Ted Wells, the investigator hired by the NFL to look into the scandal colloqiually known as Deflategate, released a 243-page summary of his findings on Wednesday.
Chief among his conclusions was that while Patriots head coach Bill Belichick and the New England organization were not aware of or reponsible for the deflation of footballs in the AFC title game, it was "more probable than not" that quarterback Tom Brady "was at least generally aware" of it. A series of text messages included in the report painted a picture that suggested Brady was involved, if not necessarily as a primary actor, then as a bit of a driving force behind the action, based on his preferences for the types of footballs he likes to throw.
Patriots owner Robert Kraft immediately issued a statement decrying the report, while later on Wednesday, Brady's father, Tom Brady Sr., ripped into it as well, referring to it as "Framegate." "To impugn somebody without conclusive evidence saying this is more probable than not?" Brady Sr. said. "The reality is they have scientific evidence. Now they're overriding the scientific evidence and badgering the Patriots. It's disgusting."
Brady's agent, Don Yee, issued a statement of his own on Thursday morning. It is included below, edited with paragraph breaks to make it more readable.
"The Wells report, with all due respect, is a significant and terrible disappointment. It’s omission of key facts and lines of inquiry suggest the investigators reached a conclusion first, and then determined so-called facts later.
One item alone taints this entire report. What does it say about the league office’s protocols and ethics when it allows one team to tip it off to an issue prior to a championship game, and no league officials or game officials notified the Patriots of the same issue prior to the game? This suggests it may be more probable than not that the league cooperated with the Colts in perpetrating a sting operation. The Wells report buries this issue in a footnote on page 46 without any further elaboration.
The league is a significant client of the investigators' law firm; it appears to be a rich source of billings and media exposure based on content in the law firm's website. This was not an independent investigation and the contents of the report bear that out – all one has to do is read closely and critically, as opposed to simply reading headlines.
The investigators' assumptions and inferences are easily debunked or subject to multiple interpretations. Much of the report’s vulnerabilities are buried in the footnotes, which is a common legal writing tactic.
It is a sad day for the league as it has abdicated the resolution of football-specific issues to people who don’t understand the context or culture of the sport. I was physically present for my client’s interview. I have verbatim notes of the interview. Tom made himself available for nearly an entire day and patiently answered every question. It was clear to me the investigators had limited understanding of professional football. For reasons unknown, the Wells report omitted nearly all of Tom’s testimony, most of which was critical because it would have provided this report with the context that it lacks.
Mr. Wells promised back in January to share the results of this investigation publicly, so why not follow through and make public all of the information gathered and let the public draw its own conclusions? This report contains significant and tragic flaws, and it is common knowledge in the legal industry that reports like this generally are written for the benefit of the purchaser.
Yee's statement, much like Brady's father's, suggests that there was a frame job going on here. The usage of "more probable than not," the same language from the report, to do it, is just expert stuff. With the league currently said to be considering discipline against Brady as well as Jim McNally (officials' locker room attendant) and John Jastremski (equipment assistant for the Patriots), I do not imagine we've heard the last from Kraft, Brady Sr., Yee or Brady himself on this issue.
