An NFL official has been fired for selling balls used during the DeflateGate game, ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported Wednesday on Outside the Lines. The official remains unnamed. There is no word exactly how he tried to sell the balls, or what his asking price was.
NFL official fired for selling balls used during DeflateGate game, according to report
An NFL official has reportedly been fired for selling balls used during the AFC Championship between the Patriots and the Colts.
Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports
Schefter’s report is perhaps one of the weirdest, most complex turns in an already bizarre story that somehow keeps developing. Allegedly, one of the officials working the AFC Championship against the Indianapolis Colts was supposed to take the footballs out of play and send them away to be used to raise money for a charitable endeavor by the NFL. Instead, the official took some of the balls and sold them himself. According to Schefter, the official had done the same thing in other games he has worked.
Where the report gets especially confusing is when Schefter tries to tie it to an earlier OTL report that a Patriots locker room attendant, named Jim McNally, had tried to put unapproved special teams balls into play against the Colts. According to Schefter, another official (he calls him League Official 2) noticed that balls were missing and tried to replace them during the game. The soon-to-be fired official (League Official 1) noticed, and tried to put the original balls back in play. Both officials allegedly handed unapproved footballs to McNally to be put in play.
Here’s Schefter’s convoluted explanation:
Employee 2 noticed that one of these balls -- it gets very confusing -- notices that one of these balls is missing from League Official 1 during the game, he went to get a different one. So when League Official 2 came in, he tried to replace that football, League Official 1 noticed the ball was missing, noticed that people knew, he brought the ball back into the game. So there were then two different league officials handing balls to Jim McNally for use in the game. And so it sounds like a very unique, murky, cloudy situation.
According to Schefter, the whole situation was caught on camera, and will be documented in the report from the investigation being conducted into allegations that the Patriots intentionally deflated footballs that were used during the first half of the AFC Championship.
It is unclear whether the official tried to sell the balls after the DeflateGate scandal broke open (presumably, the scandal would have made the balls more valuable to potential buyers). Schefter did not indicate any link between the official’s actions and the Patriots’ alleged tampering with footballs.
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