After it was announced that the NFL had decided to suspend New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady for 4 games because of his probable involvement in “DeflateGate”, his agent immediately went on the defense a tirade. Brady’s agent Don Yee presumed to vigorously defend his client, while calling out both the integrity of the league and its investigation as depicted in the Wells Report. He issued several statements, noting that an appeal of the 4-game suspension was imminent.
Among his statements, Yee accused the Colts of collusion, citing that there was premeditated planning involved of trying to catch the Patriots
red-handed
lighter-handed in the deflation of footballs:
"“The report also presents significant evidence the NFL participated with the Colts in some type of pre-AFC Championship Game planning regarding the footballs,” Don Yee said. “This fact may raise serious questions about the integrity of the games we view on Sundays.”"
While Yee can proclaim that there was some form of a “sting operation” and that the Colts were involved, the evidence points to the contrary. If the league truly wanted to catch the Patriots in the act, why wait until the first half is over?
Why not just catch Jim McNally as soon as he left the bathroom right after the presumed deflation of footballs?
Jan 18, 2015; Foxborough, MA, USA; New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady (12) warms up before the AFC Championship Game against the Indianapolis Colts at Gillette Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Robert Deutsch-USA TODAY Sports
If it was a sting operation, either head referee Walt Anderson wasn’t filled in or it was the most poorly executed sting operation of all time. One would have to think that it’s not a good sign when your head referee is unable to locate the footballs just minutes before kickoff. If the NFL truly wanted to catch the Patriots in the act, there’s no need to even wait a half of play, where the deflated footballs can even potentially impact such a high stakes game.
The NFL wouldn’t have had to hire world-class scientists to study and measure the possible impact of whether gameplay and cold weather caused the significant deflation of the Patriots footballs because those footballs would’ve never even left the tunnel in the first place, had the league actually performed a sting operation.
The NFL’s lead investigator Ted Wells has reiterated that there was no sting operation, rather the NFL simply didn’t take the Colts initial concerns seriously enough:
"“When the Colts made the complaint, no one at the league office took the complaint seriously,” Wells said today. “The NFL flipped the complaint by email to the operations people so they knew about it. They told the refs. Referee Walt Anderson thought it was just a normal complaint. You get these types of things all the time. Nobody paid that much attention to it.”"
Yee is Brady’s agent and is going to defend his client to the bitter end and rightfully so, but the facts clearly show that it wasn’t a sting operation. Rather, his client probably cheated, even to a small degree, and the league was able to obtain enough evidence to show that he was likely the driving force behind the illegal manipulation of footballs.
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