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Commissioner Roger Goodell: NFL's “Deflategate” Investigation “Thorough and Objective”

The NFL is conducting a "thorough and objective" investigation into whether the New England Patriots deliberately let air out of footballs in the AFC title game, the league's commissioner said at his annual Super Bowl news conference Friday.

“We take seriously anything that can potentially impact the integrity of the game,” Roger Goodell said at the Super Bowl media center in Phoenix, Arizona.

Goodell also said the NFL will create a new position of chief medical officer to oversee all the league's health policies.

The executive will work with the league's medical committees, advisers and the NFL Players Association.

Goodell also reiterated a statistic the NFL released a day earlier: That the number of in-game concussions decreased by 25 percent this season and that the number has fallen from 173 to 111 since 2012.

Goodell, who was widely criticized for mishandling the Ray Rice investigation, said that it has been a year of "humility and learning" for him and the league.

"It's been a tough year on me personally," he said. "We obviously as an organization have gone through adversity, but more importantly it's been adversity for me. We take that seriously. It's an opportunity to get better."

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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