John Fox hasn’t been able to take the air out of the Bears offense yet, so it’s going to be up to the team’s equipment staff to make sure the air stays in the Super Bowl.
Via Kevin Seifert of ESPN.com, Bears equipment manager Tony Medlin had already been selected to secure the game balls for next Sunday’s Super Bowl, with a staff of ball boys hired in advance of the beginnings of #DeflateGate.
“Like many aspects of our policies and procedures, there are modifications for the Super Bowl,” league spokesman Michael Signora said. “At the Super Bowl, the equipment manager of another team [Bears, Tony Medlin] is in charge of the game balls and arranging for the ball attendant crews, which are hired before the Super Bowl teams are determined. The officials will maintain strict control of the game balls for the Super Bowl.
“Many aspects of the regular-season process are in place. The Super Bowl teams receive balls to work with during practice as per our policies. The balls are then returned to the league late next week.
“We would expect that the Competition Committee will review all of these procedures in the offseason.”
That review will obviously include anything the league discovers this week, but the league is fortunate they have someone else handling things already.