NFL Fires Staffer for Selling Deflategate Balls

The NFL fired a staff member over Deflategate on Wednesday. The dismissal stemmed from a league employee allegedly selling the balls used in the AFC Championship Game for personal profit.

Indication from @AdamSchefter is balls are supposed to go to charitable endeavor, but League Official #1 used for personal gain of some sort

— David Scott (@ESPNprDScott) February 18, 2015

“There are a few different league officials, according to people I spoke with today, at the game, who handled the footballs,” Adam Schefter reports. “League employees: League Employee 1, League Employee 2 and League Employee 3, we’ll call them, for lack of a better phrases, whose jobs are to handle the balls on game day. And League Official 1, he’s also supposed to take the balls out of play and then send them off to a charitable endeavor to raise money for a charitable endeavor that the league is embarking upon. Only on this day, and since that day, the league has since fired that employee for allegedly selling off some of those footballs on the side. So that employee — League Official 1 — has been fired since the AFC Championship Game.” Regardless of the employee’s alleged unethical behavior, why would the league give away balls central to one of the loudest controversies in NFL history with an investigation ongoing?

If NFL employee sold Deflategate evidence, chain of custody & possible tampering become concerns. NFL is lucky no judge is overseeing this.

— Michael McCann (@McCannSportsLaw) February 18, 2015

If a rogue NFL official sold alleged Deflategate ball, Patriots can argue that’s spoliation of evidence and investigation should be dropped.

— Michael McCann (@McCannSportsLaw) February 18, 2015

The worth of the balls inflated after the Patriots allegedly played with partially deflated balls during the AFC Championship Game against the Indianapolis Colts. The Patriots, who won the game 45-7, deny any wrongdoing. The NFL investigation, surely tarnished by the mishandling of the evidence, continues.