The story just won’t die
To be honest, we thought it was over. Weeks after the New England Patriots won the Super Bowl, and even longer since the Conference Championship game where the alleged offence took place, we thought Deflategate was going to remain just a quirky footnote to the NFL season.
But the story burst back into the press in the US today. ESPN have a report that a locker room attendant for the Pats tried to put an unapproved ball into the AFC Championship game against the Indianapolis Colts. This was the same game where it was alleged that 11 of the 12 game balls the Pats used were under the NFL limit for minimum inflation.
Before every game the balls are inspected by the officiating team and the balls of both teams are marked for offensive plays and special teams, with the latter marked a ‘k-balls’.
The report says that during that game they now believe that a locker room attendant, named as 48-year-old Jim McNally, gave an unmarked, unapproved ball to an official for use in the game during the first half. The official noticed it wasn’t correctly stamped for use and contacted NFL’s vice president of game operations, Mike Kensil.
Kensil then went downstairs and it was he who checked the PSI of the balls and found 11 of 12 to be underinflated, kicking off the whole Deflategate ‘scandal’.
Since the height of the issue in the build up to the Super Bowl, there have been any number of counterclaims, with the weather being blamed by the Patriots head coach Bill Belichick for the drop in pressure.
It isn’t known if McNally is the attendant who was spotted on camera spending 90 seconds in a bathroom with the balls before the game but with several more weeks of the investigation to go, there might be some air in the Deflategate scandal yet. Sorry.
