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AEIs Analysis Of Wells Report Should Embarrass Goodell, Wells, NFL CBS Boston
Patriots
Hurley: AEI’s Analysis Of Wells Report Should Embarrass Goodell, Wells, NFL
By Michael Hurley, CBS BostonJune 15, 2015 1:19 PM
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Roger Goodell, Ted Wells (Photos by Mike Lawrie/Thos Robinson/Getty Images)
Those who wanted to see the Patriots go down in flames would see it as an irrefutable beacon of truth, one that exposed Tom Brady and Co. as cheaters. Those who wanted to see the Patriots exonerated could find plenty in the report to dispute, thereby maintaining the idea that the Patriots never did anything wrong.
As someone who’s dedicated more time to the subject than I’d like to admit, I still believe Jim McNally let some air out of those footballs. I base that mostly on the fact that he lied to NFL investigators multiple times about his trip into the bathroom, and even after he admitted to stopping in the bathroom, he claimed to have used a urinal. The bathroom he visited did not have a urinal.
So I think the guy let a few puffs of air out of the footballs, but I would guess it was an amount so insignificant that it could hardly register on any test. I would assume the action was done mostly as a response to NFL referee Bill Leavy’s negligence in Week 7, when the Patriots balls were jacked up to 16 PSI. I think that Brady screamed at John Jastremski after that game, saying something along the lines of, “Listen, I don’t care, just make sure I never get footballs like that in a game.” And so, I think McNally “took the top off” the balls, as it’s known, just to ensure the footballs weren’t rock hard. I do not believe the amount of air let out of the footballs was significant in any way, and I therefore believe the response to the situation in totality has been a giant overreaction.
If you’ll notice, there’s an emphasis on eight points made there, because they’re all based on what I think. And that’s an issue that most people aren’t considering: It really doesn’t matter what you think. It doesn’t matter what I think. What should matter is what’s proven. And there can be no debate about this: The Wells report proves nothing.
Now, this has been stated time and time again by anyone who’s taken the time to read the entire report, but a new study
from the American Enterprise Institute has now made headlines for diminishing the credibility of Ted Wells’ entire report.
The report, released Friday afternoon in advance of a Sunday New York Times story, concludes that scientific firm Exponent used a flawed approach to determine that the Patriots’ footballs deflated more than the Colts footballs on the night of the AFC Championship Game.
“The Wells report conclusions are likely incorrect,” the report states, “and a simple misunderstanding appears to have led the NFL to these incorrect conclusions.”
Fortunately, the AEI report is not interminably long, so it’s easy to run through its main points.
–Overall the NFL, Roger Goodell and Ted Wells should all be embarrassed — very, veryembarrassed. It’s one thing when a lowly sports writer tears apart the obvious holes in the Wells report. Such digging can be easily disregarded as biased or slanted, based solely on the geographical location of its origin.
But this? This is a group of educated men — Kevin A. Hassett, Joseph W. Sullivan and Stan A. Veuger — with no financial or personal stake in the situation and with mounds of facts and data. And they are completely dismissing the data used in the report which led to the unprecedented punishment handed down to the Patriots and Tom Brady.
“The way the evidence is presented reflects pretty poorly on the authors of the report as a whole,”Veuger told 98.5’s Adam Jones on Friday.
–The immediate reaction to such a report consists mainly of folks rushing to figure out the bias of the people who put it together. (Interestingly, this same suspicion did not take place after the release of the NFL-sponsored Wells report, even though nobody in the country believed the results of the NFL-sponsored Mueller report just a few months earlier.)
And so, when it was uncovered that “The Kraft Foundation” contributes to AEI, people believed they found the smoking gun. Except, well, that’s the wrong Kraft.
So, why would these gentlemen take the time to run the data that showed the Wells report proved nothing in the way of illegal deflation of footballs? That’s simple. They say it — without saying it — in the first paragraph of their report.
In 2012, during the “Bountygate” controversy, Hassett and Veuger performed “a statistical analysis of injury data” in 2012 to determine whether or not the Saints injured more opponents than other teams.
“We found that, in fact, the Saints players injured fewer competing players than all but one team during the first year of their supposed ‘bounty’ program, and that there was no evidence over the entire period that the Saints injured more players than the typical team,” the report states. “Following our testimony before former National Football League (NFL) Commissioner Paul Tagliabue, the NFL’s penalties against the Saints players were withdrawn, and news accountshave pointed to our analysis as contributing to that decision.”
