Felger: DeflateGate Investigation Mostly Accurate, But Still Unfair To Patriots
The following is a transcript from Michael Felger on Thursday's Felger & Massarotti Show, edited only for clarity and brevity.
That's one thing that I think is wrong with the report. There is no context to it.
There is no look to how other teams handle their balls, there is no context to how many reports the NFL gets about other teams. Right?
I am firmly of the belief that the Patriots are not the only team that does this. It's called "taking the top" off the ball. There's even a phrase for it. I think it's relatively common in football, in the sport of football, just as doctoring a baseball would be in baseball. And if they looked at other teams, they would surely find something.
Now, no one is asking Ted Wells to go and investigate every team, but putting something in that report that would put it in context I think would have been fair to the Patriots.
I do not think that this report -- while largely, largely accurate -- was all that fair to the Patriots. I believe the league had it out for the Patriots, the league wanted to get the Patriots, and they got 'em. The Pats did it, and they got 'em. But I think that was the directive of the report. It was not to have a balanced finding. They were out go get them, and they got them.
And then there's the sting operation. And they won't admit to the sting operation, which is another big problem I have with the report. They're not transparent about that. They can't admit that, "Yes, we were warned about it, and yes we put things in place to see if those issues were true." Right? They really deny that.
The footnote on Page 46 -- and some of the best stuff in the whole report is in footnotes -- says:
Because Sullivan's email did not provide specific factual support for the Colts' concerns, NFL officials determined that it was not necessary to ask the game officials preemptively to check the air pressure in the Patriots game balls during the game, as Sullivan had requested. They reported during interviews that, without additional specific information that might raise further concern, they believed that the referee's standard pregame inspection of the game balls would be sufficient, and that a change in the standard inspection protocols was not necessary. In particular, prior to the game, there was no plan to check the air pressure of the balls at halftime or any other time during the game. There was no "sting" operation, no plan for a "sting" operation and no discussion of a "sting" operation.
I just don't even like the tone of that. Who called it a sting operation in the report? That was a charge made by fans and media and maybe the Patriots, who knows, but they're just sort of defensive. It doesn't sound professional.
Are we just dealing with the facts and the chain of evidence here, or are you engaged in an argument with somebody?
Hey, look. The league is out to get you a little bit. They've done you no favors. They did you no favors with the leaks the week of the Super Bowl -- and oh, by the way, there is nothing in the report about those. Zero point zero. There was nothing in the report about that. But the league had no problem making the Patriots look bad when the allegations were first made. They stuck their investigator on the thing for over 100 days. The Jets tampered with one of your players, and the league gave them a slap on the wrist. Now the Wells report is strongly against the Patriots. They released it on a Wednesday at 1 p.m.; they didn't dump it on Memorial Day weekend or Easter weekend or the weekend of the draft or a Friday at 5 p.m. They released it right in the middle of the news cycle for maximum play.
Add it all up -- the league has done you no favors. None. And if that has given you a complex that they're out to get you, I think you have a case.
I would just say that I think you have it coming to you in a lot of cases. The Patriots have pushed so many rules so far, that they had to have expected a pushback. And that's what this is -- a pushback from all the things that they've been doing and the league was suspicious of them.
But be that as it may, you add it all up, and the league has done them no favors to this point. None.
So again, that goes to the punishment phase. Now all of a sudden, you're going to get off lightly? That would go counter to everything that has happened so far.
But, I would say that the Patriots opened themselves up to this by having a guy like Jim McNally be the officials' locker room attendant. They opened themselves up. They did it. They did it. So, that's what we're left with.
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