Just in case you thought that the NFL season ending meant we would not be hearing about “Deflategate” anymore, here’s a reminder that you were wrong.
The NFL hired Ted Wells to investigate whether the New England Patriots intentionally deflated footballs for the AFC Championship Game against the Indianapolis Colts in January. According to a report from ESPN Outside the Lines’ Kelly Naqi, Wells has learned that a Patriots locker room attendant tried to sneak an unapproved special teams/kicking ball aka “K ball” into the game.
The report says 48-year-old Jim McNally, who has worked for the Pats as the officials’ locker room attendant since 2008, tried to give an unapproved football to the alternate official (who is in charge of special teams balls) during the first half of the game. The alternate official, Greg Yette, noticed that the balls did not have markings on them as they should (balls are inspected and marked pregame).
Here is more from ESPN:
One of those sources added that Yette found it surprising that the officials’ locker room attendant was on the field, trying to hand him a ball, because officials’ locker room attendants don’t typically have ball-handling responsibilities during NFL games. Once McNally tried to introduce the unapproved football into the game, the source said, Yette notified the NFL’s vice president of game operations, Mike Kensil, who was at the game in the press box.
What is interesting is this adds another element to the Deflategate controversy.
A few weeks ago NFL VP Troy Vincent said it was Colts GM Ryan Grigson who turned in the Pats for suspicion of deflating balls, leading the league to properly inflate the balls at halftime. If that was the case, that means the Colts AND the officials had reasons to suspect the Patriots were doing something with the footballs, and it could mean their deflating efforts were multi-level.
Another interesting point is that Naqi says a source told her 11 of the 12 offensive balls used by the Patriots were found to be one or two pounds under the allowable limit. That is notable because there is still a debate about how many balls were deflated and to what extent; a report the day of the Super Bowl said the footballs were just a few ticks underinflated.
What is unclear at the moment is whether McNally is the same staffer who reportedly brought the footballs into a bathroom for 90 seconds prior to the game. If it was him, then that would lend credence to the belief that some shady business was going on in the stall.
