Roger Goodell addresses latest Deflategate drama in Super Bowl press conference
Sunday night’s Pro Football Talk report on the infamous “11 of 12” report and subsequent PSI testing by the league has put the Deflategate saga back in the spotlight. But, while Troy Vincent and Jeff Pash were mentioned, what’s real Deflategate talk without the commissioner himself?
On Wednesday afternoon, Roger Goodell held his annual Super Bowl press conference. The Boston Globe’s Ben Volin asked Goodell about the PFT piece – specifically the report that the NFL, under the direction of league general counsel Jeff Pash, “expunged” PSI data collected during the 2015 season that showed the Patriots’ footballs from the 2014 AFC Championship Game were in line with league regulations when taking into account the Ideal Gas Law.
“The numbers harvested during the 2015 season corroborated this [the Patriots’ football being impacted only be Ideal Gas Law],” Florio wrote. “Which would provide a clear motivation to make those numbers go away, for good. Which is exactly what Pash ordered.”
“This is a long time since I thought about Deflategate,” Goodell began his answer. “We were very clear that we were going to do spot checks to make sure that people were following the policies. That is something that we fully engaged in,” he said, suggesting the numbers were meant to keep tabs on other teams, and not create control data for the Patriots’ situation.
So why were those numbers never released? “I don’t know what happened to the data, to be honest with you,” Goodell continued. “We don’t look back at that, we just make sure there’s no violations. That’s the purpose of the spot checks. ‘Are there violations?’ And if there are violations, we need to look into it. But thankfully, we didn’t see any.”
In another potentially Patriots-related topic covered over the course of the 40-minute press availability, Goodell announced the NFL will play a game in Munich, Germany in 2022, and four games in Germany – two in Munich and two in Frankfurt – over the next four years. Given the Patriots’ popularity in Germany, it’s not unrealistic to think they’ll be involved in at least one of those games. Teams for the first game will be announced along with the season schedule in the spring.
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Alex Barth is a writer and digital producer for 985TheSportsHub.com. Any opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of 98.5 The Sports Hub, Beasley Media Group, or any subsidiaries. Thoughts? Comments? Questions? Looking for a podcast guest? Let him know on Twitter @RealAlexBarth or via email at abarth@985TheSportsHub.com.
