#wellsreport

I’ve had some long cross-country flights this week, and thus some time to think. Thinking is often a good exercise, and in this digital world, I think that we don’t do enough of it. Rather than dwell on the screaming babies crowded into the plane with me, I chose instead to think about my beloved Patriots, and the status of their current scandal.

In the interest of full disclosure, I’m a Patriots fan. I’m a Tom Brady fan. I am an unrepentant Bill Belichick fan. I’m a realist too. I’ve worked in the media for a long time, and I’ve seen more falls from grace than I can recall. So I get it - the good guys sometimes go bad.

But this nonsense about the inflation of footballs is just bizarre. SpyGate was one thing; the whole league did it. I’m pretty confident of that. But when the NFL cracked down on it, the Patriots were foolish enough to double-down on the practice of recording the opposing sidelines despite orders to stop. They got caught, and they got punished.

But this ball talk. Enough already. 

The Wells Report on the inflation of the footballs used in the AFC Championship Game is flawed. It is a conclusive document that lacks the facts to underpin its conclusion, and instead relies on length. It’s length is a misdirection all it’s own. It’s length allows facts that are unrelated to be spun in to a body of evidence by the loss of their separation in time.

The very first trickle of evidence that Wells shows you in his report is from October 17, 2014. Following a Thursday night game against the Jets. Brady, it indicates, is angry about the inflation of the game balls. 

“JASTREMSKI: I checked some of the balls this morn... The refs fucked us...a few of them were at almost 16

JASTREMSKI: They didnt recheck then after they put air in them”

If you take this on its face you realize that what Brady was complaining about was playing with game balls that were inflated more than TWO FULL POUNDS above the upper limit in Rule 2. 

Someone calling themselves, or being called, “the deflator” would in this case be letting air out of the ball, presumably for Brady’s comfort, but also to bring it back in to compliance with the rules. That isn’t cheating!

This text exchange is months before the AFC title game, but it is presented in the Wells Report as though it is one constant stream of consciousness leading to a conspiracy to under-inflate game balls. Viewed through the prism of understanding that Brady likely played at least one game last season with game balls inflated several pounds ABOVE the limit set in Rule 2, it makes sense that the Patriots equipment staff would take steps to prevent this from happening again.

In fact if Tom had pressed his equipment people, back in October, to take steps to insure proper inflation - after having that job screwed up by league officials - he would have been enforcing the integrity of the game!

No one seems to recognize that at least one game was played with balloons for footballs, or that the officials seem to have a hard time with the task of measuring or filling game balls.

Ted Wells’ decision not to look in to the October game, and claims that those balls were grossly over-inflated leaves the impression that the Patriots were on a crusade to skirt the rules for the comfort of number 12. Never once does Wells, or the report explore the potential history of over-inflation by inattentive officials. 

The debacle of conflicting pressures being recorded on the day of the AFC Championship game is a great example of the NFL’s inability to manage a small issue that they know posit is so central to the integrity of the game. The report fails to look at the large issue of game ball inflation in any way.

Brady and the Patriots became increasingly uncooperative in the course of a one-sided, League funded, centrally focused, witch-hunt. The glaring lack of pursuit of any fact that didn’t support Wells’ conclusion is an indictment of the objectivity of the report itself.

I’m not saying that the Patriots did nothing wrong; I’d be an idiot. But then again, I’d also be an idiot to believe that this ‘report’ makes an adequate case to tarnish the reputation of one of the finest athletes in the country, or to hinder the future growth of one of the best franchises in the NFL.