Former Ball Boy: "Most often they just squeezed the balls"

While the press focuses on Brady/Belichick this seems to be a much larger clusterf..ck and the NFL is trying to change the focus from them to having the Pats being tried in the press.. just about every newspaper nationally is carrying this story.. judgements have been made, and the NFL has been silent..

Tne NFL tried to control the message and its implications from the onset..

Why did they release snippets of info to a news reporter in Indy who has vitriol for the Pats early Sunday AM??

Why did they dump info on the balls to Mort on Monday nite around 11:00 PM?? We still do not know if the 2 pounds under regulation meant that they were 10.5 PSI or 11.5 PSI.. that very specific info has deliberately been left out.

Yesterday Brady said he was not even contacted by the NFL...

The Colts contacted the league office on 11/16, why did it take so long to do something.. was there more drama in the AFC Championship game?? Why didn't they check the balls prior to the game??

IMO it is beginning to look more and more like the NFL is the culprit, I really want to believe this..

hwc said:

Sorry. I can't bring myself to watch Stephen A. and Skip Bayless. They, and others like them, are the problem.

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Skip has his own brand of deuschtastery. Back in the 90's he wrote a book about the Dallas Cowboys in which he insinuated that Troy Aikman was gay. Those rumours persist to this day and Aikman, for one, has never forgotten them, nor forgiven Bayless for writing them.

Skip's entire body of work is predicated upon innuendo and hearsay. He shouldn't be working on TV. He'd fit right in with the cretins in Boston, however.

Bella*chick said:

I truly understand now that we are not as smart (the human race) as we think we are. Not by a long shot.

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I wish I could click Like, Agree, Winner, and Useful a hundred times.

hwc said:

A which hunt entirely provoked by unnamed "league sources".

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Originally reported by a sore loser journalist for a team with a tradition of being blown out by the Pats.

this story should not be buried

from the first minute of the scandal, it was the simplest explanation.

Maybe the ref is covering his as$ and pretending to have checked them with a gauge, but it is unlikely that he did.

It amazes me how sure Peter King is that the refs do actually use the gauge for every ball, all based on the one time he got to watch the process.

I can't speak for anybody else, but if a reporter is watching me do my job, then I'm doing everything by the book even if I normally don't.

Bella*chick said:

The real story is the shocking mob mentality of sports "journalists" and of average people who love to stomp on something that has been too good for too long. I am not joking when I say I have never seen anything like it and I truly understand now that we are not as smart (the human race) as we think we are. Not by a long shot.

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I'm kind of surprised this is news to you Bellachick, the so called news media had been doing this for decades. Take nothing, spin it into something, ask a bunch of hacks what they think when you already know what they will say, then treat their statements on it like actual facts and news when it is nothing more than supposition and opinion.

Mark12 said:

I am so F*CKING done with BSPN. Seriously, LET'S ALL PATS FANS BOYCOTT THAT ******** COMPANY.

They make Fox News like a source with integrity. F*ck them!

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I agree. I am boycotting everyone who won't stop talking about this. I am also done with 98.5. All those jerks start with the assumption that the Pats have done something wrong. I cannot stand one more moment of their garbage.

Palm Beach Pats Fan said:

this story should not be buried

from the first minute of the scandal, it was the simplest explanation.

Maybe the ref is covering his as$ and pretending to have checked them with a gauge, but it is unlikely that he did.

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Well, that should be pretty easy to determine if the info in the link by the OP is accurate. Based on that article, the ball attendant is present in the officials locker room when they inspect the game balls. Once they are done, the balls are brought out to the field and left there until the game starts. So, with regards to the Pats, all they need to do is ask the ball attendant whether or not the refs used the pressure gauge or the "squeeze test".

Bella*chick said:

The real story is the shocking mob mentality of sports "journalists" and of average people who love to stomp on something that has been too good for too long. I am not joking when I say I have never seen anything like it and I truly understand now that we are not as smart (the human race) as we think we are. Not by a long shot.

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They are vultures! I mentioned in another thread that many of the reporters present at Brady's question/answer session were not sports reporters. One reporter from CNN asked Tom, "Tom, what would you tell the children?"

I couldn't believe it! What a foolish question. Tom should have replied, "Who cares about the children!"

Sciz said:

It amazes me how sure Peter King is that the refs do actually use the gauge for every ball, all based on the one time he got to watch the process.

