Colts’ D’Qwell Jackson doesn’t know what happened to football that spurred deflate-gate
Five minutes into the second quarter of the AFC title game, Colts linebacker D’Qwell Jackson picked off Tom Brady on a pass intended for Rob Gronkowski. On the field, the turnover gave Indianapolis a chance to keep the score close; at that point, the Colts were already down 14-0 and were deep in Indy territory when Jackson got the pick.
On the sidelines, the ball, which Jackson held onto as a memento, became the catalyst for the months-long saga known as deflate-gate, after a Colts equipment manager measured the ball’s pressure and told team officials. General manager Ryan Grigson went to league executives on hand at Gillette Stadium for the game, and within hours word spread that the Patriots would be investigated.
But whither that initial football?
“I have not received it. That’s the mystery ball,” Jackson said on Wednesday, according to the Boston Globe. “If you could tell me where it is, you would do me a huge favor.”
Jackson has become a secondary character in the story of deflate-gate, and made it clear his role began and ended with the interception.
“Twenty years from now I’m sure people will still kind of flirt around with it, so I guess it will be cool,” Jackson said of being connected to deflate-gate. “Everything else that came out of that was nothing I had anything to do with. That’s above me. It wasn’t anything I had any part in.”
Jackson is also in a bit of an odd situation: as one of the Colts’ NFL Players’ Association reps, any feelings he might have about the Patriots and Brady are tempered by seeing the union win its fight against the league over Brady’s suspension.
“It kind of set a precedent. It started a conversation in terms of how the league operates,” Jackson said of Brady’s victory in federal court. “It’s only going to help our game. It happened, and you can find a positive out of it.”
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Other than Jackson, the Colts are trying to avoid any mention of deflate-gate, and for some, any mention of the Patriots. Last week, after Indianapolis beat Houston on Thursday night, tight end Dwayne Allen said he wasn’t sure which team was next on the schedule, instead saying, “nameless, faceless opponents.”
Coach Chuck Pagano gave a standard “it’s a big game becasue it’s the next game” response.
Things weren’t much different in New England on Wednesday, with Brady cutting his press conference short after fielding six questions, all of them related to his emotions headed into Sunday’s game, including one from a reporter who said Brady was giving robotic answers and wondered if there was a human in him that wanted to beat the Colts a little more than he wants to beat other teams.
Brady could only assert, “I’m definitely human.”
Revenge factor or not, if the Colts can’t stop the Patriots’ ground game, they’re likely in for a familiar fate. In their last three games, New England has 657 rushing yards and 13 rushing touchdowns, and won by an average score of 43-16.
