The Deflator would have talked, but Patriots drew the line
The Patriots originally pledged full cooperation with the NFL’s investigation into football inflation. Eventually, however, the Patriots decided that cooperation had its limits.
The team declined to make Jim McNally, who had been interviewed multiple times during the process by league officials and by Ted Wells, available for a follow-up interview. As explained at page 87 of the report, Wells wanted to ask McNally specifically about a text message he sent to John Jastremski at or around halftime of New England’s game against the Packers at Lambeau Field on November 30, 2014: “Deflate and give somebody that jkt.”
Patriots employee Jim McNally was willing to talk, but had to be concerned after he’d been ambushed at his home by ESPN’s Kelly Naqi based on a perceived leak from her husband.
Tom E. Curran, Patsfans:
Kelly Naqi is the spouse of Hussain Naqi, a former league office employee from 1998 to 2002 who has kept up his strong Park Avenue ties through his present job as an executive for the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Hussain Naqi was as a paralegal for Covington & Burling, a Washington, D.C.-based law firm that has represented the NFL in different matters over the years
Hussain Naqi worked for the New Meadowlands Stadium Company in East Rutherford, N.J. There, he served as Vice President of Business Planning and General Counsel at MetLife Stadium, the home of the Jets and Giants. Naqi would have worked closely with the league office on all the logistics for Super Bowl 48. The man in charge of “running” the Super Bowl for the NFL is its Vice President of Game Operations. He would speak to Naqi a lot. His name is Mike Kensil.
"Just one more thing" - Columbo
If the New England Patriots had given Ted Wells another Jim McNally interview, and the text messages and emails from Tom Brady, it still wouldn't have been enough. Only chumps don’t quit when they’re ahead.
When you get your job back Jim, QB Jimmy Garoppolo like his footballs at 16 PSI. He is used to the winds whipping off Lake Michigan. Air pressure depends on the density of the air, or how close together its molecules are. In cold air, the molecules are more closely packed together than in warm air, so cold air is more dense than warm air.
"What we have here is a failure to cooperate."
Paul Murphy is a freelance writer from New Hampshire. .
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