In my opinion, mistake by Patriots to issue full rebuttal

[Ice_Ice_Brady]

The media is just going to attack the weakest parts of the argument, such as McNally's "deflator" moniker as a weight loss thing, along with Brady's reason for calling Jastremski, etc. That is just what the media does, and if there was any doubt, just look how they've loved this scandal so far, misrepresenting facts and sensationalizing everything.

I do assume the rebuttal was made for the public, of which about 0.001% which actually read it, and the rest will just hop on the juicy headlines, many of which will be critical of the rebuttal for the more controversial, far-fetched points.

In my opinion, only three areas should have been addressed:

1. The science behind the "deflation" and the circumstances about the Colts balls/Patriots balls BOTH being under, which includes both the false leaks and the actual numbers. The Walt Anderson "best recollection", frankly, is the strongest point in the entire appeal. The actual numbers are the head of the snake; kill it and the body dies. If the Patriots can prove the balls were not tampered with, nothing else matters.

2. Regarding the Brady-McNally-Jastremski triangle, two very basic points would have sufficed. First, of course Brady's communication to Jastremski will pickup inevitably after he is accused publicly of a crime. Second, McNally referenced INFLATING the balls more than DEFLATING when he said he would give Tom watermellons, balloons, etc. So, basically, you have a guy who is responsible for getting the footballs to Tom's liking. He inflates them; he deflates them. He jokes about inflating them to big and nicknames himself the deflator. Big whoop. Nothing in there that references an illegal scheme. Nothing in there whatsoever that even references shady activity. There was absolutely no need to explain every single text message, justify the reasons for not turning over information, etc. etc.

3. The clear bias that was shown from the NFL in leak reporting, letters to the Patriots, Wells investigation discrepancies, etc. Patriots did a good job detailing that in their rebuttal, but again, people can only consider a few points at once.

The public doesn't digest 58 points; just give them a few that are your strongest and most obvious. When you attack everything, you just come across as defensive and "willing to say anything". That's because if just one point is weak, that's going to then color the rest of the case in the eyes of the public.

I think that Patriots PR department has once again failed the team as they have so often; they are just clueless about how to speak to the public and how to get their point across. Luckily, it is irrelevant to Brady's legal case, but you can chalk up another missed opportunity from the PR department in the battle of public opinion.

I'm sure I'll get a lot of "Dislikes" for this, so have away.

 

[Bruins29]

I think there had to be something else besides the Wells Report to read. Its too biased and people wouldnt know it without the Patriots response.

I am not sure why people think that anyone who reads the Wells report wouldnt just assume the Pats are guilty because that is what the report says.

 

[SalemPats]

I think this is a brilliant move. The NFL and Ted Wells aim was to embarass the Patriots and build public appeal for harsh discipline. If the NFL had integrity they would have released the report and suspended the Pats at the same time.

The Patriots are now disproving the NFL and the Wells report and making them look like idiots. The debate now is not on are the Patriots cheaters and is the sentence fair, it is now does this report make snese and does it have too many inaccuracies.

 

[Ice_Ice_Brady]

I think there had to be something else besides the Wells Report to read. Its too biased and people wouldnt know it without the Patriots response.

I am not sure why people think that anyone who reads the Wells report wouldnt just assume the Pats are guilty because that is what the report says.

The Wells report basically gives you buzz words and major, sweeping quotes. The Patriots should have done the same thing. Not saying the Patriots should have remained silent, but just that the only people who will read a reubuttal THAT LONG are people who are already passionately defending the Patriots.

 

[Patriot_in_NY]

With all due respect.......... I'll trust the Patriots brain trust to determine the best response at this PR raping. I'm sure it's part of a much wider strategy. The "deflate" comment happens to be the truth, they are not gonna shy from it.

Who knew.... but a quick scan of google (after you ignore the massive recent influx of Pats relates links), shows a significant (on the order of 200,000 results) on a search of "deflate weight loss". In fact, after 2 pages of Pats stuff, here is the first link I found.

http://www.intelihealth.com/article/deflate-your-belly-bulge

That's a reputable health and wellness company referring to "deflating" in the context of weight loss. Just cuz none of us heard about it until today, doesn't remotely mean that it doesn't happen.

