AFP/Boston

A New England Patriots internal investigation shows the NFL club did nothing wrong in the controversy over football inflation levels in a playoff victory, coach Bill Belichick said Saturday.
“Deflategate” has overshadowed New England’s 45-7 romp over visiting Indianapolis last week to book a Super Bowl berth against Seattle after a league probe showed the Patriots used under-inflated balls in the first half of the game, raising concerns of deliberate cheating.
“I believe now 100 percent I have personally and we as an organisation have followed every rule to the letter,” Belichick said. “At no time was there any intent whatsoever to try to compromise the integrity of the game or to gain an advantage.”
The NFL is looking into how balls lost air between a pre-kickoff exam by officials and half-time of the playoff, while Belichick says that the team’s look into the issue found balls can lose enough air to become outside NFL guidelines without tampering.
“We did everything as right as we could do it,” he said. “We welcome the league’s investigation.”
Each NFL team supplies the balls used by its offensive unit in a game and they are checked by referees before kickoff to see if they are inflated between 12.5-13.5 pounds per square inch. Softer balls would make balls easier to grip, grab and throw.
Concerns the Patriots were trying to cheat came in the wake of the 2007 “Spygate” scandal when the team was fined and lost a draft pick for videotaping a rival’s defensive scheme signals, an NFL rules violation.
“We filmed him giving signals in front of 80,000 people like a lot of other teams were doing,” Belichick said in defending his character over an event that drew him a $500,000 fine.
“Anything else that’s close (to breaking the rules), we’re not going to do it. Anything else that’s remotely close, we’re on the side of caution.”
In detailing the science of ball deflation possibilities and rubbing and scuffing balls to a quarterback’s desires, Belichick invoked the 1992 movie “My Cousin Vinny,” the NASA space program that put men on the moon and polishing China dishes.
“I’m not saying we’re trying to land a guy on the moon but there’s a lot of hard things we’re trying to get a handle on,” Belichick said.  
“We’re trying to get an answer to this and this is where we are at.
“I’m embarrassed to talk about the time I have put into this rather than the other important challenge in front of us.”
Matthew Slater, the Patriots’ union representative, said players would no longer talk about the issue since it is the subject of a league investigation.
Belichick said he gave quarterbacks, presumably including star Tom Brady, balls under-inflated by one pound per square inch and they were unable to tell the difference.
Only at twice that deflation level could they detect something was wrong, although they were able to detect changes in the outer texture of balls due to rubbing that could have impacted the inflation rate.
“We rub the ball to get it to the proper texture. We’re not polishing fine China here,” Belichick said. “That (pre-game) process elevates the PSI approximately one pound.”
Mona Lisa Vito, the car-expert movie character that brought actress Marisa Tomei an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in My Cousin Vinny, got a nod from Belichick.
“It’s clear I don’t know very much about this area,” Belichick said. “I would not say I’m the Mona Lisa Vito of the football world as she was in the car expertise area.”
But Belichick did say he knew the balls were in a controlled environment, either the team or referees’ locker room, until brought to the field to be used.
“That’s where the measurements would be possibly different,” Belichick said.  
“Over a period of time, they adjusted to the climatic condition. Once the ball reached its equilibrium stage, it was probably closer to 11.5 (pounds psi).
“We had no way of knowing, until we went through this exercise, that this was capable of taking place. Honestly, this has never been a concern.”