The NFL's Wells Report Is Hilarious

A thing that everyone had mostly forgotten was ever going to happen finally happened on Wednesday when Ted Wells released his report on the NFL's investigation into whether or not the Patriots intentionally deflated their balls before the AFC Championship last January against the Colts.

The reports finds that it was "more probable than not that New England Patriots personnel participated in violations of the NFL Playing Rules and were involved in a deliberate attempt to circumvent those rules." The report also states that it was more probable than not that Tom Brady was at least generally aware of it. Damning stuff, to be sure. The most interesting part of the report, however, is the text messages between locker room attendants Jim McNally and John Jastremski. Dudes are so pumped to be talking deflated balls.

Here are some of the highlights, taken from the report:

• "im going make that next ball a fuckin balloon"; "Make sure you blow up the ball to look like a rugby ball so tom can get used to it before Sunday"; "16 is nothing…wait till next sunday"

• "Can‟t wait to give you your needle this week :)" [author's note: this is fucking adorable]

• "Fucktom….make sure the pump is attached to the needle…..fuckinwatermelons coming"

• "Better be surrounded by cash and newkicks….or its a rugby sunday"

• "Maybe u will have some nice size 11s in ur locker"

• "Remember to put a couple sweet pig skins ready for tom to sign"

• "U got it kid…big autograph day for you"

• "Nice throw some kicks in and make it real special"

• "Tom must really be working your balls hard this week"

• "Tom must really be on you"

• "Tom is acting crazy about balls."

To interrupt for a second, I've waited my whole life to read those last three text messages. My whole life.

• "The only thing deflating sun..is his passingrating" [author's note: #nailedit]
• "jimmy needs somekicks….lets make a deal…..come on help the deflator"
• "Chill buddy imjust fuckin with you ….im not going to espn……..yet"

It's nice to know that even highly successful NFL franchises have a couple of screwball employees working behind the scenes.

As befits the serious nature of the 138-page report, we have each selected a page at random and wrote about the information contained in those pages. A scandal and a story this big deserves nothing less.

PAGE 13

This is a very technical and nerdy way to say "I just came." — KM

PAGE 69

Look, this is an inherently juvenile exercise and the above chart, which lists some scientific nonsense or other, is begging to be interpreted as psychosexual documentation of congress between a young, uncastrated horse and two dudes with suspiciously porn-y names. Sue me. — TR

PAGE 77

One delightful thing about the NFL is its dedication to finding the most expensive and grandiose non-solution to every problem. This is a sports league, as everyone but its own most powerful figures understands, and yet it reliably operates like Congress, in all the least complementary and most puffily obfuscatory ways that something can resemble Congress. When something like Deflategate happens, the most direct and effective response is to close the rule loophole that has been exploited; this is not the alternative minimum tax, for fuck's sake, and a problem with an easy enough fix. But because the NFL so enjoys playing nation state—playing in the same way that a little kid with popsicle all over his face will clomp around in his dad's shoes while playing office—it attacks this problem through a sort of wheezing parody of the governmental process, which is to say that it doesn't so much attack it at all as it goes through a series of seriousness-conveying rituals. This is how we wind up with white-shoe law firms being retained, at great cost, to put out voluminous and hilariously comprehensive reports comprised in large part of some dude's a-grammatical texts about how his bosses is being a total dick today. — DR

PAGE 100

My page started mid sentence, and this was the first clause after a comma. I never really knew that people could be so picky about what happens with their balls or that they don't want their balls touched after a certain point. But who am I to deny someone the right to pick what happens to their balls? — JA

PAGE 118

Once upon a time, humanity huddled in the darkness, trembling and ignorant, convinced that the Sun revolved around the Earth, monsoons were the teardrops of jealous Gods and leeches were a medical cure-all, at least for any sickness that couldn't be treated by drilling a hole in your skull to release the evil spirits inside.

Then came the scientific method. And with it, modern astronomy. Antibiotics. Moon landings. Microprocessors. And now, the Wells Report. In attempting to get to the bottom of Deflategate, the NFL hired actual scientists and engineers to run elaborate experiments that recreated the conditions of the AFC Championship Game—down to having ball boy reenactors rub and deflate balls as a telecast of the game played in the background.

Why bother with the telecast? For science! Or maybe quantum effects. Or something. If I didn't know better, I'd assume that the league was using the Wells Report to elaborately (and effectively) troll America's absurd obsession with a preposterously stupid story. Thing is, I do know better. This was serious stuff. A weirdly good faith, no-stone-left-unturned effort. Unlike, say, the NFL's commitment to concussion science. — PH