Jeff Blake did not have the most distinguished NFL career of all-time, but with 100 career starts and 13 years in the league with seven different teams, he does at least sort of know what he’s talking about. And since it seems like the only thing people want to talk about when it comes to the Super Bowl are Marshawn Lynch and #DeflateGate, Blake spoke with a Nashville, Tenn. radio station about the practice of taking air out of footballs during a game.
“I'm just going to let the cat of the bag, every team does it, every game, it has been since I played,” Blake said. “Because when you take the balls out of the bag, they are rock hard. And you can't feel the ball as well. It's too hard. Everybody puts the pin in and lets just enough air out of the ball that you can feel it a little better. But it's not the point to where it's flat. So I don't know what the big deal is. It's not something that's not been done for 20 years.”
Is Jeff Blake the law when it comes to deflating footballs? No way. Many have said the exact opposite. But you have to admit, his detailed explanation is fairly convincing.
“As soon as they give them the balls,” Blake said when asked when QBs typically let the air out of the ball. “On the sideline before the game. The quarterbacks would come out to warm up in pregame...I would just say, 'Take a little bit out, it's a little bit hard.' And then they'd take a little bit out and I'd squeeze them and say 'That's perfect, that's it.'”
So now we know how Blake likes his balls. Maybe, just maybe, in the next couple days we’ll get an actual football story before the game kicks off.
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[via ESPN]
