NEW YORK. The National Football League’s investigation into whether the New England Patriots improperly deflated footballs in their 45-7 AFC Championship Game victory over the Indianapolis Colts today hit a snag, literally and figuratively, when it was determined that D’Qwell Jackson, the Colts player who made the allegation, used his apostrophe to puncture the ball he turned in.
Goodell: “Use of apostrophes or other punctuation marks in this league is totally unacceptable. Steroids, on the other hand . . .”
“On further review it appears the Indianapolis player caused the reduction in air pressure by a self-administered puncture using an improper punctuation mark,” according to NFL Assistant Director of Officiating Melvin Stanzler. “He will be suspended for one (1) exhibition game during the 2015-16 season and required to complete a mandatory league punctuation abuse program.”
“The ball will be spotted at the point of the last independent clause.”
Jackson said through his agent that he would appeal the punishment, citing the widespread use of apostrophes in NFL players’ names since its merger with the AFL in 1970. “If you took out all the apostrophe players since then, you’d have a Pro Bowl squad,” according to NFLInsider.com writer Peter Blagzejwski. “Take D’Brickashaw Ferguson. There was a guy who used his apostrophe the way Fred ‘The Hammer’ Williamson used the plaster cast on his forearm.”
Fred “The Hammer” Williamson
The NFL has come under increasing pressure to ban the use of punctuation marks after a study determined that the impact of even an apparently innocuous mark can represent the equivalent of a ball peen hammer to the head. “I always hit people clean,” said Herana-Daze Lavalle Jones, a retired linebacker who played with the Patriots. “But if you run a crossing pattern through my house, I’m going to use my dash–often referred to as the most versatile of punctuation marks–to separate you from your colon.”
Too funny. Good eye, I knew they were cheating somehow.