NEW: Patriots Release Wells Report Rebuttal

Thursday, May 14, 2015

GoLocalWorcester Sports Team

The New England Patriots have released a 20,000 word essay rebutting the Wells Report.

The full rebuttal can be read here.

From The Wells Report in Context:

The Report dismisses the scientific explanation for the natural loss of psi of the Patriots footballs by inexplicably rejecting the Referee’s recollection of what gauge he used in his pregame inspection. Texts acknowledged to be attempts at humor and exaggeration are nevertheless interpreted as a plot to improperly deflate footballs, even though none of them refer to any such plot. There is no evidence that Tom Brady preferred footballs that were lower than 12.5 psi and no evidence anyone even thought that he did. All the extensive evidence which contradicts how the texts are interpreted by the investigators is simply dismissed as “not plausible.” Inconsistencies in logic and evidence are ignored.

The Rebuttal

The rebuttal was put together by Daniel Goldberg, a senior partner in the Boston office of Morgan Lewis, who represented the Patriots and was present during all the interviews that were conducted with Patriots personnel.

The rebuttal goes through the entire Wells Report with links to documents and letters that the Patriots have received throughout the process of the investigation. The rebuttal also addresses the text messages that were exchanged between Patriots quarterback Tom Brady and Patriots personnel, namely Jastremski and McNally.

First, the media frenzy over deflated footballs started the day after the AFC Championship Game. Mr. Brady is used to the limelight and to critics; Mr. Jastremski is not. Since Mr. Jastremski prepared the footballs, it was reasonable to expect that this media attention would focus on him. It was also reasonable to expect that (as happened) Mr. Jastremski’s boss would question Mr. Jastremski to see what, if anything, he knew. Mr. Brady’s reaching out to Mr. Jastremski to see how he was holding up in these circumstances is not only understandable, but commendable.

They also had Mr. McNally’s phone records for a period prior to and including the AFC Championship Game. Those records show no texts with Mr. Brady, even in connection with asking for or receiving the three autographs. The absence of any texting between Mr. Brady and Mr. McNally was further confirmed by the uncontradicted testimony by each of them that they had never spoken to each other on the phone, had never texted each other, and had never even had a substantive in-person conversation with each other.

The Wells Report

Ted Wells released his findings on Thursday, May 7 resulting in the suspension of Tom Brady for the first four games of the season. The organization was also fined $1 million and stripped of a 2016 first round pick and a 2017 fourth round pick.

On Tuesday, May 12, Tom Brady hired attorney Jeff Kessler to help fight the suspension.

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