http://mmqb.si.com/2015/05/07/ted-wells-deflategate-tom-brady-patriots-nfl/
Did Tom Brady Cheat? The NFL Has a Big Decision to Make
The long-awaited Ted Wells report is out. It’s heavy on circumstantial evidence that Patriots employees, at the behest of QB Tom Brady, purposefully deflated footballs before the AFC title game. But with no smoking gun, league commissioner Roger Goodell has to rule on one of the NFL’s all-time greats with his legacy on the line
By Peter King
There is enough circumstantial evidence in the long-awaited 243-page
Ted Wells report released Wednesday that footballs used by the Patriots were improperly deflated before the AFC Championship Game. It’s impossible to read the exhaustive document without suspecting that four-time Super Bowl champion Tom Brady, one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time, had some idea—or more than just some—that Patriot minions were doctoring the footballs to Brady’s liking.
Now the question is: Will the league, which is expected to hand down discipline in the case in the coming days, find enough sins in the consistently equivocating Wells report to come down hard on Brady and sanction the world champions for the second time in eight years?
I counted 23 examples of
equivocating lying their butts off -
fixed by Prime Time, in the Wells document. Phrases like it is “more probable than not that Tom Brady was at least generally aware” of Patriot staffers John Jastremski and Jim McNally plotting to take air out of game balls. The report uses “reasonable to infer,” “most plausible,” “most likely,” “more probable,” “we think is likely,” “unlikely,” and other phrases that fall short of “certain” to describe multiple events and people’s actions in the report.
According to The MMQB legal mind
Andrew Brandt, this language is common to trial lawyers in civil litigation (Wells’ background), but let’s not miss the overriding point here. The NFL has a momentous decision on its hands. Is the league willing to hand Brady the kind of suspension or significant fine to mar his career and legacy, based on the weight of the circumstantial evidence in the report?
Think of it: With no smoking gun, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell will have to rule on one of the NFL’s all-time golden boys. If he bans Brady at least from the NFL’s marquee Pittsburgh-New England season opener on Sept. 10, Goodell will be taking the Patriots’ best player off the field. And either a suspension or heavy fine will forever mark Brady as a cheater in the eyes of the NFL—with strong suspicions but not incontrovertible proof that he, in essence, ordered the deflated-football version of a code red.
The league has had definitive proof in recent disciplinary cases. In 2012, New Orleans defensive coordinator Gregg Williams admitted his role as a ringleader in the team’s bounty system, and Goodell came down hard on Williams and the Saints. More recently, the Falcons admitted piping in fake crowd noise at 2014 home games; the team was fined $350,000 and a marketing employee lost his job. Cleveland GM Ray Farmer admitting sending illegal text messages to coaches during games; Goodell suspended him four games. Jets owner Woody Johnson was publicly covetous of cornerback Darrelle Revis while still a Patriot; it cost Johnson a $100,000 league fine.
But under league guidelines, the NFL doesn’t have to catch Brady in the act of ordering the deflation. Goodell and NFL executive vice president of football operations Troy Vincent, who is also reviewing the case for discipline, could rely on the “preponderance of the evidence” that “the fact sought to be proved is more probable than not,” according to the league’s policy on integrity of the game.
I believe there is one other factor at play, and it a significant one. The other 31 teams are watching very closely what Goodell does in this case. If he fines the organization but does not come down hard on Brady, other owners will feel that their suspicions that the close bond between Goodell and New England owner Robert Kraft (well, it used to be a close bond, before this investigation frayed it) played a role in the league taking it easy on New England.
So this is a complex, explosive, divisive issue, and not just between the Patriots and the league office.
The text messages and recounted conversations involving the two Patriots’ employees in question—officials locker room assistant McNally and equipment assistant Jastremski—leave little doubt that neither will work for an NFL team again. They used their positions almost recklessly, McNally apparently cavalier in leaving the locker room before the AFC Championship Game with the Patriots’ game balls without telling the officials.
Referee Walt Anderson told Wells’ investigators it was the first time in his 19 years as an NFL official that he’d lost track of the game balls before a game. The report paints a picture of McNally, who called himself “the deflator” in a 2014 text message to Jastremski, as entering a restroom (as seen on security-camera video) and being in there for 100 seconds before the title game. He lied about it when first asked by Wells’ investigators, and then said he used a urinal in a bathroom that has none.
The report said: “There is less direct evidence linking Brady to tampering activities than either McNally or Jastremski. We nevertheless believe, based on the totality of the evidence, that it is more probable than not that Brady was at least generally aware of the inappropriate activities of McNally and Jastremski.”
Wells went on to say, “Our conclusion that it is more probable than not that McNally and Jastremski participated in a deliberate effort to release air from Patriots game balls after the balls were tested by the game officials. We believe it is unlikely that an equipment assistant and a locker room attendant would deflate game balls without Brady’s knowledge and approval.”
