COLTS

Irsay: No contact 'at all' with Goodell re: Deflategate decision

Zak Keefer
zak.keefer@indystar.com
Jim Irsay, owner and CEO of the Indianapolis Colts, talks with reporters. The Indianapolis Colts hosted the Chuckstrong Tailgate Gala Friday, April 24, 2015, at Indiana Farm Bureau Football Center. The event brought about 600 guests together to raise money for cancer research at the IU Melvin and Bren Simon Cancer Center.

Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay said Monday he has had no contact "at all" with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell regarding Goodell's impending decision on whether or not to uphold or reduce Patriots quarterback Tom Brady's four-game suspension for his role in the Deflategate controversy.

ESPN NFL reporter Sal Paolantonio, speaking to a San Diego radio station last week, said Irsay and Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti have been vocal with the league about holding firm in the face of Brady's appeal. Bisciotti has also denied the report.

"That's not true at all," Irsay told The Star on Monday. "I haven't talked to Roger Goodell about DeflateGate since late January. Not true. That's not the way things work involving someone else's business and someone else's team. It's not something I've ever seen, and I've been around ownership (in the NFL) for half a century."

Irsay said his last interaction with Goodell regarding the Deflategate controversy came months before the results of Ted Wells' investigation were released in May.

On Monday, Paolantonio appeared on a local Baltimore radio station and tried to clarify his remarks from last week, saying:

"I never said that owners were pressuring Goodell. But what I said about Steve Bisciotti, I shouldn’t have even said that. Because it’s pretty clear when he read his statement, that it sounds like he doesn’t care what the Commissioner does. ... And the other thing too is that it was not a report. It was just me talking on a radio station. It was my opinion, and it was speculation."

Goodell has yet to announce a decision on Brady's appeal, though one could come this week. The NFL commissioner originally handed Brady a four-game suspension — meaning his first regular season game will come Oct. 18 against the Colts in Indianapolis — after Wells' report determined that it was "more probable than not" that Brady's Patriots deliberately used under-inflated footballs during their AFC championship game victory over the Colts in January.

Call Star reporter Zak Keefer at (317) 444-6134 and follow him on Twitter: @zkeefer.