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Surely they wouldn’t do it again, right?
Every NFL fan is familiar with the New England Patriots‘ deflategate scandal. The one where the Patriots (intentionally or not) removed air from footballs in order to catch.
The controversy resulted in Tom Brady being suspended for four games, while the team was fined $1 million and forfeited two draft selections in 2016.
Now it appears they may have done it all over again.
(Or it could be one big coincidence, but the first options is much funnier.)
Patriots Involved In Another Deflategate Type Mishap Against Chiefs
MassLive’s Mark Daniels reports that the footballs meant for both team’s kicking units for the Patriots game against the Kansas City Chiefs were underinflated by over two pounds.
“After team complaints, officials took the ‘K-Balls’ into the locker room at halftime where they were discovered to weigh 11 pounds per square inch instead of the legal limit of 13.5,” Daniels reports.
In the interest of fairness, it appears the mishap affected both teams. Both Patriots kicker Chad Ryland and Chiefs kick Harrison Butker missed field goals in the first half.
It was Butker’s first miss of the entire season.
Sources told Daniels that the balls traveled farther in the second half when they were properly inflated.
“The Patriots sideline noticed something was amiss when Harrison Butker’s opening kickoff landed at the 3-yard line, allowing for a Jalen Reagor return on a mild December day in Foxborough,” Daniels writes. “This season, Butker has hit 87.1% of his kickoffs for touchbacks. As the half went on, the team noticed that the trajectory and hang time of kickoffs and punts were lower than usual. Another source noted that the kicking balls were unusually soft to the touch.”
So, no, the Patriots probably didn’t have an evil plot to sabotage Butker. But if they did, the plan worked!
And it’s quite the coincidence that it happened yet again to the same team.