Report: Troy Vincent wants to meet with Patriots’ Jastremski, McNally
The rest of the NFL populace has tired of talking about Deflategate and wants it to go away, but not Troy Vincent.
This week, the New England Patriots formally requested that the league reinstate the team’s longtime assistant equipment manager, John Jastremski, and game-day attendant Jim McNally, the pair featured prominently in Deflategate.
The Patriots placed Jastremski and McNally on indefinite suspension as a result of the Wells Report findings, though as with so many other things in this saga, there is a he said-he said situation when it comes to who wanted the pair to be suspended.
Commissioner Roger Goodell, on ESPN Radio this week, responded “absolutely not” when asked if the league demanded that Jastremski and McNally be punished, but multiple reports have said that the Patriots suspended the men at the league’s request.
Supporting the notion that it was done at the behest of the NFL: it is the league, not the Patriots, who must give approval before Jastremski and McNally can return to the team.
To that end, Vincent, the league’s vice president of football operations, wants to meet with Jastremski and McNally before allowing them to go back to work.
NFL Network reported Sunday morning that Vincent has formally requested to meet with the men, and that a face-to-face meeting is necessary before either can be reinstated – and they may still face further punishment from the league.
But the question is, why? If, as the NFL Network story said, it is not to re-open or re-examine the case, why does Vincent need to meet with Jastremski and McNally? League investigators, including Ted Wells’ team, met with each man several times, and they handed over their cell phones during the investigation. So what more is there to say? Does Vincent want to know how they spent their summer vacations?
McNally is only a game-day employee, and has a full-time job separate from the Patriots. But Jastremski has been with the Patriots since 1994, first as a part-time ball boy, and has been a full-time equipment assistant since 2001.
