Investigator on the defensive

The man blistered after the Deflategate investigation passionately, vigorously and at times emotionally, defended his integrity on Tuesday. No, not Tom Brady. And not either of the New England Patriots football handlers.

But rather Ted Wells. The lead investigator. On a conference call with a handful NFL reporters.

Just your latest surprise in the NFL’s latest scandal that won’t go away or stop stealing headlines.

You’d expect to hear nothing but calm, controlled, dispassionate discourse from so renowned a legal eagle as Wells, whose report last week led to the NFL’s harsh punishments of Brady, the Patriots and their football handlers on Monday.

Instead, from the outset of the conference call we learned that the whole point of it was to give Wells a stump and megaphone from which to defend his honour. Passionately.

The Patriots, Brady’s agent Donald Yee and many prominent voices in the media have questioned Wells’ impartiality, and that of the NFL and many of its executives.

“I totally reject any suggestion that I was not independent, or that the report in some way was slanted to reach a particular result,” Wells said. “I reject all of it.”

Wells never spoke to the press on conference calls following his previous sports-scandal investigations, such as Bullygate two years ago. So why this time?

“Because this is the first time (people are) questioning my independence, and in some way suggesting that I was influenced by the league office,” Wells said. “And I think that is wrong. And that is what (prompted) me to speak today.” Wells was wound up. He at times raised his voice for emphasis, repeated himself within answers (which we all do when emotions get the best of us) and, when he got too carried away, had to be cut off by the media-relations moderator to get to another questioner.

At the end of it, Wells was asked by the moderator if he had anything else to add.

“Yeah, I would like to say one thing,” Wells replied. Then he proceeded to repeat points he’d made already, a full transcript of which provides the best sense of his tenor:

“In my mind the NFL, based on my view of the world, certainly wasn’t hoping that I would come back with a report that would find that something was wrong with the Patriots or Tom Brady. They wanted me to get to the bottom of the facts. And all of this discussion some way that people at the league office wanted to get, you know, one of the most popular, iconic players in the league; the real face of the league. It just doesn’t make any sense.

“It’s just a RIDICULOUS allegation. What drove the decision in this report was one thing. It was the evidence. And I could not ethically ignore the import and relevancy of those text messages and the other evidence.

“I mean, the notion that (alleged football deflator Jim) McNally is referring to himself as the ‘deflator’ before the season starts, and threatening that he is ‘not going to ESPN … yet’ — no one can ignore the implications of that text message, and no one can see it as a joke.

“And nor is it circumstantial evidence. It is direct evidence. And it is inculpatory.”

Inculpatory means evidence that shows a person’s involvement in an act.

Wells’ thin skin aside, the only thing disturbing about his discourse Tuesday was that he at times gave the unavoidable impression he remains if not livid, then at the least indignant — even a little bitter — that both the Patriots and Brady spurned his repeated requests for additional co-operation.

“Let me be clear,” Wells said. “I have no objections for Mr. Yee to give the media his notes. There’s nothing, I guarantee you, in those notes that would have made any difference to my decision. So he should publish the notes and stop acting like there’s some secret in the notes.”

Wells refuted Patriots owner Robert Kraft’s implication that McNally had been interviewed four times by Wells’ investigators, not one time as the report said, before refusing a followup.

“I am happy to respond to that,” Wells said. “Before I was appointed, NFL security people talked to McNally on three occasions … The Patriots urged me when I got into the case to start fresh, not to pay any attention to what NFL security had done. In fact they thought the people at NFL security were biased.

“They applauded when I said, ‘I’m starting fresh.’ For them later on to say I couldn’t even have a second interview of the most important person in the case was just … a lack of co-operation.”

Wells said he charged the NFL “by the hour,” and his bill will be in the “millions.”

So he’s hurting, just not for cash. Again like Brady.