The man who was responsible for overseeing the Deflategate investigation insisted on Tuesday that the NFL did not run a sting operation against the New England Patriots.
In a surprise conference call with reporters, Ted Wells explained how he came to the conclusion that the NFL did not intentionally wait until halftime of the AFC Championship Game to try to nail the Patriots for allegedly tampering with game balls. Instead, Wells says the NFL paid little attention to the email that Colts general manager Ryan Grigson sent the league office before the game.
“When the Colts made the complaint, no one at the league office took the complaint seriously,” Wells said. “They flipped the complaint to the operations people so they knew about it. They told the refs. Walt Anderson thought it was just a normal complaint. You get these types of complaints all the time. Nobody paid that much attention to it. There was no sting operation.”
That shouldn’t make anyone feel better about the competence of the NFL or the punishment that was handed out.
You can read a portion of the email from Grigson here. The Colts GM wrote that it is “well known around the league” that Patriots equipment managers let air out of their game balls after they have been inspected by officials. According to Wells, the NFL wasn’t trying to catch the Patriots in the act — they just didn’t think it was a big deal.
With that in mind, it is very obvious that Tom Brady’s four-game suspension has more to do with his refusal to turn over his cell phone than it does with the actual violation. As they say, the coverup is always worse than the crime.
The NFL literally fluffed off Grigson’s complaint, so much so that referee Walt Anderson wasn’t even ordered to log the PSI of each football before the AFC Championship Game. You can’t essentially ignore an email urging the league to protect the “integrity of the game” and then stress how important the integrity of the game is after doling out punishment.
Brady’s agent, who has been very animated in bashing the Wells report, would be wise use the NFL’s lack of concern over Grigson’s email in arguing that the suspension is too harsh.
