The New England Patriots issued an exhaustively detailed rebuttal of the Wells report on Thursday, claiming the conclusions of the NFL’s investigation into the Deflategate scandal “are, at best, incomplete, incorrect and lack context”.
The team’s official Twitter account posted a link to the standalone website wellsreportcontext.com, which picks apart the 243-page report commissioned by the league and released last week, the culmination of a four-month investigation headed jointly by NFL executive vice-president Jeff Pash and prominent independent investigator Ted Wells.
Nearly 20,000 words in length, the rebuttal offers a point-by-point response to the report’s findings, which concluded “it is more probable than not” that at least two Patriots employees improperly deflated footballs in the team’s AFC Championship win over the Indianapolis Colts and that quarterback Tom Brady was “at least generally aware” of the malfeasance.
The response, penned by Patriots lead litigation counsel Daniel L Goldberg, includes the testimony of Roderick MacKinnon, winner of the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 2003, who calls the report’s scientific analysis “a good attempt to seek the truth” but “based on data that are simply insufficient”.
The rebuttal even offers an explanation for the incriminating text message in which locker room attendant Jim McNally refers to himself as “the deflator”, noting that McNally was a “big fellow” who had been working out in order to slim down.
“’Deflate’ was a term they used to refer to losing weight,” Goldberg reasons. “One can specifically see this use of the term in a Nov. 30, 2014 text from Mr. McNally to Mr. Jastremski: ‘deflate and give somebody that jacket.’ (p. 87). This banter, and Mr. McNally’s goal of losing weight, meant Mr. McNally was the ‘deflator.’ There was nothing complicated or sinister about it.”
A search of the Whois database indicates the team registered the wellsreportcontext.com domain name at 5.14pm ET on Monday, roughly 15 minutes before details of Brady’s suspension broke. The team also faces the loss of two draft picks and a $1m fine.
The team has until 11.59pm on Thursday to file a formal appeal of the sanctions imposed against the team.
