Tom Brady expects to talk to NFL about deflate-gate after Super Bowl

For those expecting swift and harsh justice for the New England Patriots over the deflate-gate issue, with huge suspensions for the Super Bowl, you're likely out of luck.

Patriots quarterback Tom Brady reiterated during a remote Pro Bowl halftime interview with ESPN that he hasn't spoken to the NFL about the issue and doesn't expect to until after the Super Bowl. So unless Brady is really wrong on his assumption, you can probably put the pitchforks away for a while.

"No, no. I believe they're going to do after the season, so we'll deal with it after this game," Brady told ESPN. "I think everybody's locked in, ready to go for this Super Bowl. It's a great opportunity for us, you know, and our guys have worked really hard so, hopefully we can go out there and play our best on Sunday."

While some have figured the NFL would wrap up an investigation on this in a few days, that probably wasn't realistic. Especially because there hasn't been a hint of an admission of guilt from Bill Belichick, Brady or any of the Patriots about the under-inflated footballs in the AFC championship game, and there hasn't been any evidence of wrongdoing. Presumably Brady would tell the NFL exactly what he said in a lengthy news conference on Thursday. He basically said he doesn't want his footballs tampered with after he picks them out and he couldn't tell the difference during the game if the balls were at the proper inflation or below it because he doesn't squeeze the ball. There's no reason to think he'd tell the NFL anything different in a private meeting, and there's nothing in his statements from Thursday to justify punishing him now.

Belichick made it clear during his news conference on Saturday that he was going to share everything he knew and that would be it on the matter. It's a pretty good bet he told his team not to discuss the issue in Arizona. So outside of the very remote possibility of the NFL wrapping up an investigation in a day or two after surprisingly talking to Brady in Arizona and also finding enough evidence to warrant a Super Bowl suspension (the NFL very rarely suspends any player late in the week; it's unfair for teams that have game-planned all week with that player), this might be the signal that the significant news on deflate-gate is drying up heading into Super Bowl week.

That doesn't mean people won't keep talking about it right up until the game, however. It's just that the conversation won't include Brady and NFL investigators.

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Frank Schwab is the editor of Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at shutdowncorner@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @YahooSchwab