News accounts have pointed to our analysis as contributing to that decision. That right there, my friends, is a nice Humblebrag (RIP Harris Wittels).
Why are they doing this? If you had the chance to influence the world’s most powerful sports organization for the second time in a few years, you wouldn’t be interested in doing so? Of course you would. It sets up some primo Humblebrag opportunities.
–The crux of the report’s findings is simple. For one, the Wells report does not account for all four possibilities regarding the use of gauges when measuring the footballs.
On this point, AEI says there are four possibilities for the gauges used to measure the footballs:
1. Patriots balls were measured by the Logo gauge, Colts balls were measured by the Non-Logo gauge.
2. Patriots balls were measured by the Non-Logo gauge, Colts balls were measured by the Logo gauge.
3. Both Patriots and Colts footballs were measured by the Logo gauge.
4. Both Patriots and Colts footballs were measured by the Non-Logo gauge.
“[Referee Walt] Anderson remembers that he used the Logo gauge before the game, but the Wells report, in a direct contradiction of that recollection, concludes that he used the Non-Logo gauge before the game,” the report states.
You might remember that after the release of the Wells report, Pro Football Talk picked up on this discrepancy. Wells was asked about this issue — that is, discrediting the recollection of the key witness in his report, the same witness whose memory and recollection was praised as trustworthy and absolute in other parts of the Wells report — in a conference call with reporters, and he stated, “it doesn’t matter because regardless of which gauges were used the scientific consultants addressed all of the permutations in their analysis.”
AEI responded, “This statement is factually incorrect. The Wells report neither provides evidence for every possible permutation of gauge use nor proves that the report’s conclusions are independent of gauge use.”
The AEI crew then tested all four scenarios.
“These results, in aggregate, contradict Wells’s claim that the analysis yields the same result regardless of which set of assumptions about the two gauges was used,” the report states. “Even an unequivocal finding of a statistically significant difference between the pressure drops of the Patriots and of the Colts does not necessarily constitute evidence of illegal deflation.”
On that point, the AEI group slightly misses the point, because the Wells report never states definitively that illegal deflation occurred. Rather, the Wells report asserts that illegal deflation “more likely than not” took place. Still, the AEI crew exposes methods that were either careless or intentionally deceitful. Neither of those explanations look good for Wells, Exponent or the NFL.
AEIs Analysis Of Wells Report Should Embarrass Goodell, Wells, NFL CBS Boston
Patriots
Hurley: AEI’s Analysis Of Wells Report Should Embarrass Goodell, Wells, NFL
By Michael Hurley, CBS BostonJune 15, 2015 1:19 PM
Share on emailView Comments
Roger Goodell, Ted Wells (Photos by Mike Lawrie/Thos Robinson/Getty Images)
Those who wanted to see the Patriots go down in flames would see it as an irrefutable beacon of truth, one that exposed Tom Brady and Co. as cheaters. Those who wanted to see the Patriots exonerated could find plenty in the report to dispute, thereby maintaining the idea that the Patriots never did anything wrong.
As someone who’s dedicated more time to the subject than I’d like to admit, I still believe Jim McNally let some air out of those footballs. I base that mostly on the fact that he lied to NFL investigators multiple times about his trip into the bathroom, and even after he admitted to stopping in the bathroom, he claimed to have used a urinal. The bathroom he visited did not have a urinal.
So I think the guy let a few puffs of air out of the footballs, but I would guess it was an amount so insignificant that it could hardly register on any test. I would assume the action was done mostly as a response to NFL referee Bill Leavy’s negligence in Week 7, when the Patriots balls were jacked up to 16 PSI. I think that Brady screamed at John Jastremski after that game, saying something along the lines of, “Listen, I don’t care, just make sure I never get footballs like that in a game.” And so, I think McNally “took the top off” the balls, as it’s known, just to ensure the footballs weren’t rock hard. I do not believe the amount of air let out of the footballs was significant in any way, and I therefore believe the response to the situation in totality has been a giant overreaction.
If you’ll notice, there’s an emphasis on eight points made there, because they’re all based on what I think. And that’s an issue that most people aren’t considering: It really doesn’t matter what you think. It doesn’t matter what I think. What should matter is what’s proven. And there can be no debate about this: The Wells report proves nothing.
Now, this has been stated time and time again by anyone who’s taken the time to read the entire report, but a new study
from the American Enterprise Institute has now made headlines for diminishing the credibility of Ted Wells’ entire report.The report, released Friday afternoon in advance of a Sunday New York Times story, concludes that scientific firm Exponent used a flawed approach to determine that the Patriots’ footballs deflated more than the Colts footballs on the night of the AFC Championship Game.
