National Football League

Patriots: Colts ball boys once had needles hidden up sleeves

Published May. 14, 2015 3:15 p.m. ET

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The New England Patriots on Thursday published a lengthy rebuttal to the Ted Wells report, and it included an interesting allegation about the Indianapolis Colts tampering with game balls.

At one point during the Deflategate investigation, the Patriots informed Wells of instances where other teams may have tampered with game balls. One such example was the Minnesota Vikings and Carolina Panthers heating balls on the sidelines during a game last year, which resulted in no disciplinary action and only a warning. Another accusation involved the Indianapolis Colts allegedly participating in some shady behavior of their own.

“Evidence was also provided that Indianapolis ball boys, in a prior season, had been seen by Jacksonville personnel with ball needles hidden under their long sleeves,” one of the Patriots’ attorneys wrote in a letter to Wells last month.

That obviously was not included in the Wells report, and I’m not sure it’s relevant. If, in fact, the Jaguars did see something like that and the NFL ignored it, the Patriots were likely using that as an example of how the investigation into Deflategate is excessive given the way past instances of alleged ball tampering have been handled.

The letter didn’t specify when the Jaguars accused the Colts’ ball boys of hiding needles, but Andrew Luck has said he likes footballs inflated to the top of the allowable limit. Are we going back to the Peyton Manning days? Or, perhaps the officials did the same thing to the Colts that day that they supposedly did to the Patriots before a game against the New York Jets last year. We’ll probably never know.

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