NFL officials supervisor on footballs: ‘They could have a slow leak’
There are many, many problems with the way the NFL handled deflate-gate, and one is pretty basic: The league never cared about the air pressure of footballs before hammering the New England Patriots.
That was clear from the Wells report, when it came to light that the Indianapolis Colts told the NFL before the AFC championship game that they were concerned about the Patriots deflating footballs, and the NFL did absolutely nothing about it until it was brought to their attention again in the first half. If the inflation level of footballs was Absolutely Crucial To The Integrity Of The Game, they’d have done something other than shrug once they were notified.
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And the NFL doesn’t even really know how and if their footballs can deflate. In explaining the new procedures for marking air pressure of balls before a game (again, if this was The Biggest Deal In NFL History, the league wouldn’t have waited 95 seasons to implement this procedure), Central Region supervisor of officials Gary Slaughter said footballs could have a slow leak and officials wouldn’t know, according to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review’s Mark Kaboly.
“These are man-made products,” Slaughter said, according to the Tribune-Review. “There is a bladder and a valve. We have all checked them for many years. Sometimes when you check the ball in the locker room right out of the box, there could be a problem. They could have a slow leak, and you wouldn’t even know it at the time.”
None of this is too mind-blowing, because it’s clear the NFL knew practically nothing about footballs and their inflation levels before turning deflate-gate into the modern day Black Sox scandal. That an NFL supervisor of officials acknowledges that footballs are subject to losing air because they’re “man-made products” lets you know there are other unanswered questions. How do footballs react in cold weather? Do some leak? Do some lose pressure normally during a game? These are all interesting questions that have never been looked at before. That didn’t stop the NFL from deciding which evidence fit their punishment and hammering Tom Brady and the Patriots, but I’m sure the league will learn some of those answers now that they actually care enough about the issue to have a procedure in place to check it.
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Frank Schwab is the editor of Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @YahooSchwab
