Brad Johnson Bribed a Man to Scuff Up Footballs Before Super Bowl
By Dan Zinski
It isn’t just the evil-looking people like Bill Belichick who cheat. Even baby-faced innocent-looking guys like Brad Johnson are sometimes tempted over to the dark side by their desire to get an advantage.
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Amid all the hand-wringing over the Deflategate scandal, former Vikings and Buccaneers QB Johnson admitted to hatching his own scandalous ball-altering scheme ahead of Super Bowl 37 (via ProFootballTalk):
"Johnson, whose Buccaneers beat the Raiders at Super Bowl XXXVII, said he paid $7,500 to some people he did not identify so that they would scuff the balls set to be used in the Super Bowl, making them easier to grip. According to Johnson, there were 100 footballs set aside for the game, and the people he bribed tampered with all 100, to Johnson’s specifications.“I paid some guys off to get the balls right,” Johnson told the Tampa Bay Times. “I went and got all 100 footballs, and they took care of all of them.”"
Johnson and the Buccaneers went on to defeat Rich Gannon and the Raiders in the Super Bowl. Did the ball scuffing help Johnson gain an advantage?
Maybe. Who knows.
And who really knows if deflating the football ultimately proved to be the deciding factor in the Patriots pounding the Colts into submission in the AFC title game. Seems like New England would have had no trouble in that game even with regular balls.
As a Viking fan, I would just like to see our team get in position to cheat before a big game. Just once. Give us a chance to mess with the balls before a Super Bowl or conference title game.
Oh and if the NFL wants to investigate stuff, how about they go back to the 2000 title game and look into the signal stealing many believe the Giants engaged in. Come on NFL. Let’s get to the bottom of that once and for all.