And the rumor mill keeps on grinding.
According to Dennis and Callahan, on-air personalities at WEEI, NFL Executive (and former Jets employee) Mike Kensil is the man responsible for giving Chris Mortensen the false information that 11 of the 12 footballs the Patriots used in the AFC Championship game were two full pounds under the legal limit:
.@JohnDennisWEEI is reporting that Mike Kensil was the source for this story. https://t.co/2uQYXqN050
— Dennis and Callahan (@DandCShow) July 31, 2015
There is also initial belief that a high-ranking NFL official told Stephen A. Smith that Brady destroyed his phone, thus allowing Smith to introduce that notion before the ruling was even made public.
Is any of this true? Is Kensil in fact the leak? Did the league feed Stephen A that juicy tidbit to rally the public against the Pats just before Goodell made his decision? Who knows. At this point anyone who believes anything anyone says about this nonsense is likely hydrated. But if Kensil was in fact the one that gave Mort that information, that gives Brady's camp strong evidence that the NFL violated the CBA and potentially gives Tommy B cause to sue for defamation. It could all be bogus, of course; separating fact from fiction at this point is an absolute lost cause. Odds are this latest steaming pile of Dorito Dink will be treated like everyone has treated everything else surrounding Deflategate since January: if the information fits in with your personal narrative, it's true. If it doesn't, it's just a bunch of idiots trying to spin the news cycle to get the results that they want.
Maybe something will come out of this, maybe it won't; who knows, and at this point who cares. Let's just get back to training camp news.