FOXBOROUGH, Mass. -- The following is New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick's opening statement from his Thursday news conference on the topic of underinflated footballs:
"All right, I’ll start off by addressing the football issue here. When I came in Monday morning, I was shocked to learn of the news reports about the footballs. I had no knowledge whatsoever of this situation whatsoever until Monday morning. I’d say I’ve learned a lot more about this process in the last three days than I know, or had talked about it, in the last 40 years that I’ve coached in this league.
“I had no knowledge of the various steps involved in the game balls and the process that happened between when they were prepared and went to the officials and went to the game. So I’ve learned a lot about that. I obviously understand that each team has the opportunity to prepare the balls they want, give them to the officials, and the game officials either approve or disapprove the balls and that really was the end of it for me. Until I learned a little bit more about this the last couple days.
“Let me just say that my personal coaching philosophy and my mentality has always been to make things as difficult as possible for players in practice. And so with regard to footballs, I’m sure that any current or past player of mine would tell you that the balls we practice with are as bad as they can be -- wet, sticky, cold, slippery. However bad we can make them, I make them. And any time that players complain about the quality of footballs, I make them worse and that stops the complaining. So we never use the condition of the footballs as an excuse. We play with whatever, or kick with whatever we have to use, and that’s the way it is. That has never been a priority for me and I want the players to deal with a harder situation in practice than they’ll ever have to deal with in the game. Maybe that’s part of our whole ball-security philosophy. I’m trying to coach the team and that’s what I want to do.
“I think we all know that quarterbacks, kickers, specialists have certain preferences on footballs. They know a lot more about it than I do. They’re a lot more sensitive to it than I am. I hear them comment on it from time to time, but I can tell and they will tell you that there is never any sympathy whatsoever from me on that subject. Zero. Tom’s personal preferences on his footballs is something he can talk about in much better detail and information than I can possibly provide.
“I can tell you that in my entire coaching career, I have never talked to any player, staff member about football air pressure. That is not a subject that I have ever brought up. To me, the footballs are approved by the league and officials pregame, and we play with what’s out there. That’s the only way that I have ever thought about that.
“I have learned about the inflation range situation. Obviously, with our footballs being inflated to the 12.5-pound range, any deflation would then take us under that specification limit. Knowing that now, in the future, we will certainly inflate the footballs above that low level to account for any possible change during the game.
“So, as an example, if a ball deflated from 13.2 to 12.9, it wouldn’t matter. But if it deflated from 12.5 to 12.3,it would. So we will take steps in the future to make sure we don’t put ourselves in that type of potential situation again.
“The National Football League is investigating this situation. We have cooperated fully, quickly and completely with every request they have made, and continue to be cooperative in any way that we can. I have no explanation for what happened, and that’s what they’re looking into.
“So I can’t comment on what they’re doing. That’s something that you should talk to them about. Again, my overall knowledge of football specifications, the overall process that happens on game day with the footballs, is very limited. I would say that during the course of the game, honestly never … it probably has happened on an incomplete pass or something ... but I’ve never touched a game ball. It’s not something that I have any familiarity with on that.
“Again, I was completely and totally unaware of any of this that we’re talking about the last couple days until Monday morning. So based on what I knew Sunday night, thinking back on this, which I’ve done several times, I really can’t think of anything that I would have done differently based on what I knew then, based on what I know now. I told you the one change we’d make in the initial start level of the football pressure. But that’s really about it. It’s unfortunate that this is a story coming off two great playoff victories by our football team, our players. But again, we’ve been cooperative with the NFL investigation and will continue to do so and we will turn all our attention and focus on to the Seattle Seahawks -- a very well-coached, talented, tough, competitive football team.
“We’ve spent the last four days, three days, with our preparations and so forth for the trip. I think those are coming to a conclusion. We’re wrapping that up and we’re starting our preparations today with the Seahawks and practicing through the weekend, so we’ll have a good, solid opportunity to get ourselves ready to go before we head down there.
“Again, I have no further comment on the NFL investigation and I’ve told you all I know about the subject from my perspective. So that’s where we are.”