We brought you news on Monday that The New England Patriots were being investigated for use of deflated footballs in their win over the Colts in the AFC Championship game. The NFL has begun its investigation and there have been some early findings according to ESPN's Chris Mortensen.
NFL has found that 11 of the Patriots footballs used in Sunday’s AFC title game were under-inflated by 2 lbs each, per league sources.
— Chris Mortensen (@mortreport) January 21, 2015
NFL has no comment at this time and Patriots say they will continue to cooperate with the investigation. More on SpotrsCenter. — Chris Mortensen (@mortreport) January 21, 2015
Mortensen is a highly respected journalist for ESPN and it is being widely taken in the States that the claims against The Patriots are factual. Each team provides 12 game balls for use on their own drives so it is not the case that each team benefited equally. The Patriots and Bill Belichick have previous for violating league rules, Belichick himself being fined $500k for filming a Jets training session and thus the league is likely to come down hard on the team and Belichick himself.
With the Patriots winning comfortably, the deflated balls were not decisive in the outcome, however with so much to lose by cheating again, the mind boggles as to why the Patriots risked fines, bans and draft picks to gain a slight advantage.
