2/17 Rumor: Pats' locker room attendant tried to put unapproved kicking ball in AFCCG

ctpatsfan77 said:

And Nye is an avowed Seachicken fan, so he's not unbiased, either.

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Any video of his reaction to the super bowl?

TommyBrady12 said:

Any video of his reaction to the super bowl?

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memento said:

These rumors from unnamed sources are like drunken fratboys playing Battleship.
B9, C7, D8, A4 -- Miss. Miss. Miss. Miss.

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You sank Manziels rubber swan!

I am puzzling about this "deflategate" thing. It has dragged on and the NFL office has leaked many tidbits here and there with not one shred of proof. It looks like Mike Kensil has an agenda going here. For him to feel it necessary to personally go down to the field is odd in itself, but why was he even at the game? There has been talk of the NFL running a "sting" and it seems like that is exactly what happened. This doesn't take weeks to investigate. As a matter of fact, with an outside firm investigating the ineptness of the NFL is eliminated. They have everything they need to clear the air on this deal, so why don't they? Trying to find a way to save face? I think that Goodell has to go. He is as incompetent as our president. Regardless of the result, a public spectacle and constant finger pointing at the Patriots has done nothing but sullied the league. This is not how you handle something.
Now this article does nothing but urge speculation against the Pats. Nothing here that something was done intentionally, but still continuous finger pointing.
If this kind of crap was done in a court of law there would be a mistrial declared and the prosecution would be found guilty of poisoning the jury.
Goodell and his office is as incompetent and maladroit as anyone I have ever seen.

Just realized there was no link to said article.
http://abcnews.go.com/Sports/patrio...ed-ball-afc/story?id=29040309&singlePage=true

Bobsyouruncle said:

I would not be surprised if Kraft is quite pissed. Supposedly they were trying to keep the ball attendants name out of press, and he's already stated the leaks were unacceptable. Now they have some guys picture, his name, and reporters at his house over a ludicrous rumor.

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It's gone from the ridiculous to the sublime. Where's the body and missing murder weapon?

http://itiswhatitis.weei.com/sports...tion-a-whole-separate-issue-from-deflategate/

“This is a whole separate issue,” she said. “I do not know if this is the same locker room attendant who reportedly stopped in the bathroom on the way to the field with the game balls. This person, who is a strong person of interest, I don’t know if it’s the same person. I do know that it is, as you a said, a separate issue.

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So, you don't know much.

“You can’t introduce a ‘K’ ball into the game. There’s a ‘K’ ball official for that. It’s an alternate official who’s assigned to playoff games. … During the playoffs, the NFL has one if its alternate NFL officials oversee the kicking balls. McNally, for reasons which we don’t know, we don’t speculate on it, but he went up to the alternate official who in the AFC championship game was an NFL back judge named Greg Yette, and he tried to introduce a ball that had not been pre-approved into the kicking game.”

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Still not clear: did the Patriots try to introduce a K ball into an offensive series? Or an unmarked ball as a K ball? She contradicts herself in this very paragraph.

That said, Naqi noted that this incident might have been the impetus for NFL vice president of game operations Mike Kensil testing all the balls at halftime.

“My sources say it was a data point that was used,” Naqi said. “I don’t know if it is the sole reason. I can only go off of what my sources have specifically told me, and it was a data point that inspired him to go down at halftime. … I just know that this was a factor. Was it an added factor? Maybe. I know it was a factor.”

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So it does have something to do with Deflategate?

ctpatsfan77 said:

And Nye is an avowed Seachicken fan, so he's not unbiased, either.

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and Tyson issued a statement saying he (Tyson) was wrong

IcyPatriot said:

4 sources told OTL .... that's no leak.

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No, that's a Tsunami.

Fencer said:

How much experience does Kensil have at measuring the pressure in footballs, while minimizing the pressure reduction caused by the measurement process itself?

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He probably stuck his needleJetdick in it.

sb1 said:

Anyone else catch Florio on WEEI this morning?

I got a chuckle out of hearing him say this new wrinkle is just ESPN trying to milk this story. This coming from the guy who runs one of the most blatant click bait "news" sites out there in the industry...oh the irony

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I'm actually beginning to like Mike (a little). He's really the only national guy calling this BS.

borg said:

The "Hot Take" from this latest revelation will be....Patriots tampered with both the offensive game balls AND the kicking balls as well. .....in other words....shenanigans on a grander scale. If this guy turns out to be the same person that took the "approved" game balls from the officials before the game and into the bathroom for 93 seconds.....and then later tries to introduce an illegal kicking ball into the game.......then my initial lack of concern regarding deflategate must now be readjusted to a more suspicious level.
Local fandom will likely use terms like "coincidence" or "accident" in order to justify this "mistake" / "screwup". But given the supposed length of his Patriot employment as officials locker room attendant, I hope no one is going to argue that this guy is completely unaware of "ball rules."
When a "person of interest" happens to be holding the smoking gun.....
The news cycle about to take hold is going to be all over Kraft. A special Kraft Group employee smack in the middle of this scandal. Given Bob's public defense of his team, mediots will be vicious toward him now. You'll see

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Yeah, Florio pretty much labeled this a ******** story resulting from ESPN trolling for something, anything to hang on the Pats.

Just the other day Florio did this. http://deadspin.com/mike-florio-calls-out-david-letterman-for-being-a-comed-1685444729

He's just as bad.

VectorPrime said:

Just the other day Florio did this. http://deadspin.com/mike-florio-calls-out-david-letterman-for-being-a-comed-1685444729

He's just as bad.

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Florio is just a face-eating bacteria. He doesn't care whose face he's eating.

