Patriots take Deflategate debate to the toilet – no, really
The search for justice has taken the Patriots to the bathroom.
In the latest salvo in the Deflategate fight between the Patriots and the NFL, the Patriots lawyers posted a lengthy response to the Wells report. Among its many critiques, the rebuttal, wellsreportcontext.com, challenges an insinuation in the Wells report that a Patriots ball attendant may have spent time in a restroom deflating footballs.
The NFL’s report mentioned a one-minute-40-second pre-game pitstop by Jim McNally, the Patriots’ officials’ locker room attendant, at Gillette Stadium before the AFC Championship Game.
But the Patriots team says there is nothing suspicious about the bathroom break.
“The report does not address whether one minute and 40 is consistent with the time that it takes a gentleman to enter a bathroom, relieve himself, wash his hands, and leave. In fact, it is.’’
From the Wells report:
“Based on videotape evidence and witness interviews, it has been determined that McNally removed the game balls from the Officials Locker Room at approximately 6:30 p.m. After leaving the Officials Locker Room carrying two large bags of game balls (Patriots balls and Colts balls), McNally turned left and then turned left again to walk down a corridor referred to by Patriots personnel as the “center tunnel’’ heading to the playing field. At the end of the center tunnel on the left-hand side, approximately three feet from the doors that lead to the playing field, is a bathroom. McNally entered that bathroom with the game balls, locked the door, and remained in the bathroom with the game balls for approximately one minute and forty seconds. He then left the bathroom and took the bags of game balls to the field.’’
The Wells report concluded that one minute and forty seconds was enough time for McNally to deflate the footballs to be used in the game.
“With minimal training (a single practice run), it is possible for an individual using a standard sports ball inflation needle to perform the following in approximately 60-70 seconds: open a door and enter a room, close the door, open a zippered bag containing 13 footballs, insert the needle into all footballs releasing a small amount of air from each, close and zipper the bag containing the footballs, and leave the room through the door, closing the door behind.’’
An independent investigation by Boston.com confirmed the Patriots’ contention that a gentleman can use the men’s room and wash his hands in about a minute and 40 seconds — longer if the towel dispenser is being weird.
In addition to noting how that time in the bathroom could have been used, the Patriots counsel suggested that McNally could have taken even more time had he been attempting to deflate footballs.
From wellsreportcontext.com:
“Nor does the report consider or acknowledge that, with the start of the game having been delayed, there was no reason for Mr. McNally to rush any efforts to deflate footballs in the bathroom if that was the task at hand. Mr. McNally had already been told that the start of the game had been delayed (from 6:40 to 6:50). He entered the bathroom with almost 20 minutes until game time. There was simply no need to rush were he engaged in releasing air from footballs — a process one would suspect would have to be done very carefully so as not to release too much air from any football. The one minute and 40 seconds in the bathroom was far more likely to have been for exactly the reason Mr. McNally gave.’’
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