White House spokesman Josh Earnest on Friday waded into deflate-gate, the NFL controversy over whether the New England Patriots cheated in the conference championship by deflating the team’s footballs below regulation level.
Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, a three-time Superbowl winner, took reporters’ questions about the allegations Thursday.
In the past, Brady has indicated that he prefers footballs inflated at lower levels than the top range of regulations, but on Thursday, he said he “didn’t alter the ball in any way” in his team’s 45-7 win Sunday over the Indianapolis Colts. He defended himself and his team’s reputation in a wide-ranging press conference that veered from his respect for the integrity of the game to references to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and its far worse transgressions.
The press conference was widely panned by the media, with several commentators remaining unconvinced that Brady didn’t know anything about the ball deflation.
When asked about deflate-gate Friday, Earnest made a joke at Brady’s expense.
“For a long time, there’s been no risk of me taking Tom Brady’s job as the quarterback of the New England Patriots,” he told reporters. “And today, I can tell you there’s no risk of him taking my job, either.”
“That’s kind of fun,” he said to laughter.
He didn’t stop there, extending the football-flack metaphor further:
“The things that are clear about Mr. Brady’s job, it does cause him to make snap decisions in high-pressure situations and he does it very well, and those decisions are often second-guessed. So on that, he and I can relate.”
After the joke was over, Earnest declined to say whether the NFL should penalize the Patriots.
“That’s something that the NFL is considering, so I’ll leave it to them.”