If it is actually true that Yette called Kensil, then I think that pretty much proves beyond a doubt that this was a sting after all. But a Kensil-led sting rather than a Colts-led one.

Why on earth would Yette call Kensil if Kensil hadn't told the refs ahead of time to call him if anything even remotely out-of-the-ordinary ball-wise came up?

Tom E. Curran ‏@tomecurran 2m2 minutes ago
An email from ESPN's Outside the Lines says today's show features today’s "an interview with a former long-time NFL head linesman (1 of 2)

Tom E. Curran ‏@tomecurran 1m1 minute ago
(2 of 2) ... who called McNally’s sideline activities unusual for a locker-room attendant."

Tom E. Curran ‏@tomecurran 35s35 seconds ago
Talk about blowing the lid off.

So espn is going to sping it everyday

SVN said:

Tom E. Curran ‏@tomecurran 2m2 minutes ago
An email from ESPN's Outside the Lines says today's show features today’s "an interview with a former long-time NFL head linesman (1 of 2)

Tom E. Curran ‏@tomecurran 1m1 minute ago
(2 of 2) ... who called McNally’s sideline activities unusual for a locker-room attendant."

Tom E. Curran ‏@tomecurran 35s35 seconds ago
Talk about blowing the lid off.

So espn is going to sping it everyday

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They are going to talk to a former official about how the locker room attendant's behavior was "unusual." I forget, did ESPN ever interview that former official who said he (or other officials) just gave the footballs a "squeeze test" instead of using a pressure gauge to determine if they were ready for play?

rlcarr said:

If it is actually true that Yette called Kensil, then I think that pretty much proves beyond a doubt that this was a sting after all. But a Kensil-led sting rather than a Colts-led one.

Why on earth would Yette call Kensil if Kensil hadn't told the refs ahead of time to call him if anything even remotely out-of-the-ordinary ball-wise came up?

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Gives credence to the Ravens tipping off the Colts to watch out for the kicking balls. I will not call it a sting, but just that a heighten awareness was given to the balls in the game.

SVN said:

Tom E. Curran ‏@tomecurran 2m2 minutes ago
An email from ESPN's Outside the Lines says today's show features today’s "an interview with a former long-time NFL head linesman (1 of 2)

Tom E. Curran ‏@tomecurran 1m1 minute ago
(2 of 2) ... who called McNally’s sideline activities unusual for a locker-room attendant."

Tom E. Curran ‏@tomecurran 35s35 seconds ago
Talk about blowing the lid off.

So espn is going to sping it everyday

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The whole thing is unusual. When has the football pressure ever been checked at halftime?

phil112 said:

It looks like Mike Kensil has an agenda going here. For him to feel it necessary to personally go down to the field is odd in itself, but why was he even at the game?

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It's definitely bizarre and seemingly untoward if he was personally measuring and inflating game balls at the half time, but on the other hand, his presence at the game by itself doesn't seem strange to me. He is an NFL executive working out of the league office in New York. Is it really that nuts that he was attending the game (either for his own entertainment or on behalf of the NFL league office) for one of the three most important NFL games of the year in a stadium less than four hours drive from the city he works in?

I am more bothered that an NFL executive was the one responsible for measuring and inflating balls rather than the officiating crew, that he essentially tampered with evidence if he was already aware that there was going to be an investigation into the ball pressure after the game and inflated all the balls instead of preserving some of them in their condition at the time, that there are apparently three separate sources able and willing to anonymously leak this information before the investigation is finished, that it seems like once a week there is some new explanation for when and why the balls' air pressure was measured in the first place and what the measurements were and who measured them, and that the first person in the media to find out that there was an ongoing investigation was a visiting team beat reporter instead of a national media reporter.

During ESPN's OTL, Adam Shefter called into the program with more details. Mike Loyko gives his Twitter accounting of what he saw on OTL.

Mike Loyko ‏@NEPD_Loyko 6m6 minutes ago
.@AdamSchefter report on OTL just DESTROYED ALL THE OTL reporting and basically points the finger at the OFFICIALs

Mike Loyko ‏@NEPD_Loyko 6m6 minutes ago
League Official was supposed to handle balls and send one off to a charitible enterprise. League Official stole balls and was fired from NFL

Mike Loyko ‏@NEPD_Loyko 6m6 minutes ago
League Officials 2 Noticed that Balls were missing went back to the locker room got different balls and gave them to Jim MacNally..

Mike Loyko ‏@NEPD_Loyko 5m5 minutes ago
All this is on tape according to @AdamSchefter .. basically the League Officials are going to come out F'D in all this

Mike Loyko ‏@NEPD_Loyko 4m4 minutes ago
Per @AdamSchefter after the game balls are checked Official 1 takes the balls and brings them around for "charitible endevores for the NFL

Mike Loyko ‏@NEPD_Loyko 4m4 minutes ago
Turns out that Official 1 took some of those balls for himself before AFC Championship Game.. Official 2 then notices that there are balls..

Mike Loyko ‏@NEPD_Loyko 4m4 minutes ago
Missing so he goes back to the LR to get new game balls and gives those to Jim McNally.. NFL Has fired League Official #1 already.. and all

Mike Loyko ‏@NEPD_Loyko 4m4 minutes ago
this is caught on tape.

Mike Loyko ‏@NEPD_Loyko 3m3 minutes ago
@AdamSchefter just poured gasoline all over OTL, @bkravitz , ESPN, @mortreport and lit the match himself.

Mike Loyko ‏@NEPD_Loyko 3m3 minutes ago
.@AdamSchefter has stayed so quiet on DeflateGate, it's like he finally said F it.