Deflategate won’t be dying down anytime soon.
Jay Glazer of FOX Sports is reporting that the NFL claims to have a video of a Patriots locker room attendant taking balls from the officials’ locker room into another area of the team’s facility before bringing them onto the field for the AFC Championship Game.
“Sources tell @FOXSports the NFL has zeroed in on a locker room attendant (with) Patriots who allegedly took balls from officials locker room to another area on way to field,” Glazer wrote. “Sources say they have interviewed him and additionally have video. Still gauging if any wrong doing occurred with him but he is strong person of interest.”
A “strong person of interest” sure makes it sound like we are talking about something more than potentially deflating footballs, but I digress.
We have said all along that a video of a Patriots staffer doing something with footballs is likely the only way the NFL will be able to nail the Patriots. If such a video exists, I have no idea why Bill Belichick would have called a surprise press conference over the weekend to emphatically deny any wrongdoing.
While Glazer did note that the NFL has interviewed the attendant and is still trying to determine if he did something against the rules, this could be the evidence the league needs.
The way we see it, this is setting up for a ball boy or locker room attendant to take the fall. It is highly if not incredibly unlikely that a team employee would deflate footballs without Tom Brady — and probably Belichick — knowing about it. If they did know, they had to have known such a video would exist.
Thus, the only thing to do was to get out in front of the story, that way Belichick and company can act like they were blindsided. Belichick was so convincing during his Saturday presser that he even mixed in a well-known movie reference. Don’t be surprised if the locker room attendant falls on the sword.
