The New England Patriots were famously involved in the game commonly referred to as “Deflategate”, a 2014 AFC Championship game against the Indianapolis Colts where the balls were determined to be under-inflated in the first half of the game. Nearly ten years later, they find themselves in the center of controversy once again in a sequel Deflategate situation
New England fell to the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday to drop to 3-11 on the season. However, it has been reported that some unusual factors affected both teams in the game, particularly when it came to the kicking balls in the game.
According to Mark Daniels of MassLive, the kicking balls were only inflated to 11 pounds, over two pounds less than the standard of 13.5 pounds.
“They were all sitting around at 11 PSI. The threshold is usually 13.5,” an unnamed source told MassLive. “(The Patriots) told the refs they were a little underinflated or they felt that way. At halftime, they confirmed and obviously put air in them.”
Given the history of the Patriots organization being involved in something like this before, fans had plenty to say about this report on social media.
The under-inflated footballs may have cost Harrison Butker a perfect season. His only miss on any kick this year was in the first quarter at New England, a kick where his mechanics looked good and the ball just appeared to move at an unusual trajectory. https://t.co/ovA19IZ7N0
— Michael David Smith (@MichaelDavSmith) December 20, 2023
https://twitter.com/EPeterson1974/status/1737629317004431716
balls https://t.co/zQtb964l2e
— Joe Murray (@JoeyMurr) December 20, 2023
This error did play a factor in the first half of the game. Both Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker and Patriots kicker Chad Ryland missed their first field goal attempts of the game in the first quarter of Sunday’s matchup.
The miss by Butker was a significant one. Up until that point, he had not missed a single field goal attempt all year long.
It’s obviously a pretty horrible way for Butker to miss out on a piece of NFL history. Only nine kickers have finished a season with a perfect field goal percentage, and Butker could have very well been the 10th had it not been for this mistake by the field staff pumping up the kicking balls.
Much like the original Deflategate game, this matchup took place at Gillette Stadium, which means that it is the responsibility of the Patriots’ gameday staff to properly pump these balls before the game.
It is unclear at this point if there will be any further investigation by the NFL into this situation. But for the original Deflategate, the Patriots were handed down some pretty significant consequences by the NFL. That investigation led to Tom Brady being suspended, the team fined $1 million and the Patriots losing two draft picks.
[MassLive]