 

[Bruins29]

The other issue people forget is that if the Pats dont do this and just "take them to court and do it there" as many proclaim, well, that could be months or years (if it truly goes the distance) before the Pats side of the story comes out.

You really want to go a long period of time having the Wells report be gospel about this ordeal. I dont.

 

[nowayback]

No matter what the Pats do most of media will turn it. Maybe the Pats did it for their fans and to tell NFL we wont take this crap anymore and you are effing liars. Honeymoon is over

 

[Rob0729]

I think it was an all or nothing deal. If they did this site and ignored the text messages, they would be getting killed right now too.

The problem is that some of the explanation of the text messages come off as ridiculous that unfortunately that is what the media are focusing on. I personally think they are so ridiculous that they have to be true. If they were going to make this stuff up, they would come up with a better explanation of why McNally is called the Deflator.

Not disclosing McKinnon's relationship with the Kraft Group whether it was a mistake or not is another significant mistake that will give the haters an opportunity to throw out this rebuttal.

 

[Ice_Ice_Brady]

The other issue people forget is that if the Pats dont do this and just "take them to court and do it there" as many proclaim, well, that could be months or years (if it truly goes the distance) before the Pats side of the story comes out.

You really want to go a long period of time having the Wells report be gospel about this ordeal. I dont.

Maybe I wasn't clear. I am 100% on board with their decision to publish something; I just think the format is overkill. They are trying to speak to the public and casual fan, but their response is a dissertation. 99.9% of fans didn't read the Wells Report; they read the Cliffs Notes. Patriots could have written 3-4 paragraphs of their strongest points, rather than a novel.

 

[TheBostonStraggler]

The media is just going to attack the weakest parts of the argument, such as McNally's "deflator" moniker as a weight loss thing, along with Brady's reason for calling Jastremski, etc. That is just what the media does, and if there was any doubt, just look how they've loved this scandal so far, misrepresenting facts and sensationalizing everything.

I do assume the rebuttal was made for the public, of which about 0.001% which actually read it, and the rest will just hop on the juicy headlines, many of which will be critical of the rebuttal for the more controversial, far-fetched points.

In my opinion, only two areas should have been addressed:

1. The science behind the "deflation" and the circumstances about the Colts balls/Patriots balls BOTH being under, which includes both the false leaks and the actual numbers. The Walt Anderson "best recollection", frankly, is the strongest point in the entire appeal. The actual numbers are the head of the snake; kill it and the body dies. If the Patriots can prove the balls were not tampered with, nothing else matters.

2. Regarding the Brady-McNally-Jastremski triangle, two very basic points would have sufficed. First, of course Brady's communication to Jastremski will pickup inevitably after he is accused publicly of a crime. Second, McNally referenced INFLATING the balls more than DEFLATING when he said he would give Tom watermellons, balloons, etc. So, basically, you have a guy who is responsible for getting the footballs to Tom's liking. He inflates them; he deflates them. He jokes about inflating them to big and nicknames himself the deflator. Big whoop. Nothing in there that references an illegal scheme. Nothing in there whatsoever that even references shady activity. There was absolutely no need to explain every single text message, justify the reasons for not turning over information, etc. etc.

The public doesn't digest 58 points; just give them one or two that are your strongest and most obvious. When you attack everything, you just come across as defensive and "willing to say anything". That's because if just one point is weak, that's going to then color the rest of the case in the eyes of the public.

I think that Patriots PR department has once again failed the team as they have so often; they are just clueless about how to speak to the public and how to get their point across. Luckily, it is irrelevant to Brady's legal case, but you can chalk up another missed opportunity from the PR department in the battle of public opinion.

I'm sure I'll get a lot of "Dislikes" for this, so have away.

