Quarterback Tom Brady said Tuesday he wanted team employees John Jastremski and Jim McNally back with the New England Patriots. The organization now appears to be moving in that direction.
Jastremski (an equipment assistant) and McNally (an officials locker room attendant) both were suspended indefinitely (presumably for their alleged involvement in Deflategate) after the Ted Wells Report was released in May.
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said Tuesday it was the Patriots’ decision to suspend the staffers, though ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported in May that the league asked the team to suspend the employees.
CSNNE.com’s Tom E. Curran wrote in an article published Sunday that there are stipulations attached to the staffers’ potential returns.
“Jastremski is prohibited from having any role in the preparation, supervision, or handling of footballs to be used in NFL games during the 2015 season,” Curran wrote. “McNally is barred from serving as a locker room attendant for the game officials, or having any involvement with the preparation, supervision, or handling of footballs or any other equipment on game day.”
The NFL, of course, will have to sign off on the returns of Jastremski and McNally. But the Patriots’ request is the first step toward getting the band back together in the wake of Brady’s four-game suspension related to Deflategate being vacated last week by U.S. District Court Judge Richard Berman.
“Of course,” Brady said Tuesday on WEEI’s “Dennis and Callahan” of whether he’d like to see Jastremski and McNally reinstated. “None of those things are my decisions, but I feel terrible — like I said the other day — for what they’ve been put through, what their families have been put through, what my family has been put through, and what’s happened. I just feel terrible that they’re not with our team.”
Perhaps the Patriots’ request will lift Brady’s spirits a bit.
Thumbnail photo via Kirby Lee/USA TODAY Sports Images
