NFL referees reportedly forgot balls at hotel before Patriots playoff game

Just how carefully are NFL referees handling game balls? Apparently not as closely as the league would lead you to believe.

WBZ’s David Wade reported on Twitter Wednesday that the NFL referees left the kicking balls at a Boston hotel prior to the divisional round playoff game last weekend between the Patriots and Kansas City Chiefs.

State Police confirm #NFL refs left the kicking balls at #Boston hotel before #Patriots – Chiefs game. Troopers drove them to Gillette.

— David Wade (@davidwade) January 21, 2016

This is an obvious concern — especially for Patriots fans who felt the league targeted the franchise with the Deflategate scandal.

The league insisted that a Patriots employee took balls from the officials’ locker room inside Gillette Stadium last year and deflated the balls prior to the AFC Championship Game. The league also commissioned the Wells Report, which presented data using PSI to prove that the balls lost air pressure from the time it was measured before the game to when it was measured again at halftime. Our writer Steve DelVecchio presented this excellent argument which took apart the data presented by the Wells Report.

If referees were supposed to keep track of footballs prior to a big playoff game like the one between the Chiefs and Patriots and they couldn’t even do that successfully, then why should we have confidence that they weren’t sloppy during the AFC Championship Game last season? Given this new report, the NFL may want to think twice about releasing this data and potentially making themselves look even worse.