Once cheaters, always cheaters?
As the New Englands Patriots continued celebrating their one-way ticket to Glendale, AZ for the Super Bowl matchup against the Seattle Seahawks after beat the Indianapolis Colts this past Sunday, they’re already making headlines for all the wrong reasons. What was supposed to be a good week for them going into the Pro Bowl, might come back to bite them in the ass, as they are now being accused of cheating again thanks to under-inflated footballs.
ESPN’s Chris Mortensen is now reporting that the NFL has found 11 of 12 footballs used in the AFC Championship in Foxborough, Mass were 2 lbs under-inflated (about 15%). The NFL is still investigating and will reach a conclusion in about 2-3 days. NFL rules say that footballs should be inflated between 12.5 and 13.5 pounds per square inch.
It has not yet been determined how or when the 11 balls were deflated and who was responsible for the act, and if the referees even properly checked the game balls to begin with, but the head referee has to approve of the footballs, who are given to him 2 hours prior to the game.
The footballs came into question after Colts linebacker D’Qwell Jackson intercepted a pass right before halftime. He noticed something off about the ball, alerted Chuck Pagano and the message was relayed to NFL director of football operations Mike Kensil.
Of course, this isn’t the first time the Pats have been caught cheating, with instances dating back to “Spygate,” where they illegally taped sideline defensive signals from the New York Jets in 2007.
If found of violating NFL regulations, the Patriots can see fines and forfeiting of draft picks, depending on the severity of what the league finds and their involvement.
NFL’s senior vice president of communications says they will not comment as of this time.
@nfl So we get to play the game again or nah?
— Darius Butler (@DariusJButler) January 21, 2015
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