One of the things that's kind of amazing about the report and the league's response is that it is weak at every step. This means that there is no one problem that has been the focus of sustained attack. This is a problem in the public dialogue, hopefully it won't be one the appeal/in court, or wherever the real battle is fought. But, just to summarize a lot of what has been said here:
1) there is not good reason to believe that there is a discrepancy in ball pressures that requires explanation
2) even if there where, there are reasons to suspect the two attendants, but insufficient reason to consider them guilty
3) even if there were reason to think that these guys did something, there is little reason to think Brady was aware, and no reason to think he ordered it
4) even if you totally buy the case Wells made, this would be an offense that the league has clearly never cared about
5) and there are plenty of replies to the fallback complaint that they failed cooperate
When there are so many flaws, you can't adequately explain them all in any single narrative (conversation, article, whatever). This is especially true when the issues at each step are complicated and often unintuitive -especially at the first step. The effect is that to reply you have two options: focus on one of these and concede, or look as though you are conceding, the rest, or go after them all and look like you are giving some laundry list of needling complaints which you (biased Pats fan that you are) would be looking for even if the report had been stronger.
Neither of these adequately expresses the weakness of the case against Brady and the Pats. So you (or at least I) end up sounding like a whiny Pats homer to anyone you talk to.
It's hard to know the best way, rhetorically, to handle something like this.
Edit: remove accidental copy-paste
1) there is not good reason to believe that there is a discrepancy in ball pressures that requires explanation
2) even if there where, there are reasons to suspect the two attendants, but insufficient reason to consider them guilty
3) even if there were reason to think that these guys did something, there is little reason to think Brady was aware, and no reason to think he ordered it
4) even if you totally buy the case Wells made, this would be an offense that the league has clearly never cared about
5) and there are plenty of replies to the fallback complaint that they failed cooperate
When there are so many flaws, you can't adequately explain them all in any single narrative (conversation, article, whatever). This is especially true when the issues at each step are complicated and often unintuitive -especially at the first step. The effect is that to reply you have two options: focus on one of these and concede, or look as though you are conceding, the rest, or go after them all and look like you are giving some laundry list of needling complaints which you (biased Pats fan that you are) would be looking for even if the report had been stronger.
Neither of these adequately expresses the weakness of the case against Brady and the Pats. So you (or at least I) end up sounding like a whiny Pats homer to anyone you talk to.
It's hard to know the best way, rhetorically, to handle something like this.
Edit: remove accidental copy-paste