Matt Chatham: Roger Goodell’s Super Bowl Press Conference Highlights NFL’s Mistakes

The Wells Report found enough circumstantial evidence to peg New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady as the guilty party in the Deflategate scandal, but it left plenty of questions about the NFL’s investigative process.

Questions, former NFL linebacker Matt Chatham says, that we should have had after commissioner Roger Goodell’s pre-Super Bowl press conference.

In his latest Football By Football column, Chatham picks out parts of Goodell’s Jan. 29 presser that show how the NFL’s investigation of the Patriots should have been questioned by the media from the get-go. For example, Goodell gave this answer (in part) when asked about “failures in the league’s investigative process dating back to the (New Orleans) Saints’ bounties.”

“We are also, as we have demonstrated with Ted Wells, not afraid to go outside and to get outside perspective that can be valuable to us, a professional perspective that will give us the kind of outcome that we want, which is fair with the truth being clear,” Goodell said.

Whether Goodell meant it that way or not, saying the NFL will get “the kind of outcome (it wants)” from their investigator only adds fuel to the fire that Wells’ report wasn’t objective.