Ted Wells battles back about deflate report, but not everything adds up

Attorney Ted Wells didn’t speak to the media after any of the three previous major sports reports he provided, including a lengthy report on the Miami Dolphins’ bullying scandal.

But nobody really questioned his reports before.

Severe criticism by Tom Brady’s agent Don Yee and Patriots owner Robert Kraft over Wells’ report on deflate-gate caused Wells to speak out, as he held a surprise teleconference on Tuesday afternoon. The call was moderated by longtime NFL spokesman Greg Aiello. The Patriots are fighting back, and this was Wells’ (or was it the NFL’s?) first counter-punch.

Wells, who also did reports on Syracuse assistant basketball coach Bernie Fine and National Basketball Players Association executive director Billy Hunter, was upset with any notion his report was biased. He has worked with the NFL before, including the Dolphins’ investigation and representing the NFL in its concussion case, and was paid by the NFL for the deflate-gate investigation. He says none of that affected the evidence or his conclusions.

“I think it’s wrong to question my independence just because you disagree with my findings,” Wells said. 

Wells dodged a question of how much he was paid for the investigation, but said, “no question it was in the millions of dollars.” When the questioner pressed him for a more exact figure, there was a pause and a voice that sounded like Aiello said, “Not necessary, next question.”

One wonders if the next time a team or player is found to commit a rules violation to the level of football deflation if there will be a 243-page report that costs the NFL millions of dollars. If not, that would seem to give fuel to those who think the Patriots were unfairly targeted.

That notion the Patriots were targeted bothered Wells, however. At the end of the call, when asked if he had anything to add, he talked about how he thought it was wrong to think he’d want to take down the Patriots or a player of Brady’s stature.

“It just doesn’t make any sense,” Wells said. “It’s a ridiculous allegation. What drove the conclusion of the report was one thing: the evidence.”

That’s likely true. It’s not logical to think Wells wanted to bring down the Patriots. It’s just that his report has holes that make the punishment, especially the Brady suspension, look foolish.

Wells doesn’t think so. He referenced a text message exchange that included assistant equipment manager John Jastremski telling officials locker room attendant Jim McNally (the self-described “deflator”), “Talked to him last night. He actually brought you up and said you must have a lot of stress trying to get them done…” Wells viewed that as proof Brady was involved, believing that “he” was Brady. It’s reasonable to disagree that message proves Brady’s guilt. It doesn’t come close to answering what level of involvement Brady had in any wrongdoing.

The most unusual part of the excessive punishment based off the excessive report is this: The Colts brought up to the NFL the day before the AFC championship game an allegation that the Patriots deflated footballs and that was “well known around the league” according to the Colts equipment manager. After that claim, nobody at the NFL did anything substantial. Why not? Because the league didn’t care enough, based on a lack of evidence, to take the claim seriously.

Wells was asked why he included a footnote dispelling the notion that this was a sting operation by the NFL, which was brought up because the NFL didn’t react after the Colts’ warning. The halftime inspection was triggered when the Colts complained again during the game.

“Nobody paid that much attention to it,” Wells said about the Colts’ claims the day before the AFC championship game. “It wasn’t a sting operation. I addressed it because the Patriots urged me to look at it.”

Wait, nobody paid that much attention to it? The NFL, with its punishment, found that deflating footballs was the biggest crime in NFL history. Seriously. It was arguably the harshest punishment the league has ever given out, in terms of a team punishment (the $1 million fine is the largest single team fine ever), draft picks stripped (a first-round pick in 2016 and a fourth-round pick in 2017) and Brady’s four-game suspension. So what is it NFL? Is deflating balls the biggest crime in NFL history? Or was the thought that the Patriots were pulling off the biggest crime in NFL history so insignificant that “nobody paid that much attention to it”? Should be one or the other.

Wells later said nobody “took the complain that seriously” because there was no evidence. If one team made a claim that another team was fixing games, for example, would the NFL completely ignore it? Of course not. The crime the Colts presented the NFL wasn’t that big of a deal at that moment, until the NFL made it a big deal in the aftermath and it fit its agenda to dole out a massive punishment.

Wells made other points during the call. He said the Patriots completely cooperated except for when he asked for a follow-up interview with McNally after key texts were found. The Patriots said Wells was asking for a fifth interview. Wells explained that NFL security interviewed him three times for a total of about 90 minutes, but he discounted that because he was told to start fresh. The Patriots didn’t give him McNally for a second interview with him and a fifth interview overall. He also said Brady answered every question but refused to turn over text messages and emails, even when Wells said he wouldn’t take control of the phone and just wanted messages relevant to the case. 

“I don’t think it undermines in any way the conclusions of the report,” Wells said. “I do believe that if I had access to Brady’s electronic messages and if I received all the messages, it might have yielded additional insights into what happened. I think that would have been good for everybody, regardless of what it showed.”

Wells said he thinks some of the text messages, specifically the one in which McNally calls himself “the deflator” is not circumstantial evidence, but direct evidence. That might be true. The claims the report itself is biased don’t have much foundation. But there are holes. And certainly enough holes that the punishment didn’t fit, if the NFL was worried about being fair.

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Frank Schwab is the editor of Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @YahooSchwab