Patriots’ rebuttal has air of absurdity

The New England Patriots should have quit while they were ahead.

In their equally voluminous rebuttal to the Wells Encyclopedia, err, Report, the Patriots open with what can be viewed as a persuasive case for why they didn’t cheat in attempting to explain the science of football air pressure.

Never mind that a physics professor from The State University of New York at Stony Brook told USA TODAY Sports that the crux of New England’s argument is irrelevant. The Patriots’ explanation is so mind-numbing and … smart-sounding that you’ll be

ready to exonerate Tom Brady after reading it. And then the Patriots go off the rails.

By the end of their rebuttal, the Patriots seem nuttier than those folks who continue to insist the moon landing was a hoax.

For example, team employees Jim McNally and John Jastremski were talking about losing weight, not siphoning air out of footballs, when they used “deflate” in their texts. So when McNally called himself “the deflator,” he was poking fun at himself and his struggles with his weight. Seriously. The Patriots explain the increase in texts and phone calls between Brady and Jastremski after Deflategate broke, in part, as Brady looking out for Jastremski. Brady was used to the limelight and critics, the Patriots said, Jastremski was not.

“Mr. Brady’s reaching out to Mr. Jastremski to see how he was holding up in these circumstances is not only understandable, but commendable,” the Patriots wrote.

In that case, Brady should reconsider the appeal of his fourgame suspension filed Thursday and instead lobby for sainthood.

The other explanation for the flurry of communication, the Patriots said, was business. The Super Bowl was coming up, and Brady wanted to talk to Jastremski about when the balls would be prepared, when he could practice with them, when they’d be shipped to Arizona, when he could use them in Arizona.

“Footballs needed to be prepared for the Super Bowl. Since this was Mr. Jastremski’s first Super Bowl experience since assuming the role as game football preparer, it is not surprising he and Mr. Brady spoke a lot about football preparation during the days after the AFC Championship Game,” the Patriots said.

In other words, Brady was meticulous about the footballs he used. This was backed up by his fury at discovering the footballs in a game against the New York Jets had been overinflated, with Brady going so far as to ask that officials be shown a copy of the NFL rule for psi range before future games. And yet when it came to being able to tell whether a ball was underinflated or overinflated, Brady had no idea.

“What Mr. Brady explained to the investigators is that the consistency of the footballs and their tactile feel are most important to him, and he cannot even tell the difference if a football is within regulation or a psi or so above or below regulation,” the Patriots explained.

Nor, despite wanting to be sure the footballs he selected for the games were the ones he actually used, did Brady have a clue what happened after officials approved them. How they got to the field and who took them there were details that didn’t concern him.

Note to Brady’s agent, Don Yee. Rather than being incensed that Wells left Brady’s testimony out of his report, you should have been thrilled.

What of McNally’s 1-minute, 40-second detour to a bathroom near the field when he had the game balls? That really was to go to the bathroom, the Patriots said. With almost 20 minutes left before the start of the game, McNally wouldn’t have needed to rush if he’d gone in there to deflate the footballs.

Except that someone might have noticed if he’d disappeared for longer. Or that, with so much time before the game, he could have used the bathroom in the officials’ locker room. You know, the one he usually used.

And the best part is the website the Patriots set up for the rebuttal — WellsReportContext.com — as if they’re some sort of truthers.

The Patriots and their highpriced attorneys were on to something when they went after the NFL’s science. Chang Kee Jung, a physics professor at SUNY at Stony Brook, told USA TODAY Sports that it’s the variances between the Indianapolis Colts’ and the Patriots’ footballs that’s important. Not, as the Patriots argue, the different gauges.

But there has been enough suspicion about the NFL and its methodology that the Patriots could have won over a lot of doubters if they’d stuck with their first line of defense. Instead, they kept on going.

Right off a cliff.

FOLLOW COLUMNIST NANCY ARMOUR @nrarmour for commentary on the latest in major sports.