Deflation Gate: The Series

With the Super Bowl done for another year, it's time to devote my full attention to something far more important: Deflation Gate.

It's odd how the story is coming out now. It seems it was the Colts GM that instigated the investigation at the Colts/Patriots championship game, though he says he's not allowed to talk about it now because it's, "in the league's hands."

Say What?

Reporters have been unmerciful and unrelenting in their attack on the Patriots organization and it's players asking unremitting questions of them day and night for over two weeks DEMANDING answers, and now when somebody DOES KNOW something HE says he can't say anything publicly just yet.

This makes no sense at all. And it's really starting to look very, very fishy. The ORIGINAL STORY released to reporters was that the equipment manager of the Colts got his hands on a ball briefly during the normal course of the game and that he mentioned to officials that it seemed a little deflated. It was just assumed that the officials then noticed all the balls were a little off and they decided to check them at halftime.

But this newer version of the story suggests something far more sinister on the Colts part. Unless the GM was standing next to the equipment manager on the sideline (and let me tell you that is not where any GM in football ever stands) when the ONE BALL was discovered maybe a little soft, and HE decided to launch an investigation RIGHT THEN AND THERE, it almost seems that the whole thing was a set-up on the Colts part.

Balls have been discovered to be a little light or a little soft and taken out of games on a regular basis in football games forever. They get damaged valves, they get holes in them from spikes, so it's normal to grab a ball and ask the ref to remove it.

But to then jump to the conclusion, as an equipment manager, to contact your GM DURING THE GAME and have HIM have the refs  check ALL THE BALLS because they're afraid the Pats MIGHT have illegally decided to deflate all the balls is decidedly darker. It suggests that the Colts did indeed plan the whole thing.

Why? Because no one in the history of the game has done anything like that before. The only reason you'd ask the refs to check them as GM is because you know ahead of time what they will find. In other words, it WAS the Colts who cheated. Why else would an equipment manager take the time to contact the GM who would then contact the officials to have them check ALL the balls. Nothing that happened in the game at that point would make one jump to such a ridiculous assumption.

Maybe there is a much more reasonable explanation to all this, but the GM REFUSES to talk. Considering every single player or coach has talked as much as requested by reporters during this investigation that automatically brings us to the reasonable conclusion. What's that GM hiding? Why is he not talking?

UPDATE: It seems the league has said now that the GM submitted his request to watch for under-inflated balls during the game BEFORE the game because of something that happened at the November 19th game. This doesn't change anything other than they had MORE time to plan this.

So who is guilty in all of this?  Physics says its the Colts. Their balls were overinflated ahead of time, that's the only way their balls could have stayed above minimum levels by the end. This latest news also points to the Colts.

Yes, someone might have figured out a very sneaky way of deflating all the balls equally just before the game who was representing the Patriots. But since that is where the investigation is right now and nothing has been discovered, you have to at least consider the Colts are responsible for this.

I used to think that the refs just don't check the balls that closely ahead of time. But if they were specifically told ahead of time to CHECK the Patriot's balls ahead of time closely, that now seems unlikely. Unless of course the refs really never check that closely, which is a possibility. For instance, there is no official written record of any game balls at any game. They don't write down their pregame ball checks. They just supposedly "do it" somehow. I still haven't seen or heard a ref tell us exactly how this is done, so I don't know.

That leaves us with the Colts looking very guilty. Something that has not been investigated or shared by the league as of yet.