When the Wells Report was released last week, and when Patriots chairman and CEO Robert Kraft made a statement in response to the report's findings soon thereafter, one of the document's strongest contentions came into question.
In the report, it's made clear that Patriots locker room attendant Jim McNally was not made available to Wells for a follow-up interview.
Kraft disputed that notion, and strongly, in his initial statement following the report's release: "Given our level of cooperation throughout the process, I was offended by the comments made in the Wells Report in reference to not making an individual available for a follow-up interview. What the report fails to mention is that he had already been interviewed four times and we felt the fifth request for access was excessive for a part-time game day employee who has a full-time job with another employer."
Wells had a chance to respond to Kraft's response during a conference call on Tuesday. And round and round we go.
According to Wells, McNally was interviewed four times. But not by him and his team.
McNally was interviewed three times by NFL investigators, and then Wells Report investigators got one shot at him, Wells explained.
“The Patriots provided me, in my opinion, with substantial cooperation except in one critical and crucial area," Wells said. "I wanted to do a second interview with Jim McNally. Jim McNally was the second Patriots person I interviewed. I wanted -- after I interviewed others including Tom Brady -- to do a second interview of McNally, to put other questions to him."
New England Patriots
Wells wanted to ask McNally about the text message in which McNally called himself "the deflator," among other things. McNally, who resides in New Hampshire, was not provided by the Patriots to do another sit-down interview with Wells.
"I asked for a second interview," Wells said. "I said I would go to New Hampshire, I would interview him in the morning, afternoon night, I would do it whenever he was free. And they said not only could I not interview him, they wouldn’t even tell him of my request for an interview."
As Wells tells it, not only did the Patriots not provide McNally for a second interview. He said the team also asked him to disregard anything that had been uncovered by NFL investigators during their interactions with McNally.
"NFL security people talked to McNally on three occasions," Wells said. "They talked to him on the night of the game for approximately 40 minutes. They talked to him the next morning by telephone for about 20 minutes. They talked to him in person I believe the next day for about 30 minutes. Those are three interviews.
"The Patriots urged me when I got to the case to start fresh, not to pay any attention to what NFL security had done. In fact they thought the people at NFL Security were biased. They applauded when I said I wanted to start fresh. And for them to later say I couldn’t have a second interview with the most important person in the case was a lack of cooperation."
And that lack of cooperation, appears to be what led the league to come down with an unprecedented punishment on Monday.