Report: NFL long snapper used paper clip to deflate footballs in 2014
Deflating footballs seems to be a popular pastime in the NFL.
By
John Breech
•
1 min read
If independent investigator Ted Wells is looking to charge the NFL for a few more billable hours, then he should offer to look into a comment made by ESPN's Adam Schefter this week.
According to Schefter, Tom Brady wasn't the only player using deflated footballs in 2014.
"There was one punter that I know, or long snapper last year, that carried a paper clip with him into games, and deflated footballs before he snapped them during the games," Schefter said while doing a live shot for ESPN's NFL Insiders this week (you can see the full video here, via ProFootballZone).
Call me crazy, but that actually sounds worse than anything 'The Deflator' did for Brady. In this case, a guy who's actually playing in the game brought a sharp object onto the field so he could cheat.
Mr. Paper Clip wasn't the only person deflating footballs last season either, according to Schefter, at least one other player was also admittedly deflating footballs.
"There's a backup quarterback that would deflate footballs for his starting quarterback," Schefter said.
At this point, Roger Goodell should probably just have Wells on speed dial and we should all probably start accepting the fact that Deflategate's never going to end.
It looked like it was going to end soon after Goodell heard Brady's appeal on Tuesday. The NFL Commissioner is expected to rule on the appeal sometime in the next few weeks.
If Brady ends up being suspended four games because someone else deflated his footballs for him, you'd have to think the NFL would come down harder on a guy who's using paper clips to deflate footballs.
Of course, the NFL would only be able to come down harder on that guy if the league could identify the player involved, which probably isn't going to happen. Although Schefter knows the identity of both players he mentioned during the broadcast, he obviously didn't reveal their identities because that would put both of them in hot water.
