The Published Wells Report.

Deus Irae · May 6, 2015

In more shocking news, Florio is taking the obvious

“More probable than not” equates to a “preponderance of the evidence,” the standard that applies in most civil lawsuits. It means that the evidence makes it more likely than not, in the opinion of the investigator, that “New England Patriots personnel participated in violations of the Playing Rules and were involved in a deliberate effort to circumvent the rules,” and that “Tom Brady . . . was at least generally aware of the inappropriate activities.

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.co...ble-than-not-carries-important-legal-meaning/

and twisting it by referencing another incident

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.co...-raises-questions-about-disciplinary-process/

where he's actually questioning the standard of proof:

In the statement announcing Hardy’s 10-game suspension, the NFL simply said that the “decision is based on findings that are supported by credible corroborating evidence independent of Ms. Holder’s statements and testimony, such as testimony of other witnesses, medical and police reports, expert analyses, and photographs.” But under what standard is the evidence deemed to be credible, especially with Nicole Holder not cooperating due to the settlement she received?

The idea that the NFL can simply decide what happened without any clear test of the evidence is a potential problem for other players — especially for players who didn’t do what they’re accused of doing. A subjective belief by a prosecutor-turned-league-employee that “credible corroborating evidence” exists isn’t enough. Every prosecutor who brings charges against a defendant believes that “credible corroborating evidence” exists; the challenge becomes finding a fair and objective way to determine whether the evidence really is credible.

As people surely know, Hardy has appealed his suspension. Florio knows all this. He's embarrassing himself, and the legal profession, this crap, all in the name of money.

JMC00 · May 6, 2015

supafly said:
Give me a break, dude. To think there won't be some type of punishment when all eyes are on the biggest player in the game is ridiculous--especially after what will be seen by 99% of the NFL's fanbase as a repeat offense.

The ball boy and equipment mngr referred to him as "the deflator" months and months ago. Do you honestly think that Roger Goodell is just going to ignore this? There will be some punishment, and I doubt that it will only be a few games.

What has Goodell done lately to help the Pats in any way, that would lead you to believe that no punishment will be handed down? It's almost as if you haven't seen Goodell's "precedent setting" punishments before. If he doesn't act harshly the integrity of the game will be questioned, blah, blah, blah.

Where the f*ck did I say I thought there wouldnt't be any punishment. I said I thought he wouldn't be suspended.

But then again I shouldn't be surprised by it seeing is how you feel offended anytime someone disagrees with your opinion and you always have to be right and get the final word.

scott99 · May 6, 2015

One major thing is missing from the Wells Report, and that is the word "proof". His report is all based on circumstantial evidence and opinion. He hasn't proven that the Pats and Brady have done ANYTHING wrong. It's all written with the words probably and phrases like "more likely than not". Not one smoking gun comment.

supafly · May 6, 2015

DarrylS said:
Still need clarification of the standard of guilt here, "more probable than not".. where does that lie on the spectrum of....suspicion.... to beyond a reasonable doubt????

You're used to thinking in CrimJ terms, Darryl. Think more along the lines of civil suits, where as @Deus Irae noted, it's 50.1 percent.

SHOWTIME15 · May 6, 2015

DarrylS said:
Still need clarification of the standard of guilt here, "more probable than not".. where does that lie on the spectrum of....suspicion.... to beyond a reasonable doubt????

if it's 50.1% evidence against you, it is "more probable than not".

Satchboogie3 · May 6, 2015

I love how one of the NESN articles tries to make a 'link' by showing how good of a game Brady had at home against the Bears after complaining about the over-inflated balls against the Jets the week prior. Yeah, lets ignore the fact that the Bears had one of the worst all-time passing defenses last year and just about everyone who played them looked 'super-human good'. No, the connection is it was the start of cheating!!! Idiots.

supafly · May 6, 2015

JMC00 said:
Where the f*ck did I say I thought there wouldnt't be any punishment. I said I thought he wouldn't be suspended.

But then again I shouldn't be surprised by it seeing is how you feel offended anytime someone disagrees with your opinion and always has to be right and get the final word.

I have no idea what you're talking about? I don't have problems with anyone on this board.

You claimed that Brady wouldn't be suspended. I responded by telling you why I thought he would be.

What's the problem? Better yet, where are you coming from with that last sentence? That's not true in the slightest. No one has ever mentioned that before, and if there are any problems that you have, then shoot me a PM and we can clear things up. Sorry if you were offended--seriously.

SVN · May 6, 2015

Jeff Howe ‏@jeffphowe 1h1 hour ago
243 pages and I don't know if Ted Wells even had the decency to use two-ply.

woolster22 · May 6, 2015

NE-VT said:
I just did a simple statistical analysis to see if there was a significance difference between the IND and the NE balls, after adjusting for the fact that there were measurements from both refs and that the Pats balls started out .5 PSI less. The Pats balls were statistically significantly under-inflated .

I am not saying that this proves that they cheated; there are many explanations for this. All I am saying that this result is unlikely due to RANDOM error. I.e. there was something systematic going on.

NE-VT said:
I would be happy to share the R code, if anyone wants to test it themselves BTW.

How did you account for the smaller sample for Colts balls? How about 4 highest pats in comparison? Possible exoneratING evidence wasn't taken due to time constraints, yet 12 balls can be accurately delflated in 70 seconds? Give me a ****ing break.

