Report: Patriots Locker Room Attendant Tried to Get Unapproved Ball Into AFC Title Game
The mostly quiet front of Deflategate saw a sliver of light late Tuesday, when a strange report from ESPN broke regarding a locker room attendant and a kicking football from the Patriots-Colts AFC title game.
Citing four unnamed sources, ESPN’s “Outside the Lines’’ reports that Patriots locker room attendant Jim McNally “tried to introduce an unapproved special teams football into last month’s AFC Championship Game,’’ the same game that is the center of the NFL’s “Deflategate’’ investigation.
OTL reports that the 48-year-old McNally, a part-time employee hired by The Kraft Group, has worked for the Patriots for 10 years and “has been in charge of the officials’ locker room at Gillette Stadium since at least 2008.’’ OTL’s sources say that “McNally tried to give the unapproved [kicking] football to an alternate official who was in charge of the special-teams footballs.’’
OTL reports that alternate official Greg Yette “became suspicious when he noticed that the football McNally handed him did not have the proper markings on it,’’ while one of OTL’s 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.’’ Yette then reportedly contacted NFL VP of game operations Mike Kensil, who was in the Gillette Stadium press box.
OTL says their sources are not sure at what point in the first half McNally tried to give the unapproved football to the officials; neither McNally nor Yette would comment when OTL reached out to them.
OTL says it is unclear whether McNally is the same “person of interest’’ the NFL was reported to have “zeroed in’’ on back in late January, a locker room attendant that reportedly took 12 footballs into a bathroom for 90 seconds after they were approved by game officials.
The NFL announced on Jan. 23 that they had hired a team led by attorney Ted Wells to investigate if any deliberate wrongdoing was committed in the Patriots’ footballs having been found to be underinflated. Wells said in a statement on Jan. 26 that he expected the investigation to take “at least several more weeks.’’
To comment, please create a screen name in your profile
To comment, please verify your email address
Conversation
This discussion has ended. Please join elsewhere on Boston.com