Tom Brady hasn’t given his take on the Wells Report, despite talking to Jim Gray for an hour at Salem State University on Friday, but his agent, Don Yee, is going on a press tour to defend his client.
Yee spoke to NPR’s Robert Siegel on Thursday, and Brady’s agent said he doesn’t believe the New England Patriots quarterback was treated fairly by the NFL or Ted Wells in the report.
Here’s a partial transcript of their conversation, via NPR.com:
SIEGEL: … But let me ask you a question. Having read the report, do you conclude that regardless of who was responsible for it, that the New England Patriots footballs were inflated below the minimum standard by the time of half-time in the game, whereas they had been checked before the game and at that time were at the minimum standard? Do you accept that much as factual based on what the report shows?
YEE: No, I don’t.
SIEGEL: You don’t accept that?
YEE: I don’t accept that. I don’t even accept that because it’s very clear, the report actually lays out the absence of any league protocols on how to handle footballs. There are no protocols. For example, every referee can buy any gauge to use in measuring the footballs. Number two — no measurements are even written down or recorded. In fact, the Wells investigators simply had to rely on referee Walt Anderson’s memory.
SIEGEL: But to take issue with that finding — for you to argue that there is no validity to that finding, you would have to believe that the Patriots were being framed by this report — that the numbers were all being juggled in order to make it look that is something that wasn’t true was true. Is that what you think this was — a malicious assault on Tom Brady and the Patriots?
YEE: I do think there was some malice intended toward Tom and the organization. I don’t know if the malice was intentional. They’ve been winning for a long time, as we know, and I’ve always told my friends who’ve inquired about the NFL — I tell them, there is no jealousy or envy like NFL jealousy or envy.
SIEGEL: But the implication of what you’re saying is that the NFL was open to or even wanted to have a tainted AFC championship game, and it just doesn’t seem likely that that would be in the interest of the National Football League to have that.
YEE: I’m not necessarily saying that, Robert. I’m saying that it’s my opinion that there may be people within the NFL who have certain agendas as to how they want to see certain teams perform or how games be staged.
Yee previously said the report contains “significant and tragic flaws” in a statement released Thursday morning.
Thumbnail photo via Joe Camporeale/USA TODAY Sports Images