“The Wells report conclusions are likely incorrect,” the report states, “and a simple misunderstanding appears to have led the NFL to these incorrect conclusions.”
Fortunately, the AEI report is not interminably long, so it’s easy to run through its main points.
–Overall the NFL, Roger Goodell and Ted Wells should all be embarrassed — very, veryembarrassed. It’s one thing when a lowly sports writer tears apart the obvious holes in the Wells report. Such digging can be easily disregarded as biased or slanted, based solely on the geographical location of its origin.
But this? This is a group of educated men — Kevin A. Hassett, Joseph W. Sullivan and Stan A. Veuger — with no financial
or personal stake in the situation and with mounds of facts and data. And they are completely dismissing the data used in the report which led to the unprecedented punishment handed down to the Patriots and Tom Brady.“The way the evidence is presented reflects pretty poorly on the authors of the report as a whole,”Veuger told 98.5’s Adam Jones on Friday.
–The immediate reaction to such a report consists mainly of folks rushing to figure out the bias of the people who put it together. (Interestingly, this same suspicion did not take place after the release of the NFL-sponsored Wells report, even though nobody in the country believed the results of the NFL-sponsored Mueller report just a few months earlier.)
And so, when it was uncovered that “The Kraft Foundation” contributes to AEI, people believed they found the smoking gun. Except, well, that’s the wrong Kraft.
So, why would these gentlemen take the time to run the data that showed the Wells report proved nothing in the way of illegal deflation of footballs? That’s simple. They say it — without saying it — in the first paragraph of their report.
In 2012, during the “Bountygate” controversy, Hassett and Veuger performed “a statistical analysis of injury data” in 2012 to determine whether or not the Saints injured more opponents than other teams.
“We found that, in fact, the Saints players injured fewer competing players than all but one team during the first year of their supposed ‘bounty’ program, and that there was no evidence over the entire period that the Saints injured more players than the typical team,” the report states. “Following our testimony before former National Football League (NFL) Commissioner Paul Tagliabue, the NFL’s penalties against the Saints players were withdrawn, and news accounts
have pointed to our analysis as contributing to that decision.”News accounts have pointed to our analysis as contributing to that decision. That right there, my friends, is a nice Humblebrag (RIP Harris Wittels).
Why are they doing this? If you had the chance to influence the world’s most powerful sports organization for the second time in a few years, you wouldn’t be interested in doing so? Of course you would. It sets up some primo Humblebrag opportunities.
–The crux of the report’s findings is simple. For one, the Wells report does not account for all four possibilities regarding the use of gauges when measuring the footballs.
On this point, AEI says there are four possibilities for the gauges used to measure the footballs:
1. Patriots balls were measured by the Logo gauge, Colts balls were measured by the Non-Logo gauge.
2. Patriots balls were measured by the Non-Logo gauge, Colts balls were measured by the Logo gauge.
3. Both Patriots and Colts footballs were measured by the Logo gauge.
4. Both Patriots and Colts footballs were measured by the Non-Logo gauge.
“[Referee Walt] Anderson remembers that he used the Logo gauge before the game, but the Wells report, in a direct contradiction of that recollection, concludes that he used the Non-Logo gauge before the game,” the report states.
You might remember that after the release of the Wells report, Pro Football Talk picked up on this discrepancy. Wells was asked about this issue — that is, discrediting the recollection of the key witness in his report, the same witness whose memory and recollection was praised as trustworthy and absolute in other parts of the Wells report — in a conference call with reporters, and he stated, “it doesn’t matter because regardless of which gauges were used the scientific consultants addressed all of the permutations in their analysis.”
AEI responded, “This statement is factually incorrect. The Wells report neither provides evidence for every possible permutation of gauge use nor proves that the report’s conclusions are independent of gauge use.”
The AEI crew then tested all four scenarios.
“These results, in aggregate, contradict Wells’s claim that the analysis yields the same result regardless of which set of assumptions about the two gauges was used,” the report states. “Even an unequivocal finding of a statistically significant difference between the pressure drops of the Patriots and of the Colts does not necessarily constitute evidence of illegal deflation.”
On that point, the AEI group slightly misses the point, because the Wells report never states definitively that illegal deflation occurred. Rather, the Wells report asserts that illegal deflation “more likely than not” took place. Still, the AEI crew exposes methods that were either careless or intentionally deceitful. Neither of those explanations look
good for Wells, Exponent or the NFL.
