BOSTON — Flawed. Biased. Terribly disappointing.
That is the assessment Thursday of New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady’s agent about a report released by the NFL on the “Deflategate” scandal — one that many say significantly taints the football superstar’s image.
Specifically, the report — prepared by attorney Ted Wells — found that “it is more probable than not” that Brady was “at least generally aware of the inappropriate activities” of locker room attendant Jim McNally and equipment assistant John Jastremski, who has been with the team since 2001.
It also said that Brady, who answered questions from investigators, did not turn over personal information like texts and emails. Furthermore, the report doubted the quarterback’s claim that he didn’t know the name of McNally, the part-time Patriots employee who investigators think most likely improperly deflated footballs just before the team faced off in January’s AFC Championship game.
In a statement Thursday, Brady’s agent Don Yee characterized the Wells report as “a significant and terrible disappointment.”
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He questioned the role of the Indianapolis Colts in the scandal. The Colts played the Patriots in the January AFC Championship game, and the Patriots won, 45-7, before going on to win the Super Bowl.
“What does it say about the league office’s protocols and ethics when it allows one team to tip it off to an issue prior to a championship game, and no league officials or game officials notified the Patriots of the same issue prior to the game?” Yee said. “This suggests it may be more probable than not that the league cooperated with the Colts in perpetrating a sting operation.”
Brady’s agent went on to challenge the integrity of the investigation, noting that “the league is a significant client of the investigators’ law firm.”
“This was not an independent investigation and the contents of the report bear that out — all one has to do is read closely and critically, as opposed to simply reading headlines,” he said. “The investigators’ assumptions and inferences are easily debunked or subject to multiple interpretations.”
Yee concludes, “This report contains significant and tragic flaws, and it is common knowledge in the legal industry that reports like this generally are written for the benefit of the purchaser.”
While he didn’t responded immediately to Yee’s claims, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell did applaud the work of Wells’ team.
And when asked in late January about a possible conflict of interest, Goodell said that “Ted Wells’ integrity is impeccable” and claimed the NFL has “done an outstanding job of bringing outside consultants in.”
“These are professionals who bring an outside expertise, an outside perspective,” the commissioner said. “And their conclusions are drawn only by the evidence and only by the attempt to try to identify that truth.”