The NFL Continues To Leak Information To the Media Regarding Deflategate

Wax Frog said:

...and then there's the front office (this just screams for Photoshopping)...

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Ross12 said:

I just couldn't resist

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hambone1818 said:

Also, for anyone who hasn't seen this, Wells was caught in a lie about the texts/followup interview. He said the reason he didn't ask about the 'deflator' text (sent in May of 2014) is that they only looked at current-season texts (which, come on guys...you're billing in the millions and you can't find an intern to read through a couple hundred texts, seriously?). However, when the Wells report mentions the 'deflate and give me your jkt' text (sent in either October or November, but definitely in season) he said they weren't granted another interview and hadn't reviewed that text prior to their original interview.

Which is it guys? Seriously, this is the kind of investigation that $5 million buys? What a clown show all around, but then this is the NFL and Roger Goodell we're talking about.

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Koma said:

If Wells is saying that there never was an agreement over how many times a person can be interviewed, why wasn't that in his original report? He could have used that to show how extra-uncooperative the Patriots were being by pretending there was a limit to the interviews when none existed.

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Sicilian said:

What never sat right with me about the request for the follow up interview, is that Wells is tasked with investigating the potential deflation of gameday footballs, and somehow the word "deflator" is completely missed before the first interview? Even if they picked the LAZIEST intern in the company to skim the text message transcripts for key words, he's at least going to ctrl+F the words "deflate" "deflation" "deflator" etc in between his Facebook refreshes. There is no possible way that Wells and his team didn't have that text and questions about it prior to interview one.

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Ross12 said:

I just couldn't resist

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Nonentity said:

The only way to go after Kensil etc. is if we prove the conspiracy. There's no evidence right now.

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AndyJohnson said:

The email exchange shows that there was an agreement.

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Chiuba E. Obele said:

Boston.com – An NFL source close to the Wells investigation fired back late Sunday.“The investigators did not agree with Dan’s (Pats lawyer) characterizations in his e-mails and made clear after hearing out all of Dan’s arguments that they considered the Patriots in violation of the duty to cooperate,” the source said. “This is not like a normal piece of litigation, and if an investigator misses a piece of evidence he has an absolute obligation to follow up on the evidence. The subject of the investigation cannot hide behind technical procedural arguments, especially when the investigators disagree that there ever was an agreement.”

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Koma said:

If Wells is saying that there never was an agreement over how many times a person can be interviewed, why wasn't that in his original report? He could have used that to show how extra-uncooperative the Patriots were being by pretending there was a limit to the interviews when none existed.

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If that’s the case, and as Volin notes, Ted Wells needs to say so publicly. He already had a chance to do that last Thursday night in comments to Bart Hubbuch of the New York Post, but Wells didn’t. Instead, Wells contradicted his own report — and said nothing about the absence of an agreement that witnesses wouldn’t be questioned a second time based on evidence that Wells had in his files before the first investigation.

Apart from whether Wells agreed to have only one bite out of each apple (which is an extremely common reality in all forms of litigation), the fact that Wells and company flat-out missed two key text messages in which McNally uses the term “deflator” and “deflate” speaks to a lack of competence that the NFL should regard as troubling. Any first-year practicing lawyer knows that, before conducting a major interview in any case, it’s critical to know everything about the person being interviewed.

When documents are available to be reviewed before the interview, the task is simple: Review every single one of them. Twice. When a lawyer is being paid by the hour, there’s no incentive to skip steps — and there’s no incentive to rush through the process of putting eyes on each word appearing on every sheet of paper.

Even if Wells and company somehow missed the documents (which is embarrassing in and of itself), they easily could have done a text search for any words or partial words of interest (like “deflat-“) to pull up any overlooked documents. Regardless, the failure to spot those critical text messages before the first official interview with McNally would be regarded by many lawyers as malpractice.

So here’s the bigger question the NFL surely won’t be asking itself as it processes the failure of Ted Wells and his team to find two of the most critical text messages before their first interview of the most critical witness in the case: If Wells missed seeing such obvious and important documents, what else has he missed?

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