FOXBOROUGH — Troy Vincent, the NFL’s vice president of football operations, said on Tuesday that the league’s investigation into whether the Patriots used intentionally deflated footballs during Sunday’s AFC Championship game against the Colts will be completed soon.
“We’re hoping to wrap that up in the next two or three days. The team is in place in New England now interviewing staff members,” Vincent said while appearing on NBC Sports Radio’s “PFT Live.” “We obviously want to get that behind us so that we can really get back to the game itself.”
Vincent was asked why the league is taking such a hard look at the controversy.
Advertisement
“For a fan, you want to know that everything’s equal,” he said. “The integrity of the game is so important.”
After being asked on Monday about the investigation, Patriots coach Bill Belichick was tight-lipped in offering a non-update a day later.
“Any questions on that you should talk to them about,” Belichick said during a Tuesday teleconference, when asked if he’d been contacted by the league as part of their deflated football investigation.
The Patriots who spoke with the media on Monday professed no knowledge of any footballs being deflated before or during Sunday’s win. Tom Brady, in a radio interview, said, “I think I’ve heard it all at this point. It’s ridiculous. I don’t even respond to stuff like this.”
Tight end Rob Gronkowski chimed in on Twitter.
In a post early Tuesday, Gronkowski posted a photo of one of his patented touchdown spikes, which included the words, “Warning: Gronking may cause deflation.”
Gronkowski added his own text with the photo: “Whoops lol”
Whoops lol pic.twitter.com/uLxN7A5cpq
— Rob Gronkowski (@RobGronkowski) January 20, 2015