A Patriots employee who reportedly tried to introduce an unapproved kicking ball into the AFC Championship Game last month got that ball from an NFL employee, according to a new report.
On Tuesday night, ESPN’s Kelly Naqi singled out Patriots officials’ locker room attendant Jim McNally for trying to introduce an unapproved “K ball” into the game. A new report now makes it sound like McNally was not trying to sneak an unapproved ball into the game as we speculated, but that he was just giving a ball that was handed to him by a rogue employee.
ESPN’s Adam Schefter says one K ball went missing from the game and an NFL employee gave McNally a replacement ball that was not approved by officials pregame as is the protocol.
The employee who gave McNally the replacement ball reportedly stole the ball to sell for profit. The person’s job was to collect balls for charity, and the employee apparently had been selling balls for profit for a long time. He reportedly has been fired after his scheme was discovered.
The new information has been discovered as part of Ted Wells’ investigation into the “Deflategate” controversy.