A few more points to make:
• The NFL has some faults to address here. Two happened before the game. Colts GM Ryan Grigson emailed the league the day before the game, saying he was concerned that the Patriots might be letting air out of their footballs. League officials said they would report this to referee Walt Anderson before the game so he’d be on the lookout for it. Then Anderson lost sight of the footballs. The report isn’t exact about how much time lapsed between sightings of the ballbag with New England’s allotted footballs by Anderson and his crew, but it was several minutes at least.
At that point, particularly with the warning Grigson had given league officials on Saturday, Anderson should have immediately either called for the backup bag of footballs to be used—there was one in the officials’ locker room on the inclement Foxboro evening—or tested the pressure of the balls in McNally’s bag. Instead, Anderson just began the game, and the balls in McNally’s bag were used in the first half.
• The league has to invent a new protocol for footballs before the game. That’s easy. No question it will be done, with the balls never out of at least one official’s sight between the time they are tested for correct air pressure (12.5 pounds per square inch to 13.5 pounds) before the game, and the time they are walked to the sidelines by said officials. In addition, the exact pressure in each ball needs to be recorded before the game—another gimme.
• This is too important to get some facts wrong, and the NFL did. There were media leaks throughout the first week in the process, and some were based on misleading stats. According to the two-page letter apprising the Patriots of the investigation sent by NFL senior vice president Dave Gardi to Patriots officials Jan. 19, “One of the [Patriots’] game balls [inspected at halftime] was inflated to 10.1 psi, far below the requirement of 12 ½ to 13 ½ psi. In contrast, each of the Colts’ game balls that was inspected met the requirements set forth above.” In fact, the lowest of the 20 readings measuring Patriot footballs at halftime was 10.5 psi. And one of the gauges measuring the four Colts’ footballs that were measured at halftime had three of the balls below 12.5 psi.
• I found two things very hard to overlook.1) So the officials at halftime measured the psi of 10 Patriots footballs and four Colts balls. (Each team conditions footballs during the week and hands a bag of them to officials for pregame psi inspection.) The Anderson crew measured every ball with two gauges. Using a baseline of 12.5 psi for the New England balls—approximately the pressure adopted in the pregame measurements by the officials—and the Colts-preferred 13.0 for the Indianapolis footballs, the two gauges had the New England footballs down 1.39 and 1.01 psi, on average. The Colts’ footballs were down an average of .37 and .56.
Not totally definitive, but not nothing either. … 2) According to the Wells report, an examination of Jastremski’s phone found that he and Brady had not spoken or texted for six months before the morning after the AFC championship. When the story broke that that the league was looking into claims of doctored football, the two men then spoke six times over the next three days, for a total of 55 minutes. Circumstantial, yes. But you can bet the league will look at that suspiciously.
• Will Spygate play a part in discipline? I don’t think the sanctions will be as harsh as the 2007 penalty for the Patriots’ taping opposing sidelines to try to steal signals. That discipline amounted to two fines totaling $750,000 and the loss of a first-round pick. Because there’s no evidence the Patriots organization or coaching staff had anything to do with this—and because the last three team discipline cases didn’t involve a draft choice or choices—I wouldn’t be surprised if Goodell puts the onus on the two employees and Brady more than the team.
But there’s one other factor here. Goodell could conceivably say:
This is the second time I’ve had this same team in the principal’s office for fudging with the rules. I’m going to come down hard, and maybe that will ensure it never happens again.
That’s considering, of course, that the NFL can be sure Brady was in the middle of this.
http://mmqb.si.com/2015/05/07/wells-report-deflategate-patriots-andrew-brandt/
Yes, It’s a Big Deal
While the details seem trivial and even comic, the violations in the Wells report strike at the heart of the league’s watchwords—integrity and competitive balance. The implications for Tom Brady and the Patriots are serious
By Andrew Brandt
The much-anticipated and long-awaited
Wells Report is in, and it does not lack in thoroughness. It combines 139 pages of legal and investigatory evidence with 104 pages of scientific and atmospheric data to paint a picture of deceit and rules skirting by members of the Patriots organization. The primary culprits are two lower-level employees—Jim McNally and Jon Jastremski—responsible for the administration and preparation of footballs (they both may be ex-employees by the time you read this). But within the discussion of their actions comes frequent mention of Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, who is implicated in a pattern of behavior of doctoring footballs to his benefit.
Wells writes like the trial lawyer that he is, using the civil litigation phrases such as “more probable than not” and “generally aware of inappropriate activities.” He presents a strong case of circumstantial evidence, fueled by some direct evidence—incriminating texts about tampering routines and Brady’s preferences for ball pressure—as well. As much as Patriots fans may disagree, however, (1) the “preponderance of evidence” standard will be enough to warrant discipline from the NFL, and (2) circumstantial evidence does not mean that the evidence is not strong (recall that a former Patriots tight end was recently convicted of murder with only circumstantial evidence). With time and cost not an issue, Wells and his team laid out a trove of circumstantial evidence for the league to consider in potential discipline.