I can't speak for anybody else, but if a reporter is watching me do my job, then I'm doing everything by the book even if I normally don't.

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I was just thinking that same thing. As that ball boy said, he doesn't recall ever having a ball rejected by a ref and says they hardly ever use a gauge. And it's not surprising. The refs handle balls before every play; they know what a suitable one should feel like. Clearly, many teams (the ones that aren't butthurt) don't give a crap.

The only question I have, and I think we'll get the answer, is when were the refs done with the balls pre-game, where did they go and who had them for how long? I doubt the NFL will throw Walt Anderson under the bus on this and say he didn't use a gauge. They'll probably say he "tested them before the game and approved them." Tested = holding, squeezing and visual inspection.

It is too bad that NBC did this story.

As the SB network, in no way do the want to make the NFL look bad.

Otherwise this ballboy story would be titled:

BEARS BALLBOY EXPOSES NFL LIES ABOUT PREGAME FOOTBALL TESTS

PatriotsReign said:

They are vultures! I mentioned in another thread that many of the reporters present at Brady's question/answer session were not sports reporters. One reporter from CNN asked Tom, "Tom, what would you tell the children?"

I couldn't believe it! What a foolish question. Tom should have replied, "Who cares about the children!"

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To me, Tom at that moment badly wanted to say "Are you ****ing kidding me" or something along those lines. The WTF look was all over his face. I think I laughed out loud at the point. "What about the children, Tom? WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN!"

PatsDeb said:

I agree. I am boycotting everyone who won't stop talking about this. I am also done with 98.5. All those jerks start with the assumption that the Pats have done something wrong. I cannot stand one more moment of their garbage.

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I share your stance except as of yesterday that means I can no longer listen to the radio, watch TV, or even talk to my kid's schoolteachers. I really, really wish I was joking about that last one but I am not. Picking my son up yesterday (and wearing my BB hoodie) a teacher who has to be 70-something years old snidely said something to the effect of "When the Patriots are kicked out of the Superbowl…" Right in front of my Pats-clad kid. I was too shocked to say anything but if it happens again today I will.

n6249c said:

Originally reported by a sore loser journalist for a team with a tradition of being blown out by the Pats.

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And a long tradition about whining about losing to us, even going so far as to have rules changes to try to win. Pathetic franchise, they're the kid that always ran home to mommy before the game was over when they were losing.

Can't wait for Bob Costas' douche bag comments before kickoff. Perhaps it should be the deflation tool that is at fault. Without that, this whole mess could have been avoided.

Ivan said:

I'm kind of surprised this is news to you Bellachick, the so called news media had been doing this for decades. Take nothing, spin it into something, ask a bunch of hacks what they think when you already know what they will say, then treat their statements on it like actual facts and news when it is nothing more than supposition and opinion.

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Well, I mean, you kind of know it academically but experiencing it takes that awareness to a new height. Or experiencing it and being really emotionally involved with one side of it (ie. the Pats).

Bella*chick said:

The real story is the shocking mob mentality of sports "journalists" and of average people who love to stomp on something that has been too good for too long. I am not joking when I say I have never seen anything like it and I truly understand now that we are not as smart (the human race) as we think we are. Not by a long shot.

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We're becoming a hive mind via the internet/social media. It does make us dumber individually but unfortunately those dumber individuals are also making up the hive mind.

It's sad.

Don't know where I read it but this ex ballboy also once worked for the Kraft group, and he might have been instructed to pin it on referees

Which would mean the Patriots may think it was the refs.

Why do I envision years of many bad calls against the Patriots?

Bella*chick said:

The real story is the shocking mob mentality of sports "journalists" and of average people who love to stomp on something that has been too good for too long. I am not joking when I say I have never seen anything like it and I truly understand now that we are not as smart (the human race) as we think we are. Not by a long shot.

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Bella: I am a print journalist. I worked in newspapers for 17 years before leaving that to publish a magazine. What we're seeing is a degradation of the profession exacerbated by Internet/Twitter-driven competition to be first and "loudest." The once-basic requirements of journalistic schooling and training have been disregarded, to where we now have untrained people like Jerome Bettis acting irresponsibly in front of millions. I feel embarrassed and deeply saddened by all this. It has come to where we need to strictly examine who to trust when it comes to information and news. Pre-Internet, it never was like that.