Patriots Legal Counsel Rebuttal of Wells Report

Oswlek said:

Wells ignored that statement and coached Anderson to misremember primarily because of the text messages. They had to be addressed because they are the prism that allows Wells to conclude guilt from inconclusive data.

What might have been better is to not have released this at all. As orgasmic as it was to read, dropping it piece by piece into a friendly's lap would likely have given each component more of the spotlight. With it all out, the media will focus on the odd explanation for the texts and after two days they'll ignore the rest since its old news.

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Unless they have more and just released a portion of what they have.

I do not know if this has been mentioned. Did not read every comment. Kraft has shown the other league owners that he will not go down without a fight.

Does he go into the league meetings with this rebuttal. Stand up and say I have always been about the league first. This has been a blatant abuse of power to destroy my franchise. All I ask at the moment is for a true neautral arbitrator to decide my franchises true legacy.

If Goodell feels strongly on this report to put these unpresidented sanctions on my team. At least give me the chance to have a true independent hearing

Have the other owners put pressure on Goodell to have it neutral arbitrated. This way the owners can save face from both sides

SVN said:

Tom E. Curran ‏@tomecurran 8m8 minutes ago
The report does not address whether 1:40 is consistent with the time that it takes a gentleman to enter a bathroom, relieve himself.

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Yes it did.

Rob0729 said:

I hate to say it, but this another misstep by the Pats. This is going to get them creamed in the court of public opinion.

They should have disclosed the relationship right away. Now people are going to say the Pats tried to pass off a paid expert as an independent expert. Just look at the comments on the PFT article on it.

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More easily fixed than you're suggesting. Just sit back and wait for utterly independent folks to post about it, and link to what they say.

One other point I wanted to hit on; the Wells folks had JJ's phone and McNally's so they already have Brady's correspondence with JJ (limited, nothing to say he asked for deflated balls) and McNally (no contact.) I imagine they wanted to pour over it and find other "gotcha" catch phrases or Brady telling someone he asked for deflated footballs. After seeing this crap he was correct not to give it up.

SalemPats said:

I personally feel that the Patriots and every player on the SB team should file a lawsuit against the NFL, Roger Goodell and Ted Wells

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Malcom Butler would be the most damaged.

upstater1 said:

They should have avoided the deflator text and focused in the science

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No, because then doubters would have said they couldn't explain that away. Indeed, to many people, that WAS the smoking gun.

RodneyScarrison said:

McNally was called the deflator because he was trying to lose weight? Seriously?

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What if it's wordplay, because he was also involved with needles? That's in fact how I took it.

Rob0729 said:

I hate to say it, but this another misstep by the Pats. This is going to get them creamed in the court of public opinion.

They should have disclosed the relationship right away. Now people are going to say the Pats tried to pass off a paid expert as an independent expert. Just look at the comments on the PFT article on it.

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This is what I thought at first blush also, Rob. However, it really underscores the fact that the "independent" Wells report was EVEN LESS independent than MacKinnon was.

1) The NFL paid Wells contemporaneously to do this report. Mackinnon was not paid by the Pats for this particular thing.

2) The NFL's Jeff Pash was the co-leader of this "independent" report.

It's almost as if the Patriots are baiting the NFL to "go there".

Matt Chatham @chatham58 · 6h6 hours ago
FWIW, there's a long-standing tradition of offseason weight-loss competitions B2WN #Patriots staff, coaches, etc. This part made sense 2 me

I believe the deflator comment was made in May.. which happens to be the offseason.


Mr. McNally to Mr. Jastremski: “deflate and give somebody that jacket.” (p. 87).

I cant even think of a scenario/context involving the deflation of footballs that this text makes even the slightest sense.

But it readily makes sense in the context of losing weight.

RodneyScarrison said:

McNally was called the deflator because he was trying to lose weight? Seriously? With all the bs we can attack in the Wells report....

Jumping jesus on a ****ing pogo stick, why would we release that? Nobody with half a brain cell is going to buy that. We had so much great material to deconstruct and we basically chose to plead guilty by way of the stupidest defense claim I've ever heard. Beyond disappointed with our rebuttal.

