Ballghazi Lives: Patriots' Attendant Handed Official Unapproved Kicking Ball During AFC Title Game
By Ty Duffy
"The alternate official, Greg Yette, became suspicious when he noticed that the football McNally handed him did not have the proper markings on it, three sources say. 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, since 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 says, Yette notified the NFL’s Vice President of Game Operations, Mike Kensil, who was at the game in the press box."
The report claims the unapproved ball led to Kensil’s investigation of 12 of the Patriots’ approved offense balls at halftime. Plausible, sort of.
Did McNally take the suspicious, 90-second pit stop? Unknown.
"It is not known if McNally is the same locker room attendant who reportedly ducked into a bathroom with a bag of footballs for 90 seconds before taking them out to the field before the start of the AFC Championship Game."
The reports’ sources aren’t sure when he gave officials the unapproved ball in the 1st half or why he did. So that leaves the possibility it was not intentional. Though locker room attendants handling balls during the game is not standard operating procedure.
What does one special teams ball have to do with approved offense balls being deflated? Beats us. But, we should probably start asterisking the entire Patriots era just to be safe. What will the children think?