Three days after the NFL suspended Tom Brady four games to start the NFL season, the Patriots have issued a rebuttal of sorts.
The team sent out a link to WellsReportContext.com, a site which exhaustively attempts to point out inconsistencies in Ted Wells' 243 pages of findings on Brady and the use of under-inflated footballs. The Wells Report concluded it was "more probable than not" that Brady was "at least generally aware of the inappropriate activities" regarding the deflation of Patriots game balls used in the AFC Championship Game against the Colts.
The report came out on the same day that Tom Bradyofficially filed an appeal for his suspension. The website, released Thursday by the Patriots, has nearly 20,000 words of rebuttal.
"The conclusions of the Wells Report are, at best, incomplete, incorrect and lack context," the introduction to the website reads. "The Report dismisses the scientific explanation for the natural loss of psi of the Patriots footballs by inexplicably rejecting the Referee's recollection of what gauge he used in his pregame inspection. Texts acknowledged to be attempts at humor and exaggeration are nevertheless interpreted as a plot to improperly deflate footballs, even though none of them refer to any such plot.
"There is no evidence that Tom Brady preferred footballs that were lower than 12.5 psi and no evidence anyone even thought that he did. All the extensive evidence which contradicts how the texts are interpreted by the investigators is simply dismissed as 'not plausible.' Inconsistencies in logic and evidence are ignored."
The website also includes a supporting document from Nobel Laureate Roderick MacKinnon addressing the Wells Report's scientific conclusions. MacKinnon writes that "The Wells Report conclusion that physical law cannot explain the pressures is incorrect. ... I believe the data available on ball pressures can be explained on the basis of physical law, without manipulation."
More of the "highlights" of the response are below. Brady officially appealed his suspension on Thursday.
"Relying on Mr. Anderson's (NFL official Walt Anderson) best recollections, basic science fully explains the drop in PSI of the Patriots Footballs during the first half ... With the Logo gauge, 8 of the 11 Patriots footballs are in the Ideal Gas Law range and the average of all 11 Patriots footballs was 11.49 -- fully consistent with the Ideal Gas Law's prediction of exactly what that psi would be."
» The Patriots' lawyers point out some of ESPN's January reporting that has now been been proven to be incorrect.
"The January 18 letter to the Patriots also contained two significant misstatements that set a tone for this investigation and were an apparent source of media misreporting: 1) that one of the Patriots footballs was measured at 10.1 psi at halftime, an obvious misstatement; 2) that all of the Colts footballs measured within regulation -- another misstatement. The League never corrected this notice in any respect. Why was the League content to have the Patriots dealing with this investigation for months based on inaccurate information?