A day before the NFL dusted off #DeflateGate with a 59-page legal filing, the league looked for even more evidence of potential cheating by the Patriots.
Boomer Esiason of WFAN reported on his weekday radio show that the Jets asked that their locker room at Gillette Stadium be swept for bugs in advance of Sunday’s game against the Patriots.
Contacted by PFT, the Jets declined comment regarding the situation. A source with knowledge of the situation tells PFT that the Jets did not request that the locker room be swept for bugs; however, the source did not deny that the locker room was swept for bugs.
The Patriots likewise had no comment on the situation, and the NFL could not immediately be reached for comment.
Concerns regarding the presence of bugs in Gillette Stadium locker rooms aren’t new; it was one of the main points made last month in an article from Sports Illustrated regarding suspicions about the Patriots. No listening devices ever have been found in any locker rooms in the Patriots stadium.
As one source has explained it to PFT, the Patriots have become concerned that a team eventually will plant bugs on its own and claim that the Patriots put them there. This has prompted the Patriots to ask the league to certify before each game that the visiting locker room is clean before an opposing team enters. Per the source, the NFL has declined to do this.