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So you wanted them to address everything else and leave that out, so the repsonse would be "Yeah but he calls himself the deflator, so obviously you are guilty"

This report actually addresses everything, so they can't leave out the explanation that you think sounds silly.

So now the haters are latching on to the fact that Mackinnon is a co-founder of a company that Kraft invested in. I don't get why people are resorting to appeals to authority re: easily verifiable, middle-school level science in the first place, but given that that's the direction stupid people appear to be taking this, that is a significant mistake by the Pats. If you're attacking the league for utterly failing to use impartial resources, you should go to pretty great lengths to avoid any appearance of doing the same.

Oswlek said:

Wells ignored that statement and coached Anderson to misremember primarily because of the text messages. They had to be addressed because they are the prism that allows Wells to conclude guilt from inconclusive data.

What might have been better is to not have released this at all. As orgasmic as it was to read, dropping it piece by piece into a friendly's lap would likely have given each component more of the spotlight. With it all out, the media will focus on the odd explanation for the texts and after two days they'll ignore the rest since its old news.

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Maybe Wells' conference call coach coached Wells to coach Anderson!

The point a lot of people here are missing is that the explanation what deflater meant it the context of the text msgs is not an excuse but an explanation given independently by the two parties already during the interview portion of the entire investigation.

This is not something that they just came up with. And however cringeworthy it may sound it is better that everything was addressed in the response to the Wells report. Leaving it out would have looked like admitting that there is no other explanation.

BradyFTW! said:

So now the haters are latching on to the fact that Mackinnon is a co-founder of a company that Kraft invested in. I don't get why people are resorting to appeals to authority re: easily verifiable, middle-school level science in the first place, but given that that's the direction stupid people appear to be taking this, that is a significant mistake by the Pats. If you're attacking the league for utterly failing to use impartial resources, you should go to pretty great lengths to avoid any appearance of doing the same.

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Maybe, but it feels like bait to me. I'm just hoping beyond hope that Wells holds another conference call to say "That McKinnon guy is full of ****! How can he be independent if the Patriots' owner invested in his company! He got paid by them, obviously he's a shill!"

Hmm, how indeed Mr. Wells. Btw, how do you intend to spend your $5 million?

Rob0729 said:

No I am saying that is how it is going to be spun by all the haters in the media and around the country. Unless the Pats take this to court, the perception is bigger than the reality.

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The reality is that the Pats are currently the best team in the NFL and are looking at becoming the greatest team ever.

That's good enough for me.

luuked said:

The point a lot of people here are missing is that the explanation what deflater meant it the context of the text msgs is not an excuse but an explanation given independently by the two parties already during the interview portion of the entire investigation.

This is not something that they just came up with. And however cringeworthy it may sound it is better that everything was addressed in the response to the Wells report. Leaving it out would have looked like admitting that there is no other explanation.

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THAT'S what I want to know.

If both Jastremski and McNally gave that definition to Wells, why did Wells completely ignore that in his report.

He could have written, "they claimed that it meant this, but it seems far-fetched".

Instead he redacted it from the report altogether.

Flip out all you want about this deflator weight thing, but it reminds me of how the Wells report made Tom Brady look like a liar because he claimed he didn't know McNally and lots of people agreed it was totally implausible. Now it's not so implausible, is it. It's one of those things that is just such a stupid lie to tell. I look at the deflator thing the same way. Surely they know how lame it would be as a lie and could come up with a better one. But they didn't. Probably because dumb as it is, it's the truth.

Bella*chick said:

Flip out all you want about this deflator weight thing, but it reminds me of how the Wells report made Tom Brady look like a liar because he claimed he didn't know McNally and lots of people agreed it was totally implausible. Nut now it's not so implausible, is it. It's one of those things that is just such a stupid lie to tell. I look at the deflator thing the same way. Surely they know how lame it would be as a lie and could come up with a better one. But they didn't. Probably because dumb as it is, it's the truth.

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I'm sure the Patriots shook their head when they found out that's what deflator really meant too, because they knew they had to include it.

Did I seriously have my posts removed because I don't like the "losing weight" claim. Is this communist Russia where I can't have my own opinion if it doesn't fit the agenda?

I explained that it made much more sense to talk about McNally being the deflator because he has to take air out when the balls are over the legal limit which does happen. That is how you create a believable shadow of doubt.