Robert Kraft on Ballghazi: "I was really irritated to see how stuff got leaked out there"

After the Patriots won the Super Bowl Sunday night, ESPN’s Sal Paolantonio caught up with Robert Kraft. Despite the celebratory atmosphere, the New England owner was still visibly perturbed about leaks from the Ballghazi investigation these past two weeks:

“I really think that all of us are on the same page — ownership, coaches, players — and they know I had their back, and I believe in them,” Kraft said. “And to be honest, I was really irritated to see how stuff got leaked out there without any [basis] — maybe some of it’s true, I don’t know. But we had no way of knowing, and it was not fair, and it really aggravated me.”

As our site discussed yesterday, details inside the leaks have been highly variant. Two weeks ago, Chris Mortensen reported:

"The NFL has found that 11 of the New England Patriots’ 12 game balls were inflated significantly below the NFL’s requirements, league sources involved and familiar with the investigation of Sunday’s AFC Championship Game told ESPN. The investigation found the footballs were inflated 2 pounds per square inch below what’s required by NFL regulations during the Pats’ 45-7 victory over the Indianapolis Colts, according to sources."

There was also a report from Jay Glazer about a “person of interest” who took the footballs into another area of Gillette Stadium, which Mike Florio later followed up was a single occupancy bathroom, for about 90 seconds.

On Sunday, NFL Media’s Ian Rapoport wrote: “Eleven of the 12 footballs used in the first half were judged by the officials to be under the minimum of 12.5 PSI, but just one was two pounds under. Many of them were just a few ticks under the minimum.”

Florio swiftly responded:

"So how many are “many”? And how much is “just a few ticks”? Making the NFL media report even more confusing is the fact that, when Rapoport discussed the issue on the air, he specifically said that “a couple, three or four were about a pound under and three or four more were right at the line but a little bit under.” As one league source with knowledge of the situation told PFT in response to the NFL Media report, “Ian’s wrong.” Apart from the inherent conflict between the written assertion that “many” were “just a few ticks under” and only “three or four” were “right at the line but a little bit under,” it’s possible that both versions are incorrect."

Whether Rapoport is right or wrong (either way he’s been at least slightly contradictory) should be revealed in the Ted Wells report, but does anyone find it a little bit odd that an NFL employee is reporting on an ongoing NFL investigation that is supposed to be confidential?

As far as Kraft goes, he can be aggravated all he wants that his organization has been the target of all these leaks the past two weeks, but this is standard operating procedure for a league presided over by a commissioner he’s backed from the start. I don’t recall Kraft chiming in during Bountygate (when player discipline was ultimately vacated by Paul Tagliabue), or condemning the leaks throughout the Ray Rice fiasco.

In the foreseeable future, it will be fascinating to see whether Kraft’s dissatisfaction with the way the league office has handled these past couple weeks will spill over and affect his support of Goodell going forward.