There’s a new detail in DeflateGate, and it’s a mighty strange one.
Four sources told ESPN’s “Outside the Lines” that a New England Patriots locker room attendant tried to put an unapproved kicking football into the AFC Championship Game against the Indianapolis Colts. The attendant — identified by ESPN as 48-year-old Jim McNally — was interviewed by NFL-hired investigator Ted Wells.
ESPN’s sources said McNally has been working Patriots games for a decade and has been the officials’ locker room attendant since 2008. McNally reportedly walked up to alternate official Greg Yette during the first half of the game and tried to hand him a K ball that didn’t have the stamp officials put on approved footballs.
Yette thought this was strange — locker room attendants aren’t usually on the field and don’t handle footballs — so he notified vice president of game operations Mike Kensil, who was in the press box at Gillette Stadium.
That, paired with the allegations that the Patriots might be using under-inflated footballs, was enough for Kensil to personally check the pressure of New England’s footballs at halftime. A source told ESPN the footballs were re-inflated and sent back for use in the second half.
McNally, Yette and Kensil declined to comment to ESPN. The network said it’s unclear whether McNally is the attendant who surveillance footage showed taking the game balls into a bathroom for 90 seconds.
While there’s no way to know the exact truth of this report without an official statement, a stunt like McNally’s seems like a one-man operation. Of all the ridiculous and conflicting details that have emerged in the DeflateGate “scandal,” it’s simply far-fetched to think that owner Robert Kraft, coach Bill Belichick or quarterback Tom Brady would instruct a locker room attendant to waltz onto the field with a blatantly unapproved special teams ball — which the offense wouldn’t use — and try to hand it directly to an official.
If this one pans out, it likely won’t fall on anyone higher up in the organization.
Thumbnail photo via Kyle Terada/USA TODAY Sports Images
