There was so much imprecision about the halftime events that no one seemed to notice there was an extra, unexplained Patriots’ football on Mr. Farley’s list. Rule 2 mandated that, prior to the game, Referee Anderson was to ensure that there were 12 footballs placed in the Patriots “primary bag” for use during the game. Of those 12 footballs, one was taken out of play and set aside as a souvenir in the first half after James Develin caught a touchdown pass. A second football — the one intercepted by the Colts — had been set aside and was not one of the 11 Patriots’ footballs measured at halftime. That left 10 Patriots footballs to be measured at halftime. However, Mr. Farley wrote down that 11 Patriots footballs were measured. Buried in a footnote of the Wells Report (p. 68) is the effort to explain this extra football. Utilizing the same “certainly possible” approach to witness interviewing, the Wells Report attributes to Mr. Anderson that it was “certainly possible” there were actually 13 footballs initially put in the primary bag, not the 12 he was responsible to ensure were there. The possibility of an extra football being put in the primary bag raises even further issues about the precision of the pre-game gauging, as well as about what Mr. Anderson actually said, which is in the unreleased interview notes. In all events, what is “certainly possible” is not “more likely than not,” which is the required standard of proof for the League to find a rule violation.
