With 1:07 left in Monday night’s game between the Raiders and Eagles and the contest tied at 10, Oakland got the ball back. ESPN then paid tribute to Raiders long snapper Jon Condo for his work with veterans, cycling through several photos of Condo with veterans. Then, after the last one, the cameras showed a live shot of Condo.
Condo was standing with punter Marquette King. And Condo was heating up a football, while arguably looking around to see if anyone noticed.
Plenty of viewers did, and plenty of them remembered an incident from three years ago, when the Panthers (not the Vikings) were warming footballs during a cold game outdoors in Minnesota. The league didn’t punish anyone for that infraction, instead telling all teams to knock it off. Given what the league did to the Patriots in the #DeflateGate controversy, the disparity in reaction provoked some strong opinions from New England fans, and for good reason.
But here’s the thing in this case: Unless the league allows long snappers, holders, and kickers to prepare on the sideline for a field goal attempt by using the actual K balls, the football being warmed up by Condo wasn’t the ball that the custodian of the K balls would be putting in the game for an eventually field-goal try. It’s a far different situation if someone is warming up the footballs that a team’s offense is using during the normal course of play.
So, for now, it’s premature to presume cheating. But it’s further evidence that those who are rightfully still salty about the bungling of the overblown football-deflation controversy are paying close attention to any and every possible hint of cheating by any and every other team.
