[John_W]

Originally Posted by Dr Winston O Boogie jr

After the 2014 playoff game between the Patriots and Ravens, John Harbaugh called Colts coach, Chuck Pagnano, who he is very friendly with, and told him to watch out for soft balls in their upcoming game against the Patriots.

I don't believe that Jim Harbaugh was involved in any way.

My long post was a reply to another poster who apparently didn't know the difference between John and Jim Harbaugh and lacked a thorough knowledge of the Ravens and Patriots recent game history.

In reply to your response, much like the George Brett pine tar incident in 1983, the Yankees didn't complain about Brett's bat until after he hit a 2 run homer. Why say something before hand, he just gets a new bat. This way his 2 run homer doesn't count and he's called out on top of that.

Your correct Chuck Pagano and Harbaugh are good friends, Pagano was hired to the initial Ravens coaching staff of John Harbaugh when took over in 2008 after he replaced Brian Billick. Pagano was promoted to defensive coordinator in 2011. In 2012 after he had made great improvements in the Ravens D, he got the head coaching job at Indy. John Harbaugh like many coaches are happy when their assistants move on to higher jobs, even when competing against each other. Much the same as with Bill Belichick and his rehiring of Josh McDaniels after he had left to become a head coach of the Denver Broncos, they remained friends.

However, I haven't found anything about a tip off to the Colts, but as we know, friends do talk. I guess the Colts were going to use it as their Ace in the Hole, or their pine tar bat. It wasn't until after Colts linebacker D'Qwell Jackson intercepted a Brady pass, he noticed the ball felt soft. At halftime the refs checked the balls, and found all but one was under inflated. However, unlike the Yankees and George Brett, fixing the balls hurt them more than helped them.

The only info I can find on the tip off is this news report dated Jan 21, 2015.

Amid reports that a league investigation discovered 11 of 12 New England Patriots footballs were underinflated in their AFC championship game against the Indianapolis Colts, another report surfaced that Ravens believed the kicking balls were also underinflated in their matchup against the Patriots in the divisional round.

Underinflating footballs are against league rules; they can create a competitive advantage.

There was a difference between the two games, however.

Against the Colts, the underinflated balls were used only by the Patriots on offense. It is believed that deflating a ball makes it softer and easier to throw and catch. The home team is in charge of these balls, and the Colts complained about one during the game after linebacker D'Qwell Jackson intercepted quarterback Tom Brady.

Against the Ravens, the alleged underinflated balls were used by both the Patriots and Ravens’ kicking teams. The league is in charge of the kicking balls, and the Ravens did not make a complaint during the game.

Harbaugh was asked whether he or his players noticed underinflated balls.

“It’s really not something that is in the forefront of our mind, I can tell you,” Harbaugh said Wednesday. “I know the NFL is doing an investigation and they called some of our people about it. Our guys answered – as far as I know, I don’t know exactly what the conversations were – they answered honestly.”

Harbaugh said nobody on his team noticed anything with the Patriots’ offensive balls because they never had a chance to handle those. He said they did notice softer kicking balls, but at the time, they simply attributed it to cold weather.

“As far as the kicking balls, you know it was 20 degrees out, so the balls were softer, our guys told us during the game. I just chalked that up to the fact that it was cold,” Harbaugh said. “Both teams were kicking the same kicking ball. I didn’t really think anything of it during the game. Other than that, it’s not something that I really gave any thought to at all.”

Now that the league has discovered the 11 offensive underinflated balls from the AFC championship, does that make Harbaugh wonder if something more happened in past matchups?

“I’d really rather not [get into that],” Harbaugh said. “As far as the past, I don’t really want to get into all of that. I don’t have any comment on that.”

Kicker Justin Tucker also tweeted about the topic Wednesday afternoon:

"I haven't talked to a single person [with] NFL, NFL Security, or media about under-inflated footballs or anything of the sort. Just to be clear, anyone saying that I made any comments one way or the other regarding our experiences in [New England] is simply mistaken."


We can know this, that equipment managers are not going to take it upon themselves to mess with game equipment unless asked by the player involved, especially when it involves a future hall of fame QB. I and anyone else who thinks logically can assume that Tom Brady requested to have the balls used by his offense deflated to a lesser pressure, obviously something he preferred. Having narrowly escaping a playoff loss at home to the Ravens, Brady certainly wanted every advantage he could get against the high flying Colts who had just defeated Manning and the Broncos the week before in Denver. Fortunately for him, the Colts were not the match the Ravens were and he didn't need the added boost.