Belichick on Deflate-gate: 'We have followed every rule to the letter'

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Bill Belichick held an impromptu media conference on Saturday to explain the New England Patriots' investigation into Deflate-gate.

Belichick wanted to share the information he and the team found during the study they conducted regarding under-inflated footballs in the AFC Championship Game. The NFL continues its investigation, but Belichick believed it was necessary for the team to examine questions on its own.

His finding: The Pariots did nothing wrong.

"I believe 100 percent we have followed every rule to the letter," Belichick said during the media conference at Gillette Stadium.

The Super Bowl-winning coach did his best to explain why 11 of the 12 balls examined by the NFL were underinflated. Although Belichick claimed, "I'm not a scientist," he did provide scientific terms to describe what might have happened.

"We all know that air pressure is a function of the atmospheric conditions," he said. "So once the balls reached the equilibrium state, they were probably closer to 11 and a half (PSI). The atmospheric conditions, as well as the true equilibrium of the ball, are critical to the measurement."

NFL rules mandate footballs used in games have air pressure between 12.5 and 13.5 pounds per inch.

The key, Belichick pointed out, was getting the best feel for the football.

"As Tom [Brady] explained on Thursday, the most important part of the football for the quarterback is the feel of the ball," he said.

Part of the process of getting the right feel of the ball, according to Belichick, involves rubbing the football. When a reporter asked how vigorously the footballs were rubbed, Belichick became slightly irritated, saying: "We’re not polishing fine china."

He also referred to a recent theory proposed by USA Today's Tom Pelissero . Pelissero claimed the Patriots might have inflated the balls in a warm room. Belichick said that wasn't the case.

"At no time were any of our footballs prepared anywhere other than our locker room, or similar conditions. To our knowledge."

Moving forward, it doesn't seem Belichick will have much more to say on the matter. He is upset about the time his team has spent on the issue ahead of the Super Bowl.

“I’m embarrassed to talk about the amount of time I’ve put into this, relative to the challenge in front of us,” he said. "This is the end of this subject for me for a long time. I have spent more than enough time on this.”

In the end, Belichick made sure to reiterate his feeling that the Patriots did nothing wrong.

"We feel like we followed the rules to the letter in our preparations and procedures," he said.

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Jordan Heck is a social media producer at Sporting News