Ravens alerted Colts to issue with footballs

Share

Back in February, John Harbaugh was adamant that the Ravens had nothing to do with helping to spark the Deflategate investigation.

But according to an email sent from Colts equipment manager Sean Sullivan to general manager Ryan Grigson before the AFC Championship Game, the Ravens tipped off the Colts that footballs used at Gillette Stadium may have tampered with during the Divisional Round.

In the email, tweeted by Ben Volin of the Boston Globe, Sullivan wrote that Baltimore special teams coordinator Jerry Rosburg called Colts coach Chuck Pagano before the conference title game. The reason? To inform Pagano that the Ravens had been given new kicking balls to use during the Divisional Round game instead of kicking balls that had been prepared by the Ravens.

"Two concerns came up as of yesterday on footballs at New England," Sullivan wrote. "First off the special teams coordinator from the Baltimore Ravens called Coach Pagano and said that they had issues last week at the game that when they were kicking (Baltimore that is) they were given new footballs instead of the ones that were prepared correctly."

The email from Sullivan was published, in part, in the Wells Report.

"As far as the gameballs are concerned it is well known around the league that after the Patriots gameballs are checked by the officials and brought out for game usage the ballboys for the patriots will let out some air with a ball needle because their quarterback likes a smaller football so he can grip it better, it would be great if someone would be able to check the air in the game balls as the game goes on so that they don’t get an illegal advantage."

In the weeks after the Deflategate story initially broke, Harbaugh insisted that his team had nothing to do with the investigation.

"I wasn't a part of that, per se," Harbaugh said when asked during the NFL Combine if he had been interviewed as part of the investigation. "As far as any other parts of that, or who was or wasn't . . . first of all, I don't know very much about it. And anything I do know I can't comment on it. I really don't care to to be honest with you. It's in somebody else's hands. We were never involved with it to begin with. We'll just leave that for the people that are involved with it."

Harbaugh told NBC's Bob Costas during Super Bowl week that he was shocked when he heard that he had been implicated in the investigation somehow.

"I heard all that, I couldn’t believe it when I heard it," Harbaugh said. "It’s ridiculous, it never happened, I’ve been, I never made any call, nobody in our organization made any call. As a matter of fact, just to make sure I had all the facts, I called up Chuck Pagano and asked him, ‘Did anybody else in our organization tip you off about deflated footballs?’ and he said, ‘No way.' "

During his meeting with reporters at the NFL Combine, he maintained he had nothing to do with the investigation. He also said that he believed that stories written about his potential involvement should be pulled.

"I already answered that at the Super Bowl pretty clearly," he said. "I don't know who believed what or why. You'd have to ask them why they would believe something like that, or whoever put that out there why they would put that out there. There's not one shred of any kind of fact that would in any way lead any reason to believe that's true. It's been a long time since that report's been put out. There was nothing there. Didn't happen. I'm not sure why it hasn't been recanted, to be honest with you. I really don't care about it. It means nothing to us. It's a non-issue for us."

Once Grigson received the email from Sullivan, he sent a note to senior members of the NFL's football operations department Mike Kensil and David Gardi one day before the AFC Championship Game saying, "all the Indianapolis Colts want is a completely level playing field. Thank you for being vigilant stewards of that not only for us but for the shield and overall integrity of our game."

Contact Us