PatsSox363804 · May 6, 2015

"According to Brady, at some point after the Jets game and before the game against the Chicago Bears the following weekend, he asked to see a copy of the applicable Playing Rule, learned for the first time that the permissible inflation range was 12.5 to 13.5 psi, and was told that the Patriots typically inflated game balls slightly above 12.5 psi. Brady also stated that, at some point, he felt a football that was inflated to 12.5 psi, and decided that should be the target for all future games because he did “not ever want to get near the upper range again.” In addition, Brady stated that he suggested that the Patriots give the game officials a copy of Rule 2 when they delivered game balls prior to each game, so that the officials would know that it was not necessary to inflate them further."

Because, ya know, these are the actions of a guy involved in a mass deflating conspiracy. "Hey, let's tell the refs I know what the rule is, give them a copy of the rulebook, tell them exactly how to inflate the balls, then **** with them anyway." Isn't it more likely that the refs didn't do their job before that Jets game and it pissed Brady off to the point where he didn't want it to happen again?

SVN · May 6, 2015

Jeff Howe ‏@jeffphowe 2m2 minutes ago
Wells revered Anderson's attention to detail early in report, yet 100ish pages later Anderson couldn't remember if he initialed K ball 1.

Interception · May 6, 2015

PYPER said:
I read the report..What we have here is an issue of understanding context. There were conversations throughout the year (see original post) that Brady had with the other guys that the footballs were sometimes overinflated and he wanted them deflated. In one game the refs allegedly inflated the balls to almost 16psi. The conversations between Brady and co about deflating the balls indicated nothing about deflating them below the legal level. He just didn't want them overinflated. The Wells report missed the context of this entirely.

In essence, the report says that they can't find any scientific evidence to explain why the Patriots balls were more deflated than the Colts balls. All balls tested (11 Patriots balls and 4 Colts balls) lost pressure during the game but the Colts balls started out at 13-13.2 psi where as all the Patriots balls started out at 12.5psi. Unfortunately, the officials ran out of time at halftime and were only able to test 4 balls. Is it possible the discrepancy seen the Patriots balls could also have been present in some of the Colts balls? Unfortunately, we'll never know. The fact that they were only able to test a small sample of the Colts balls should've made that line of the investigation inconclusive but it appears the pressure to uncover answers has led Wells to jump to conclusions and the Patriots are being railroaded again.

What we have here is a lesson on how misleading circumstantial evidence can be. This is why we've always had so many cases of falsely convicted individuals doing serious time. It is what it is.

McNally says "don't worry... I'm not going to ESPN... Yet."

Now why would he threaten something like that if they were doing nothing illegal?

Dr Pain · May 6, 2015

50-yard-line said:
Okay, now I'm confused...10/17/2014 was a Friday, the day after the Jets game. Jastremski "just" checked them and they were at 16 the next day?

And he said they were supposed to be 13 - how does that implicate the Patriots bringing them under 12.5, exactly?

No the game was at the Jets on 10/16. This is the day after and the game balls were 16PSI. No wonder Tom was pissed

Ross12 · May 6, 2015

It's all kind of fun, if you choose to think of it that way.

The NFL at large is so afraid of the Pats that they take a 4 month long investigation just to produce a 243 page report that boils down to "It's more like than not they cheated, we think Brady was generally aware", so they can attempt to levy a punishment against them.

Man, is that a lot of time and money spent just to bring the team back to the pack. I feel sorry for them, especially considering even if you suspend Brady for 4 games (and the NFLPA somehow isn't able to get that reduced or tossed out completely), Jimmy Garoppolo is more than capable of winning 3 of 4 against Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Jacksonville and Dallas... Which would then have Brady return in Week 5, coincidentally the same week they play Indianapolis.

I almost want it to happen, if only to show the NFL just how superior this team truly is.

Ring 6 · May 6, 2015

The finding is that it is more likely than not that Brady had some general knowledge of something that was more likely than not. Does that mean there is a 25% chance?

ViperGTS · May 6, 2015

SVN said:
shannon sharpeVerified account‏@ShannonSharpe
Brady must be suspended for minimum of 2-4 gms, Belichick gets 1 yr and tm loses 1st rd draft pick 2016-17. Tm gets fined the max.

Lol. What. A. Loser.

Deus Irae · May 6, 2015

Y'all really need to read Jeff Howe's tweets on this. He's killing it. It would be nice if this would be the start of a turnaround similar to what we saw earlier. Here's a tame one:

So far, the only "evidence" I've seen against Brady is hearsay based off assumption from a series of texts by two other people.

https://twitter.com/jeffphowe/status/596019947064655872

OhExaulted1 · May 6, 2015

If you read the first paragraph, I find something very strange and disconcerning. They measured 11 of the Patriots balls (apperantly the only one NOT measured was the intercepted ball), but only measured 4 of the Colts balls.

Why would you only measure 4 balls from the opposing team?

Maybe because it was a setup?

JMC00 · May 6, 2015

Sticky Caulk said:
So the balls for the Jets game were 'supposed' to be 13psi. What did this report give evidence of?

It gave evidence that this whole thing was a farce and a set-up

If Brady has people deflating balls how the hell did they get to 16 lbs?

If Brady likes them under 12.5 why is Jastremski saying they are supposed to be at 13 lbs? Wouldn't that insinuate that Brady likes them at 13.

How come there isn't an investigation into the Colts seeing is how 3 of the 4 balls checked were under.

How come the refs only checked 4 of the Colts balls because according to Wells 1:40 is more than enough time to deflate 12 footballs. Then 12-15 minutes should have been more than enough time to check 24 balls twice.

JMC00 · May 6, 2015

@jeffphowe
Wells revered Anderson's attention to detail early in report, yet 100ish pages later Anderson couldn't remember if he initialed K ball 1.

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