Colts General Manager Ryan Grigson has declined to comment on Deflategate, but it’s now been confirmed that it was Grigson who asked the NFL to check the footballs that the Patriots’ offense was using during the AFC Championship Game.
NFL Executive V.P. of Football Operations Troy Vincent confirmed in an interview that will air on Showtime tonight that Grigson told the NFL in the second quarter of the AFC Championship Game that the Patriots might be tampering with the footballs.
It’s unclear how word got to Grigson that the Patriots’ footballs might be under-inflated. There have been conflicting stories about whether the Colts thought it was an issue going into the game, or whether it only came up when Colts linebacker D’Qwell Jackson intercepted a Tom Brady pass and noticed that the football felt flat.
According to a Showtime press release, Vincent also told Armen Keteyian on 60 Minutes Sports that he has never seen such a bad year for the NFL, with scandals involving Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson in addition to the Deflategate controversy. The NFL can only hope the Deflategate investigation concludes with something resembling closure, and that 2015 isn’t plagued by the scandals that dominated the 2014 conversation in the NFL.