New England Patriots: The facts and flaws of the Wells report

In the last few days most of the talk in the NFL media has been about the Ted Wells report that was released on Wednesday. The report has basically exonerated the top of the Patriots organization and has shoved the blame on Tom Brady and two Patriots employees, Jim McNally and John Jastremski. As Brady is about to go into the books as one of the best football players there has ever been, this report is obviously a big blow to his reputation, especially when playing on a team that has continuously been getting a lot of heat for bending the rules.

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The fact that it was the Patriots and particularly Tom Brady who are being accused of this, makes this a bigger deal than it actually should be. If this were the Tennessee Titans and Zach Mettenberger, it would still make the news, but most people wouldn’t be very interested. While in the end every player and every team should be treated equally, it is simply a bigger deal because Tom Brady is one of the biggest faces in football and the New England Patriots may have been the most consistent team in NFL history since they have had the Belichick and Brady combination.

Feb 2, 2015; Phoenix, AZ, USA; New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady (left) and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell pose with the Pete Rozelle trophy during the Super Bowl XLIX-Winning Head Coach and MVP Press Conference at Media Center-Press Conference Room B. Mandatory Credit: Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports

If Tom Brady directly told McNally and Jastremski to use rule breaking measures to get the air below the allowed PSI level, than he should be punished, but I simply do not believe that with all the vagueness, lack of evidence and circumstantial evidence, this report has enough implicating information for the NFL to punish Brady. The report itself has quite a few holes in it, which Brady’s agent has already addressed and will be a topic of discussion for days to come.

Out of an objektive point of view, this report does not seem to be neutral in any way. The NFL is one of the biggest clients of Ted Wells’ law firm, therefore the investigators have a lot of pressure to come to conclusions that the NFL is looking for. The entire 243 page report states barely anything negative about the NFL’s handling of the situation and the NFL at all. Brady’s agent makes this very clear is his response to the report by pointing out that the report only mentions that NFL ran a sting operation on the Patriots in a footnote. Otherwise the report makes no negative mention of the league throughout the entire report.

When it comes to measuring the PSI levels of the footballs there are a slew of ambiguities. I will list those now:

1. Official PSI’s are not logged

The official PSI level is not written down when the referees are measuring pre game, raising the question about the exact PSI prior to game time. Reports now say that most of them were at 12.5 and the few that weren’t, were brought up to 12.5. Obviously, even if they weren’t exactly at 12.5 and the referees just let it go, they would never publicly admit that, as it would be a mistake by the League employees. Instead they state that everything was done correctly, knowing that nobody could disprove it.

2. The accuratness of measuring

If you look at the exact half time PSI measurements recorded by the officials, one officials PSI measurement is consistently .3 to .5 greater than the other officials measurement which must raise red flags. At least one of the measuring devices must be inaccurate.

This leads to questions about which measurement device was used in the initial measuring. If the initial measuring was done with whatever caused the measurements of one official to be greater than the other and then the secondary one was measured with the machine that measured these lower PSI values, the observed change in PSI is going to be much larger than the actual change in PSI.

The fact that the measurements were extremely different takes away from believability of the supposed evidence of the balls that the NFL has. Without proven explanation for the differences, this data should not be allowed as evidence as at least one of the two measurements must be inaccurate.

Jan 18, 2015; Foxborough, MA, USA; New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady (12) is tackled by Indianapolis Colts defensive end Arthur Jones (97) during the second quarter in the AFC Championship Game at Gillette Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Stew Milne-USA TODAY Sports

3. Comparing the drop in PSI of the Colts footballs and the Patriots footballs

The initial problem is that only four Colts balls were checked in comparison too eleven Patriots balls. Through the smaller sample size with the Colts balls there could be some inaccuracies. If you take the measurements from alternate official Dyrol Prioleau, the New England Patriots balls fell by an average of 1.03 PSI from the believed initial value, with a standard deviation of .401. Then the Colts balls fell by an average of .6625 PSI with a standard deviation of .305. This data is assuming that the Patriots balls started at 12.5 PSI and the Colts at 13.1 PSI.

If you model both of these measurements as normal distribution, the probability that the average deflation of the two teams balls were the same, or that the Colts balls actually deflate more on average is 23 %. 23% is a significantly high value that can not simply be ignored. Even if you do not look at the mathematics, it is obvious to see that both teams balls deflated quite a bit, so a complete rejection of science should not be made, but yet still was made by the Wells report.

There are also other issues with the report, such as the fact that it doesn’t mention or discuss most of Tom Brady’s testimony. The report also uses the fact that Tom Brady gave both staff members memorabilia as strong evidence that they were colluding, when it is very common for players, and especially Tom Brady, to give employees memorabilia as they often very low paid. Obviously, some of the text messages are implicating, but even those are possibly misunderstood. It is possible that Brady asked them to deflate the balls as low as possible, within the allowed levels because in prior games the ball has been too hard.

To conclude, the Wells report has clear inaccuracies that should make it impossible for NFL to pass judgement against Tom Brady. The report displays a positive bias towards the league and fails to address many inaccuracies that are evident in the evidence gained by Ted Wells. They failed to discuss the gross mismanagement by the league, that continuously allowed massive leaks, often with false information, to be released prior to the Super Bowl, and that could have effected the Patriots mental state of mind.

Feb 4, 2015; Boston, MA, USA; New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady (12) and his son during the Super Bowl XLIX-New England Patriots Parade. Mandatory Credit: Greg M. Cooper-USA TODAY Sports

In the end, there are only very few people who actually know if the balls were purposely deflated and if Tom Brady was a part of it. If Brady was a part of it, then he should be punished. I do not believe that punishment should be a suspension simply because the NFL mostly gives out suspensions for substance abuse, dangerous play on the field or off the field trouble, and lowering the PSI level is not part of any of those sections. We may never know what actually happened, but currently there is not enough evidence to prove that Tom Brady ordered the footballs deflated.

Commissioner Roger Goodell and the entire league office has been under continuous scrutiny, which puts a lot pressure on them. To me they have already made mistakes in this investigation and it would be terrible to suspend one of the all-time greats of football, for something of which you do not have proof. In the United States one is innocent till proven guilty and that standard should hold up as well in the NFL. The next few days will be very interesting to watch in which direction the league goes, but either way this will just add another chip to Tom Brady’s shoulder in his quest to win his fifth Super Bowl.

As proven earlier, based on the deflation numbers of the ball there is 23 % percent chance that the balls deflated at the same rate or that the Colts balls actually deflated faster. Should one of the all-time greats really be suspended for something when there is at least a 23 % percent chance that it was caused by science. To put the 23% into perspective, that is only two percent less likely than getting two heads when flipping a coin twice. I truly hope the league does not act rashly without any real evidence, as it simply be another mistake made by the league office.

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