The New England Patriots defense of their honor in the face of numerous accusations levied against the organization in the wake of the Deflategate scandal and the findings of the Wells Report may have been buoyed a bit by a recent report.
ESPN's Adam Schefter revealed on Tuesday morning that the Patriots and owner Robert Kraft did not, in fact, fire Jim McNally and John Jastremski, the team employees at the center of the Deflategate investigation, of their own volition after lead investigator Ted Wells' report was released and prior to the announcement of the sanctions handed down by the league.
"For those asking why Patriots suspended two employees if those two did nothing wrong, as New England claims: NFL asked Pats to suspend them prior to discipline being handed down, per a league source in New York. New England obliged with the NFL's request," Schefter wrote.
It had seemed previously based on the NFL's statement enumerating the various punishments New England would face that the Pats and owner Robert Kraft had fired - or, "indefinitely suspended without pay" - McNally and Jastremski immediately after the release of the Wells report.
If that had been the case, it would have looked extremely questionable for the Patriots to fire, or indefinitely suspend, two men who they then claimed to be completely innocent via their 20,000-word diatribe calling into question nearly every aspect of Wells' investigation and subsequent findings.
Kraft didn't help his own cause when, during an interview with Peter King of TheMMQB.com published on Monday, he refused to comment on why the team had suspended McNally and Jastremski despite the franchise' vehement claims of their innocence.
"Asked why he suspended club employees John Jastremski and Jim McNally despite fiercely proclaiming his organization's innocence, Kraft refused comment-for what he claimed were a variety of reasons," wrote King.
Schefter reported separately Monday night that the Patriots and the NFL were working through "back-channel conversations" to see if they can resolve their differences over Deflategate and the punishments meted out by the league.
As Schefter suggests, the release of this information could potentially help soften the blow nationally for whatever reduction of the Pats punishment the two sides are able to agree on.
