The plot thickens…
[Patriots locker room attendant a ‘person of interest’ in DeflateGate saga](http://www.newsday.com/sports/football/super-bowl/patriots-locker-room-attendant-a-person-of-interest-in-deflate-gate-saga-1.9848610)
Did not realize Dalton’s numbers were so bad. I only saw a few Bengals games and in one he had no AJ Green. I stand by my comments regarding Eli, who I think is a top QB generally and one of the best big game QBs. He had some genuinely awful games this year.
Then again, when I pull up Eli’s career numbers I see 2013 made 2014 look like the best year ever.
As for Browner and Seattle’s documented PED issues, that’s the same argument I made about the Patriots and fumbling: look at the players. Thing would be easier to accept as not cheating if it weren’t so many for the same team in such a short period of time. That said, I’m not really serious about this but use to poke at the inanity of this kind of thing. I saw today another silly analysis of the idiotic fumbling topic. As in, Danny Woodhead’s plays to fumbles has gone down … he’s fumbled once and played fewer games in SD so that’s less than useless. I did undercount Green-Ellis’ fumbles but maybe that’s why he’s not in the league anymore; his value was not aggressive running but ball security. I was very happy for him to get biggish money from Cincy to be the kind of player he really wasn’t, but …
I think it’s funny they say there’s a focus on some guy who carted the balls. Silliness. It takes how long to ask him some questions and he says, “I just carted the balls from there to there.” There is no plot to thicken, just a bunch of crap being thrown at the wall.
@Lergnom - Browner tested positive for marijuana last season. Yes, it is a banned substance but can hardly be considered to be performance enhancing. He broke the substance abuse policy not the PED policy.
And if Browner is still somehow a Seattle “poster child” does that mean that Welker with his Adderall suspension still represents the New England program?
:’( The officially licensed framed commemorative crotch grab collage has been discontinued
Well, Lergnom, a commentator on ESPN radio said, “You watch. A ball boy is going to get thrown under the bus on this.” He was onto something, maybe.
If it’s true, do you really think some locker room attendant took it upon himself to take a pound or two out of Tom Brady’s footballs? Without any direction? Just up and said, “I think I’ll just deflate these footballs a little for the championship game”? Come on.
He reportedly (so far unconfirmed but said to be confirmed by video) carted the balls from the inspection to another room in the locker room before taking them out to the field. Maybe that report is false and if it’s true maybe he just didn’t want to leave them unattended when he went to the men’s room. It doesn’t mean that anything will come of it, but it is an interesting development.
I don’t think the NFL wants to go through the “we never watched the video” thing again, though.
I’ll bet you the deflated balls were all Pete Carroll’s fault. He probably bribed the locker room guy to set up the Patriots, to smear their perfectly ethical image. They are way too honest to have anything to do with something like this. I’m sure the quarterback could never, ever tell a difference in pressure.
Hahahahahaha!!! Dave Wyman (former Seattle LB and current radio guy) just said that even with his bad decisions that cost the team Browner was a total team player because, hey, he brought us Byron Maxwell.
I’m betting most of you were not all that surprised that “ballboy” crept into this story. Not sure why it took this long.
So did the NFL decide to remove Marshawns photo because Reddit was posting that they were hypocrites?
Okay now I’m laughing so hard that people in this restaurant must think I’m a nut, laughing with my imaginary friends! 
Haha, my DH across the room is probably thinking the same thing.
Well maybe we all are each other’s imaginary friends. At least the Seahawks fans.
Oh just kidding, I’m actually not much into football at all. But it is fun when your team is going to the Super Bowl! Again.
Well, I’m very excited for media day! I’m getting ready now.
Justin case Marshawn doesn’t talk enough for people tomorrow I give you the Spanish language TV interview:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RShwm85VMQU
The Japanese interview:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyTuIFGNNd0
And the Skittle press conference 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5PgOk1Hjcc
Ooops! It wouldn’t be complete without Michael Robinson’s (his fullback last year - now retired and working at NFL Network) Real Rob Report The Best of Messin’ With Marshawn. It’s like Messing with Sasquatch only better.
Ha! ‘Just in case . . .’
WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO THAT POOR CAT!?
Actually, I’m jealous. That looks nice to me, but torment for a cat.
I can’t find this online but the Sunday Boston Globe had an interview with Jim Daopoulos, the guy who was the NFL’s supervisor of officials from 2001-2012. I learned some stuff.
- They don't unpack new balls and beat them up like I've heard described several times by players who had that job (backup QB's, etc.). They now use the game balls in practice because, he says, the officials didn't do a good job of brushing off the red film that comes on new balls. He said the NFL decided that as long as the ball wasn't too scuffed from practice it was fine.
- The teams submit balls to the officials. The officials stick a gauge in to see if it's at least 12.5 psi and "they put them in a bag, and they stay in that room with them, that locker room, until they leave to go to the field about 10 minutes before kickoff. So there's a 10-minute window where they hand those footballs off to the ballboy, and the ballboys then walk out with the officials and bring them on the field." This is, of course, the latest non-revelation, that they're "focusing" on the guy who carted the balls out. Wow. Of course you'd ask them. That this is new shows the breathless stupidity of the story.
- The equipment manager brings the balls to the officials. Nobody has access. There's usually a security guard. Teams don't warm up with game balls, which don't come out until 10 minutes before kickoff.
- The youngest alternate official does the measuring. He says it's a rite of passage. No one checks to make sure he does this. The officials then have no contact with the extra balls. No one tests them after the game. That's important: there's no way of knowing unless you test balls from a bunch of games and they haven't done that. This is one reason I think the story of a "sting" is a complete fabrication.
- Kickers used to screw with balls. Now the kicking balls are sent directly by the manufacturer to the officials at their hotel. I didn't know that. Teams never have access to kicking balls. They're opened in the officials' locker room and scrubbed down and checked for pressure then handed to the "kicking-ball coordinator", a guy hired by the NFL to handle the kicking balls. I expect now the NFL will hire ball boys. This is why the stories about John Harbaugh are a fabrication: he couldn't complain about the Patriots kicking balls going further because the Patriots had no access to those balls and Harbaugh knows that - and was a special teams coach - and isn't stupidly going to say something like that.
So assuming the latest news that the footballs were mostly down more like 1 psi, this entire thing appears to come down to a basic misunderstanding of the laws of physics.
Oh and there’s now a claim that the ballboy took them to another location … which it is now revealed (perhaps) to be the bathroom. There are even details: the bathroom has 1 toilet and a sink, kind of like a lot of bathrooms. And the total amount of time the guy was supposedly in the bathroom is maybe 90 seconds. I dare anyone to take 24 footballs out of 2 bags and then deflate them accurately, meaning the amount the team supposedly wants and not too much or to little, and then put them all back in the bags in 90 seconds. I assume his statement will be, “I had to pee and didn’t want to leave the balls unattended.” Huge freaking story! This is up there with handing over the A-Bomb to the Commies! Guy went to the bathroom carrying two bags of footballs.