Brady
Brady does not come off well in the report. He was lawyered up and not forthcoming with phone records and information, suggesting he had something to hide. He denied even knowing McNally’s name, something the report called out as “not plausible and contradicted by other evidence.” While Wells did not have subpoena power and authority to recover Brady’s phone (much of the text and phone details came from Jastremski’s phone, which was property of the Patriots), the lack of cooperation was noted, as it has been in previous NFL investigations.
Indeed, the evidence retrieved from McNally and Jastremski puts Brady into the football-tampering scheme. Here is the Report’s money quote: “
It is more probable than not that Brady was at least generally aware of the inappropriate activities of McNally and Jastremski involving the release of air from Patriots game balls. Evidence of Brady‘s awareness appears in text communications between McNally and Jastremski.”
Perhaps even more damning for Brady is evidence of a potential cover-up once the inquiry began after the AFC Championship Game, noted here: “
Additional evidence of Brady’s awareness includes a material increase in the frequency of telephone and text communications between Brady and Jastremski shortly after suspicions of ball tampering became public on January 19 suggests that Brady was closely monitoring Jastremski.
After not communicating by telephone or text for more than six monthsBrady and Jastremski spoke twice on January 19, twice on January 20 and twice on January 21 before Jastremski surrendered his cell phone to the Patriots later thatday for forensic imaging.” This is not a good look for Brady.
I would expect a multigame suspension of Brady, perhaps four games (and it would be games, not weeks).
A big deal
I have heard the comments that this is no big deal, the equivalent of a parking ticket. While that may be the view of some, it is not the view of either the NFL or the competing NFL teams. From the league and team perspective, this strikes at the watchword of the commissioner’s office—integrity—and the feeling that every team is operating without advantage. I admit that I’ve been around the NFL for 20 years and had no idea about the rules and procedures governing ball pressure before January.
However, as with any rule’s enforcement, I get it; it’s what the teams agree to submit to. If a league is going to stand for anything, it is the foundation that no team is gaining a competitive advantage by playing outside the rules, no matter how great or miniscule the transgression.
As I have stated often in this space, NFL team owners, executives and coaches all have some sense of paranoia about the league office, feeling that it favors other teams over them. I experienced this in Green Bay (our inferiority complex was driven by not having an owner and the clout one would bring). And a team that generates that paranoia perhaps more so than any other is the Patriots, as everyone among the teams is aware of the close relationship between Goodell and Kraft (some NFL executives refer to Kraft as the senior commissioner.)
Thus there are a lot of eyes on the potential penalty that will come from this report. While Troy Vincent, who is in charge of football operations, will mete out sanctions, it will obviously be approved and vetted by Goodell and others.
As to
Kraft’s statement reasserting his belief the Patriots did nothing wrong and his disappointment in the investigation, that is understandable. No owner wants to be called out in front of his peers, let alone on a national stage. Tom Benson was livid about the Saints’ penalties in 2012; Jerry Jones and Dan Snyder were incensed about their salary cap penalties that same year. It is all part of the job for Goodell; managing the political capital of owners as a collective group, whether close to him personally or not.
Organizational penalty
Beyond a penalty to Brady, which will obviously draw the most attention, I will be very interested in seeing whether the NFL hands down discipline to the Patriots organization. While the report says there is no evidence to suggest Kraft, Bill Belichick or other team leaders “participated in or had knowledge of” wrongdoing (although it does mention some resistance by the Patriots’ legal counsel) there is precedent for discipline despite their lack of involvement. My sense is that, beyond whatever happens to McNally, Jastremski and Brady, there will be a consequence to the Patriots organization
The now-famous line “Ignorance is not an excuse” was held up by Goodell in levying major suspensions to Saints coach Asshole Face and general manager Mickey Loomis in the New Orleans bounty case. And barely a month ago, the NFL suspended Falcons president Rich McKay, holding him responsible as the team’s senior official in game-day operations, although he had no direct knowledge that the Falcons were pumping fake crowd noise into the Georgia Dome. McKay was given a two-month suspension, albeit from the competition committee, not the Falcons, for simply holding the position he does.
Another reason why I would expect an organizational penalty is Goodell’s mantra of punishing a “pattern of behavior.” Spygate was many years ago but it still resonates as a violation of the same principles—integrity and competitive balance. Goodell certainly takes past actions into account with player behavior; I would expect the same here.
To put it in Wells’ legal terms—there will be lawyers—the (voluminous) evidence has now been presented. We wait for the sentencing phase, with Judge Goodell presiding.
