Ted Wells is the universally acclaimed attorney the NFL appointed to investigate the New England Patriots’ notorious Deflategate caper. It took Wells over 100 days, but he finally submitted his 243-page report this week.
But here is all you need to know about his findings:
It is ‘more probable than not’ that star quarterback Tom Brady was ‘at least generally aware’ two Patriots employees had intentionally deflated balls…
The report directly contradicts statements the former MVP made in a press conference on January 22, 2015. At the time Brady insisted, ‘I have no knowledge of any wrongdoing [and] I would never do anything to break the rules.’
(Sports Illustrated, May 6, 2015)
With due deference to Harvey Levin, I’m a lawyer. So trust me when I tell you that the plain meaning of these findings is that:
- Brady induced, directed, and paid off Patriots employees to deflate footballs to his liking.
- He knew that doing so constituted a flagrant violation of NFL rules.
- Not since Bill Clinton lied about having “sex with that woman” has a public figure stood up in front of the entire nation and lied through his teeth – as Brady did about Deflategate on the eve of the Super Bowl on January 22.
- Frenetic, anxious text messages between Brady and the two Patriots employees involved (one of whom they smugly referred to as “the Deflator”) leave no reasonable doubt that Brady was trying to ensure that they cover their asses and, above all, do not implicate him. These texts provide clear and convincing evidence of their consciousness of guilt; to say nothing of Brady’s refusal to grant Wells access to others that might prove even more incriminating.
- And, perhaps most damning, it is “more probable than not” that Brady has been orchestrating this Deflategate caper since the beginning of his NFL career.
Incidentally, bear in mind that Wells is presenting his report to a sports league, not a court of law. Therefore, any finding that it’s “more probable than not” that Brady is guilty as alleged is as damning as it gets.
Which brings me to my report.
It not only took me less than 100 hours to produce similar findings, but I recommended punishments for those involved that Wells’s report sustains, and which shall stand the test of time. Here, for your edification and future reference, is an excerpt from what I wrote – in “New England Patriots Caught in Deflategate,” January 21, 2015 – after officials caught Brady and his ball boys red-handed during the AFC Championship game on January 18.
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The only question now is what penalties the NFL will impose for this latest act of cheating. This is the same team and personnel, after all, that the NFL penalized for illegally videotaping their opponents’ hand signals during a game in 2007.
Indeed, the NFL should be guided by the fact that stripping the team of one first-round draft pick, fining it $250,000, and fining Coach Belichick $500,000 in that case had no deterrent effect. Of course, it should also be guided by the notorious misstep it made last year by initially giving Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice just a slap on the wrist for battering his then fiancée.
But, consistent with my assertion about the Patriots factoring in such penalties as the cost of doing business, I think the NFL should:
- Fire all support staff involved in deflating those game balls, immediately.
- Strip the team of three times as many draft picks, and fine it ten times as much, as the NFL stripped and fined the Patriots for cheating with those videotapes.
- Suspend Coach Belichick for one year without pay, immediately; despite his protestations that he knew nothing about it. He should have known, and his credibility is obviously suspect.
- Suspend quarterback Tom Brady for one year without pay, immediately; especially in light of the way he initially laughed off the allegation as utterly preposterous. He clearly knew or should have known, and he benefited more than any other player from this cheating caper.
- Place asterisks next to victories and quarterback stats this team accumulated during the Belichick-Brady era. This would consign them to the same kind of fate that will forever call into question the victories and stats associated with notorious cheaters like steroid-junkies Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, and Alex Rodriguez.
- Deny Belichick and Brady entry into the NFL Hall of Fame for the same reasons Bonds, Clemens, and Rodriguez will never make it into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Not least because of the unavoidable deduction that Belichick and Brady got away with cheating in similar fashion during far too many other games to countenance.
Of course, immediate suspensions would bar Belichick and Brady from coaching and playing, respectively, in the forthcoming Super Bowl. But I can think of no better way for NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell to redeem his and the league’s reputation (after the Ray Rice debacle) than to impose immediate suspensions…
If these suspensions make it easier for the Seattle Seahawks to win, it would constitute only a fraction of the poetic justice required to compensate for all the games, to say nothing of the three Super Bowls, the New England Patriots have won under the cheating leadership of these two arrogant schmucks.
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It’s time now for Commissioner Roger Goodell to put up or shut up about protecting the integrity of the game, especially by making NFL punishments fit player crimes. But he would be terribly misguided if he heeds the counsel of eminent commentators like “Bonnie” Bob Costas.
Because Costas appeared on the NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt yesterday and declaimed that he’d be surprised if the NFL suspends Brady for a single game. This, even though Costas knows full well that the NFL would suspend a player for 10 games if he’s caught smoking weed.
Mind you, a player who smokes weed in private is clearly not seeking to gain any unfair competitive advantage and, more importantly, is not bringing in the NFL into any disrepute. Whereas, one (a quarterback no less) who not only conspires to deflate footballs to gain an unfair competitive advantage, but then lies about it on national TV, is bringing the NFL into such disrepute even a lifetime ban is, arguably, fair and proportionate punishment.
This is why it behooves the NFL to impose a punishment in this case that does not make a mockery of the NFL’s disciplinary rules. For nothing will bring the NFL into greater disrepute than giving Brady a slap on the wrist that smacks of the same kind of slap Goodell gave Ray Rice last year – before public outrage forced him to impose a harsher punishment.
I’m on record (in my related commentary on January 21) calling for the NFL to suspend Brady for one year. But I stressed that his suspension should take effect immediate. I was all too mindful, after all, that even one year without pay would be a small price for him to pay after winning a Super Bowl and being named MVP to boot. Now the NFL seems bound to emulate the spectacle the SEC sanctioned two years ago, when it fined hedge fund manager Steven Cohen $1 billion (and imposed no jail time) for insider trading in securities that raked in nearly $10 billion. Clearly any cheater would take that risk any day.
And, by the way, it hardly matters that Brady played even better in the second half of that AFC Championship game after the footballs were properly inflated. For this is rather like saying a Wall Street banker should not be punished for running a scheme to steal money – if he demonstrated later that he could make money the old fashioned way … by earning it.
In any event, at the very least, Tom Brady’s cheating should taint his accomplishments in the NFL just as Barry Bond’s cheating has tainted his in the MLB.
Not to mention what it says about Brady’s character that he’s allowing his Daddy to make a fool of himself by claiming that the NFL is framing his “good son.” Never mind that his Daddy was just parroting the plainly absurd defense Brady’s lawyer is proffering about the NFL perpetrating a sting to entrap him. What they’re claiming makes Hillary’s claim – about a “vast right-wing conspiracy” entrapping Bill in flagrante delicto with Monica – seem credible….
The integrity of the game (or the ball, so to speak) is now in the NFL’s court (pardon the mixed metaphor). And, this time, it had better not punt….
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Deflategate…
* This commentary was originally published yesterday, Thursday, at 11:44 a.m.