Roger Goodell

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Brady’s Footballs: What Really Happened


Since January, the NFL has had its focus entirely on what happened to 12 New England footballs during the AFC Championship game.  After over 100 days of investigation and millions of dollars spent, the best they could come up with was “more likely than not.”  This is an extremely ambiguous statement.  What does it mean?  How do you quantify such a statement?  And how do you justify making such a statement where a person’s career is involved?

I think Ted Wells is likely to most disingenuous person I have ever heard of around pro-sports.  If I, or any other researcher, had published such a report, those people who employed me should be looking for their money back because I certainly had done a questionable job at best.  And certainly not a job worth multiple millions of dollars.  Wells chose to publish only those points that support a finding of fault on Brady’s and the Patriots organization.  Worse, he made claims of lack of cooperation which have since been shown to be at least partly if not fully false.  You cannot publish a report which makes false statements.

Strangely, Wells’ statement is probably true that Brady was generally aware of what was happening with the footballs!  But he has failed to connect Brady to anything.  Had he been a real researcher he would have known better than to limit the scope of his investigation to that single game, or for that matter, the previous games that New England played this past season.  A thorough investigation would have shed light on Brady’s likely involvement. Here’s why.

Back in 2006, Tom Brady and Peyton Manning got the NFL to agree to a rule change.  This rule change allowed them to get the footballs a quarterback is going to use in any particular game into the shape they want.  That does not, however, allow for any deviation from the football inflation constraints.  But it did empower all NFL quarterbacks.  And so as the years passed, Brady, Manning, Farve, Rivers, Rogers, and all other quarterbacks of their caliber got to fool around with the footballs.  No one took much notice, not even the referees.  By 2014 they had all made their preference known to those team personnel who prepared the footballs for game day.  Brady likes his footballs at the bottom end of allowable.  I suggest that Brady probably off-handedly, and more than once, said to these personnel that he preferred his footballs below the allowable pressure.  But, he likely never instructed them to do so.  Just as Aaron Rogers likely never instructed those people on his team to over-inflate his footballs.

The attitude of game officials at the AFC Championship game of 2014 shows us exactly how important this was to them, zero.  Even though Walt Anderson had been advised prior to the game of possible issues, I suspect he went about his business just as he had in all his previous 19 years of games, he looked the balls over for obvious violations and finding none he allowed them into the game.  I think it likely he checked a couple of balls for pressure and finding now problems, or fixing those he found, he allowed the rest into the game.  I think it likely all game officials having been acting in like manner since the NFL had previously not made it a priority.  Scott Zolak suggested that such complacency has always existed in the NFL.

What further backs this up is the record of McNally carrying the 12 footballs from the preparation room where the game officials sit to the sidelines unaccompanied.  That is contrary to the rules and yet it was allowed to happen.  The question is, how commonplace are such acts around the league?  I suspect it was very common.  Officials heretofore had never thought it all that important and therefore never enforced the rule.

What Wells needed to do, and did not do, was poll other referees around the NFL about how they treated the game day footballs allowing them anonymity in relating their sense of what has happened with them.  He also should have anonymously polled the other 31 team equipment managers about their actions.  Team and NFL lack of vigilance on properly inflated footballs more probably than not would have shown the general feeling that how a quarterback wants his football is how he gets it, even if it does mean a rule is violated.

What comes of a proper investigation in this case is that the NFL itself had not created a standard operation procedure for the handling of footballs prior to the beginning of the game.  Any organization that finds rules it creates to be crucial to its image makes certain there is a comprehensive paper trail coupled with exacting directions.

Tom Brady certainly made it known to his equipment manager, Jastremski, exactly how he liked his footballs.  It is unlikely he said anything on the day of the AFC Championship game, or even in the days immediately prior to the game, because it was already well established what he wanted.  He likely suspected the footballs were underinflated but chose not to say anything lest that be changed.

Similarly, Walt Anderson knew the rules of how footballs are to be delivered to the sidelines but when he noticed McNally taking them by himself it was just something he had observed 100 times before with every team in the NFL and it did not occur to him that it was anything out of the usual or even an infraction.

Brady needs to own his part in this, Goodell his failures, Wells his failures, etc.  This is an institutional failure more than it is the failing of any one individual.  Goodell desperately needs to vacate the Wells report, all punishment levied, and announce that the NFL has failed the fans and show the changes that are put in place to insure that things like this never happen again.

