The Patriots and Chiefs played on Sunday with underinflated kicking balls in the first half and it had many people thinking it may be a deflategate situation part two.
The first half featured a rare field-goal miss from Kansas City’s Harrison Butker and another missed field-goal attempt from New England’s Chad Ryland.
“They were all sitting around at 11 PSI. The threshold is usually 13.5,” a 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.”
On Friday, New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick confirmed that the kicking balls in last week’s 27-17 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs were underinflated.
Belichick also confirmed that the Patriots had nothing to do with it.
“We don’t have anything to do with it. Were we aware of it? Yeah, definitely,” Belichick said. “As I understand it, they were all the same. I don’t know what the explanation is. It was the same for both teams.
“You’d have to talk to the league about what happened on that. That part of it, they control all that.”
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Belichick seemed to question about why the officials didn’t fix the problem immediately.
“They control all that, then they fixed them at halftime, but didn’t do it before then. Which is another question you could ask,” Belichick said. “But we don’t have anything to do with it. Were we aware of it? Yeah, definitely. But they were all, as I understand it, they were all the same.”
Underinflated balls have been a sensitive subject in New England ever since the Patriots were fined $1 million and docked two draft picks, and quarterback Tom Brady was suspended for four games. The league accused the Patriots of underinflating game balls in their 2015 AFC championship game win over the Indianapolis Colts en route to their Super Bowl win over the Seattle Seahawks.
