Report: NFL official fired in deflate-gate case for selling football

You can't make this stuff up.

The deflate-gate madness — a story seemingly with no conclusion — has taken another bizarre turn. It was reported by ESPN's Adam Schefter that an NFL official might have sold one of the New England Patriots' footballs from the AFC championship game and lost his job because of it.

It appears that the footballs are not allowed to end up in officials' hands. They're meant to be donated to charitable organizations. It appears a second official saw this and reported it, according to Schefter.

ESPN's "Outside the Lines" reported on Tuesday that Patriots locker room attendant Jim McNally was being investigated for "trying to introduce an unapproved football" — a K-ball, for what it's worth — to an official.

But Schefter flipped his own organization's reporting on its head by offering this wild nugget: the ball (or balls?) in question was/were provided by two NFL employees, one of whom was fired.

Are you following us here with this insanity? Basically, what's being suggested is that an official swiped out a real ball for a fake one and that the fake was handed to the Patriots attendant, who clearly was none the wiser. And why would the attendant suspect that?

How in the world can the NFL save face and issue any kind of guilt to the Patriots following this news? The answer: It can't. We might as well say "case closed" if the reports are valid.

The officials for the AFC title game against the Indianapolis Colts, for what it's worth, were head referee Walt Anderson, umpire Carl Paganelli, head linesman Tony Veteri, line judge Jeff Bergman, side judge Greg Meyer, field judge Gary Cavaletto and back judge Keith Ferguson.

- - - - - - -

Eric Edholm is a writer for Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at edholm@yahoo-inc.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @Eric_Edholm