You have a possible valid point on the text message answers. While the answer is in fact a plausible one, it doesn't have that kind of ring that will make the average person believe anything more than lawyer speak/grasping at straws. Until the average dolt starts questioning this, Emperor Goody will have to be dragged kicking and screaming by a legal authority.

But what if, just for argument's sake, our legal team has text messages and testimony that will much more back up the "Deflator" name as being about weight loss? Let's say they are in possession of other texts that directly speak to Deflator being about weight loss? Now let's say we put out this initial report, the other side assails it as lawyer speak balogney. Now that they are flushed out it get's interesting if we can then swing the other arm in and provide additional text messages proving Deflator is about weight loss.
I'm not saying that is it but it would be nice if this initial response from our side has that kind of strategy behind it.

 

[Bruins29]

The Wells report basically gives you buzz words and major, sweeping quotes. The Patriots should have done the same thing. Not saying the Patriots should have remained silent, but just that the only people who will read a reubuttal THAT LONG are people who are already passionately defending the Patriots.

What the Pats should do is the Cliff Notes bullet point version for the regular idiot. Just bullet the contentions and point out huge things that are important.

 

[Pats2000]

Too many people on here are expecting this thing to be taken in totality right away. No one in the media has had a chance to digest the whole thing yet. In the race to be first, everyone picked out a couple of quotes and ran with that. Give them a few days to go over the whole thing. You'll start to see the effects soon enough.

 

[Bruins29]

Maybe I wasn't clear. I am 100% on board with their decision to publish something; I just think the format is overkill. They are trying to speak to the public and casual fan, but their response is a dissertation. 99.9% of fans didn't read the Wells Report; they read the Cliffs Notes. Patriots could have written 3-4 paragraphs of their strongest points, rather than a novel.

MY comment was not directed towards you and I actually used the cliff notes thing in another post. They should also do that as well. People dont read.

 

[Ice_Ice_Brady]

What the Pats should do is the Cliff Notes bullet point version for the regular idiot. Just bullet the contentions and point out huge things that are important.

Although it sounds silly, that's exactly what I think they should do. Smart people are not the ones they should be trying to convince; most smart people realize there is a lot of gray areas to begin with.

 

[VJCPatriot]

The wellsreportcontext.com Response was written by a lawyer. It carefully rebutts everything in the Wells report. It is very thorough.

However this is far from everything that the Patriots have up their sleeves legally. But since this battle is being fought in the court of public opinion as well as presumably in the legal courts, it is to the Pats advantage to put as many cards on the table as possible.

It doesn't matter if everything posited by the rebuttal is accepted by everybody, what matters is that there is an explanation for everything alleged by the Wells report. Two sides of the story are now out there.

 

[Patstopia]

I think the whole release was geared towards the obvious facts that the NFL went into the entire weekend trying to catch the Pats in a sting. They pointed out every step the league took and every step Wells took to ensure a guilt finding and not implicate the league. That ship has sailed, now the league is going to have to run a coverup to protect themselves from the Pats by making up other crap not listed in the Wells report.
As long as the NFL keeps digging, the hole will get large enough to bury themselves.

 

[JPPT1974]

That is a lot of pages. For Ted Wells to write by. At 234 pages. A lot goes into it. And there is a lot of not so nice words in the process. Which will not put out.

 

[Bruins29]

Although it sounds silly, that's exactly what I think they should do. Smart people are not the ones they should be trying to convince; most smart people realize there is a lot of gray areas to begin with.

They are not going to convince anyone so the whole exercise to get that result is pointless. People hate the pats. They were probably advised to get something out there and to directly attack some main things in a easy target.

 

[ChoWZa]

I agree and disagree. The report accuses Wells of ignoring key pieces of info and cherry picking, so in turn to pick apart the Wells report would be hypocritical. Yes the media is going to focus on the deflator part and ignore Blandino's lie, and the double-use of the gauges, but a neutral arbitrator or federal court will not.

 

[Bruins29]

People forget this isnt 2 private businesses battling over a patent infringement and bluffing and waiting for discovery to show hands. This case is about hugely popular public figures which one of has taken an enormous PR hit already. No need to keep everything quiet.