A week after the American Enterprise Institute offered their rebuttal of the Ted Wells Report, Tom Brady is getting ammunition for his appeal from another source.
CSNNE.com writes that Rachel Ehrenberg of the Science News has published an article pokes holes in the science of the Wells Report, titled “Deflategate favored foul play over science.” She writes that the Wells Report fails to acknowledge scientific data on the allegedly doctored footballs.
According to Ehrenberg, the findings were “collected so haphazardly that they wouldn’t be allowed in a high school science fair.” The two different gauges differed in their readings by approximately 0.4 PSI, and it isn’t clear which was used before the game because that data was not recorded.
Also, while 11 of 12 Patriot footballs measured below 12.5 PSI at halftime, so did three out the four Colt footballs, according to one of the gauges.
Mike Petraglia of WEEI.com brings up an even more detailed summary of Ehrenberg’s report. Ehrenberg consulted a number of experts to recreate the conditions of the footballs from the night in question. Scientist Michael Naughton, an expert in condensed matters physics, recreated the situation in his lab at Boston College, finding numerous factors that could have led to the significant deflation.
Pittsburgh-based engineering firm HeadSmart labs also investigated the matter. The Wells Report had its experts as well, and Ehrenberg writes that video and text message evidence isn’t refuted by the science, but that Wells did not give the scientific possibility of DeflateGate it’s due.
All of this, plus the AEI report may still not be sufficient to get Brady off the hook for his four-game suspension. Earlier today, we heard from Ben Volin that there is no way Brady’s suspension is revoked, only possibly reduced.
However, all of these rebuttals to the Wells Report all enhance the case of Brady and the Patriots that they did nothing wrong. Should Roger Goodell, who refused to excuse himself from the appeal, uphold a suspension or even a reduced suspension, Brady and the NFLPA will have the opportunity to appeal. Especially if Goodell is not swift with his decision, Brady’s appeal in court could push the decision further back, and he keeps appealing all the way up, he may not have to serve his suspension until late in the season, or even until 2016, according to Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk.