indianapolis Colts in Foxborough, Massachusetts, were underinflated, but it continues to investigate why and how that came to be.
“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,” the league said in a statement.
The league said it had interviewed nearly 40 people, including game officials, Patriots personnel and “third parties with relevant information and expertise,” and has “obtained and are continuing to obtain additional information, including video and other electronic information and physical evidence.”
The league has hired Renaissance Associates, an investigatory firm with “sophisticated forensic expertise,” to help review electronic and video information.
Patriots coach Bill Belichick and quarterback Tom Brady said on Thursday they had no knowledge of how the Patriots came to use underinflated footballs in the game, which they won 45-7.
Belichick and Brady said they learned on Monday, the day after the game, that the game balls were said to have been inflated below NFL guidelines.
“Everyone’s trying to figure out what happened,” Brady said, adding that he had not yet been contacted by the NFL. “I was as surprised as anyone at what happened.”
Multiple news reports in the past few days indicated that the NFL had found that as many as 11 of the 12 footballs used by the Patriots in the first half of the game were significantly below league requirements.
The league’s statement did not include those details, but it did say that the underinflated footballs were used in the first half.
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