Ted Wells must have felt besmirched by the New England Patriots on Thursday morning. The investigator spent 103 well-paid days on the Wells Report, and the Patriots didn’t seem to agree with a word of it in their own “context” report.
Wells’ credibility will be tested over the next few weeks when quarterback Tom Brady’s suspension appeal is read by — who else? — Roger Goodell. And it could even be put on the stand if Brady and the NFL Players Association aren’t content with the commissioner’s ruling.
It makes sense Wells lashed out against Brady’s agent — who repeatedly questioned his fellow attorney’s impartiality — earlier this week in a conference call. Wells was paid “millions of dollars” by the NFL, in his own words, for churning out the inconclusive report on the Patriots, and the more criticism it receives, the less likely he’ll be hired again by the league, one would think.
Both the Patriots and Wells made compelling arguments, but it’s safe to say neither side told the whole story of what transpired Jan. 18 in the AFC Championship Game, when Brady and two low-level staffers were accused of deflating footballs.
The Patriots have data on their side, which one would think would be the basis of any argument pertaining to deflated footballs. The NFL obviously didn’t take altered footballs very seriously, nor did they prove to know how to collect PSI data, in January, which seriously weakens Wells’ report.
Wells would have been better off downplaying the significance of pregame and halftime measurements of the Patriots’ and Indianapolis Colts’ footballs, but he still determined New England must have tampered before the game despite faulty data.
No pregame measurements? Wildly varying gauges? No recollection of which gauge was used when? Allowing the Colts’ footballs to warm up before being tested? No problem for Wells, who didn’t appear very unbiased when he decided Walt Anderson didn’t use the gauge the referee recalls, and instead used the one that works against the Patriots.
Wells can use the Patriots’ phones against them, however. Patriots staffer Jim McNally mentioned deflating, and the team’s explanation — that it was about his weight loss — was head-scratching. Brady’s agent and the Patriots have made excuses for why the quarterback chose not to turn over his phone records, which really only leads to imagining what could be gleaned through those texts and emails.
Perhaps the whole story resides in that phone. But until — or unless — its records are revealed, we’re left picking and choosing which sounds more plausible from the report of a man paid millions of dollars to find something or the “context” from a team that doesn’t want to lose its quarterback for a quarter of the season.
No one will come out looking reputable after Deflategate, and that’s unlikely to change when Goodell presides over Brady’s appeal. But we’re talking about it, right? That’s all that matters in the NFL, where interest trumps legacy.
Thumbnail photo via Mark J. Rebilas/USA TODAY Sports Images
