"K" Ball "K"ontroversy

Mike Florio at www.profootballtalk.com reports this morning that there is talk in "league circles" that the Seahawks' ball boys selected the slickest of the "K" balls the NFL uses during games for the game's most crucial moment.

From his site:

The rumor/innuendo/scuttlebutt is that the slipperiest of the "K" balls was first put into play when the Cowboys lined up for a potential game-winning field goal late in the fourth quarter. Holder Tony Romo caught the snap but lost control of it as he was trying to get it in place for the kick.

My take? It's pure nonsense.

Chris Mortensen explained on ESPN yesterday (and Florio repeats it in his column) on how the "K" balls are delivered, hermetically-sealed in a special box, to the officials locker room 2 hour before kickoff. While teams are allowed to use their own footballs during the game, the league does not allow them to use their own balls for kicking. Mort mentioned that nothing would stop a team from filling a ball with helium and using it to kick a 70-yard field goal.

But here are three reasons why I think this rumor is nonsense:

1. A minimum of two officials touched that ball and noticed nothing out of the ordinary with it. In fact, the side judge tosses the ball from the sidelines to umpire at the hash marks to spot the ball. The umpire caught the ball.

2. Neither LP Ladoucer nor Tony Romo has indicated that the ball was slicker than any of the other footballs they've handled this year. No players touched that particular ball more than they did.

3. And most importantly to remember: Tony Romo was 6 days removed from a game where he fumbled the ball 4 times, and had fumbled earlier in Saturday night's game.

To me, the more likely scenario is that Romo, who is essentially a rookie QB, had a lapse in concentration at the most critical moment of the game. He isn't the first quarterback to ever do that, and he won't be the last.