Richard Sherman doesn’t believe the National Football League will levy any harsh penalties on the New England Patriots in wake of the “Deflate-Gate” scandal.
Sherman, an All-Pro cornerback with the Seattle Seahawks who on Sunday will be one win away from successfully defending their Super Bowl title, told reporters this week that a “conflict of interest” between the league and New England Patriots ownership may prevent NFL Commissioner Roger Goddell from being objective in determining “who knew” and “when did they know it” after it was revealed that 11 of the 12 balls used by the Patriots in their conference championship game against Indianapolis were under-inflated by up to two PSI (pounds per square inch).
“Will they be punished?,” Compton native Sherman asked rhetorically. “Probably not. Not as long as [Patriots owner] Robert Kraft and Goddell are still taking pictures at their respective homes. [The commissioner] was just at Kraft’s house before the AFC championship game. You talk about a conflict of interest.”
On the night of New England’s 45-7 win against Indianapolis, it was revealed that the balls used by the Patriots’ offense had been deliberately under-inflated, presumably in an attempt to give quarterback Tom Brady a better grip. Fox News on Monday reported that a Patriots locker room attendant has been considered by the league as a “person of interest” after surveillance video showed the individual taking balls from the officials’ locker room into another room at Gillette Stadium before bringing them onto the field.
In 2007, Goddell fined the New England Patriots $750,000 ($500,000 for head coach Bill Belichick and $250 for the team) and took away a first-round draft pick after the so-called “Spy-Gate” controversy where it was revealed that team operatives videotaped the New York Jets’ defensive signals. In this instance, Goddell has deferred the investigation to a team of lawyers.
Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll said he could “empathize” with Belichick who pled ignorance to how his team’s balls became slightly deflated. “I’ve never checked on the whole process of how our footballs were handled until this week,” Carroll said. “I can empathize with Bill Belichick in that same way. I never have [checked], so I can understand that he never has either. But I know every step of it now.”
Seattle and New England will meet Sunday in Super Bowl XLIX in Glendale, Ariz.