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NFL, Goodell Botch Deflated Football Investigation


I went on the record here right after this whole mess started by stating I thought the Patriots were “obviously” at fault.  A day later I was not nearly so sure.  And now I am convinced the Patriots are simply the victims of Roger Goodell’s incompetence.  The only thing that has kept this story alive is the NFL’s lack of transparency.  In truth, it is, as the Bard penned, “much ado about nothing.”  The naysayers will have you believe that this is really about the integrity of “them game” and the NFL.  Well, that went right out the window when Goodell decided, for God knows what reason, to be 100% secretive about what they knew.  To make matters worse, there have been leaks from “well-placed sources.”  Goodell’s absolute failure to address any of those leaks shows exactly how incompetent he really is.  And worst of all, this has generated more adverse controversy than the Ray Rice scandal ever did.  And this is all over how much a bunch of footballs were inflated in a game where both teams have stated they could have been playing with a bar of soap and the outcome would have been the same?

First of all there is a rat on the loose.  By that I mean, for this to have gained any momentum at all someone at some team, I am betting on Baltimore, complained to the league offices that he suspected the Patriots of using underinflated balls.  What this coward did not do is bring it up immediately but waited until just before the AFC Championship game.  It is also my bet that this person was not the owner, head coach or other official of the Ravens at that level but someone at a slightly lower level who spoke out of turn, without permission of his boss, but that the statement made, like Pandora’s box, raised the specter of impropriety forcing the NFL to take action.

Roger Goodell is informed and realizes he must do something to maintain the integrity of the game.  Had this been his predecessor, Paul Tagliabue, he would have quickly, and quietly, informed the 32 owners of the suspicion which had been raised and that checks on the condition of the balls would be made.  Had Goodell done that, the actions of a good leader, the only thing we would have talked about over the past 8 or 9 days, would have been the Super Bowl match-ups.  But of course Goodell lacked common sense and allowed the opening of Pandora’s box.

Goodell is a lawyer and should be well versed in the concept of total transparency during an investigation.  In most investigations the public’s demand for information is answered in a reasonable way.  The public is generally given enough information from the investigators, and/or, the originators, so they have a fair understanding of what is transpiring.  In this case, however, Goodell has allowed speculation, hyperbole, unsubstantiated leaks, and all sorts of foolishness to grow and fester in the public’s mind.  Journalists, broadcast and print, have fallen into the trap and become proponents of even the flimsiest of statements.  The latest being that the NFL has video of a ballboy doing something.  That of course came from Fox news who, like journalist tend to do, refuse to name their sources.  And that has been the downfall of every journalist to date.  They have allowed all these unsubstantiated reports to take on a life of their own and added to it by introducing their own theories.  It is exactly like the Salem witch trials: a harmless interaction between two girls and their nanny is mixed with fear and sensationalism, and suddenly what should have been attributed to youthful foolishness turns into something ugly and entirely unwarranted.

Goodell blew it a second time when he had the opportunity, Wednesday January 21 at the latest, to tell us what the league knew for fact, not speculation. He could have said something like, “the head linesman checked all 12 Patriots balls and found 11 of them did not meet the minimum requirement.  They were between 1/2 and 1 p.s.I. out of range.  At this moment we do know the reason for this but we have no reason to believe they have been tampered with.  We will, however, continue to investigate this and will report our finding when completed.”  A statement like that which would have been 100% true would likely have made this backburner news for everyone.  It would not have let the Patriots off the hook but simply by saying that they know of no tampering would have put this entire issue in proper light.

For my entire adult working life I worked in jobs which required research.  I have been published in a scientific journal, ( http://arc.aiaa.org/doi/abs/10.2514/6.2003-379), and submitted scholarly papers at Harvard University.  In all instances it was both expected and required that I name my sources and reference primary sources.  A primary source is an actual witness to an event or scientific proof of an assertion.  Without that my assertions have no merit and can be dismissed as untrue.  It is that principle I call the journalists who have reported on this mess to hold themselves to.  I believe that if they have graduated from any reputable school of journalism, they were taught that this principle reigns supreme.  Otherwise good journalists have allowed themselves to be caught up in this foolishness.  It is foolishness because to date not a single shred of evidence of even this slightest amount of wrongdoing has been demonstrated.  Goodell could have done on Wednesday what Bellichik did on Saturday and that would have been the end of it.  He could have said on Wednesday that he has instructed all 32 teams to be more vigilant with regard to ball pressure during the course of a game.  But when you lack the common sense principles of good leadership, you fail to do these things.

For Roger Goodell this football season has been an unmitigated disaster and he has only himself to blame.  If he has an ounce of integrity, immediately following this inquiry’s finding he will resign for the good of the league.  His consistent bad judgment cannot be tolerated.