NFL football manufacturer on Bill Belichick talk: ‘That’s BS’

By Phil Watson | Jan 26, 2015

Jan 24, 2015; Mobile, AL, USA; An official "The Duke" game football made by Wilson used as the official ball of the NFL seen photographed on the field following the Senior Bowl at Ladd-Peebles Stadium. Mandatory Credit: John David Mercer-USA TODAY Sports /

Wilson, the official manufacturer of NFL footballs since 1941, heard Bill Belichick’s explanation for deflated footballs and had a two-letter answer.

“That’s BS.”

So says Wilson representative Jim Jenkins about the explanation given by New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick for the reason why 11 of the 12 footballs used by his team in the first half of the AFC Championship were not inflated to the prescribed lower threshold of 12½ pounds per square inch of air pressure.

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Jenkins told Boston.com that there is no way Belichick’s explanation of how footballs have variable air pressure based on how they are prepared can possibly be accurate.

“We simulated a game day situation in terms of the preparation of the football and where the footballs were at various points in time during the day, or night, as was the case Sunday,” Belichick said at a surprise press conference on Saturday. “I would say that our preparation process for the footballs is what we do. I can’t speak for anybody else. It’s what we do.

“That process, we have found, raises the PSI approximately one pound. That process of creating a tackiness, a texture—the right feel, whatever that feel is, it’s just a sensation for the quarterback what’s the right feel. That process elevates the PSI approximately one pound based on what our study showed, which was multiple footballs, multiple examples in the process, as we would do for a game. It’s not one football.”

Bill Nye the Science Guy weighed in on the topic, saying Belichick’s explanation was essentially bunk.

Jenkins wasn’t sold, either.

“Not going to say,” Jenkins said in response to a question about what he thought about Belichick’s explanation.

Then, with a laugh, he said, “That’s BS. That’s BS, man.”

Wilson Sporting Goods, which has manufactured the NFL’s official footballs since 1941, has a booth at the NFL Experience during the ramp-up to the Super Bowl this Sunday.

And never in history has there been so much interest in how those pigskins take their shape.

Another Wilson official, director of experiential marketing Molly Wallace, said the only way what Belichick described could actually happen was if there was a problem with the bladder inside the football—something she is skeptical could happen in 11 out of 12 game footballs from one evening.

“Well, it couldn’t unless something happened to a bladder, but that really doesn’t happen and there’s no other real way,” Wallace said. “All we know is what we can control is when it leaves the factor, it’s within NFL spec, within the PSI of 12½ to 13½ pounds of pressure for every single NFL team.”

In any event, this is the most often “inflation” has been discussed outside the realm of the economy in the history of modern man … so there’s that.

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