The New England Patriots' latest debacle, a 27-17 defeat by the Kansas City Chiefs, has resulted in another Deflategate saga. And while Patriots head coach Bill Belichick famously pleaded ignorance to the first instance of deflated football at Gillette Stadium, he was well aware this time around.

According to Mass Live's Mark Daniels report, Belichick was informed about under-inflated kicking balls in the first quarter of Sunday's game.

“We were aware of it in the first quarter,” Belichick told reporters Friday. “The officials handle that, and they were underinflated by two, 2 1/2 pounds. I think you could see that by the kicks. Both kickers missed kicks, and Butker hadn't missed a kick all year. Kickoffs — we had two that almost went out of bounds. It was both sets of (kicking) balls. It was all six of them.”

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“You have to talk to the league (about) what happened on that because we don't have anything to do with that part of it,” the Patriots head coach said. “They control all that, then they fix them at halftime — but didn't do it before then, which is another question you could ask. But we don't have anything to do with it. Were we aware of it? Yeah, definitely. But as I understand it, they were all the same. I don't know what the explanation is, but it was the same for both teams.”

The saga is the latest in a season of oddities in failures for the 3-11 Patriots — their worst season in 30 years.

The Patriots next face the Denver Broncos on Christmas Eve.