So I have two major takeaways from this whole thing. (Disclaimer: I have not read the entire Wells report, mainly just the key excerpts that have been posted here and reported in the media).
1) It seems a reasonable conclusion that McNally and/or Jastremski may have illegally tampered with balls after the officials' pre-game inspection prior to the start of the AFC championship game. While I have not seen or heard any hard facts presented that unequivocally prove this contention, there are enough smoking guns surrounding McNally's conduct (the bathroom visit, his failure to initially report the bathroom visit, his refusal to grant a fifth interview) to at least make this not a completely insane conclusion. Overall I think the case here it still somewhat weak, but I'm inclined to give Wells this one.
If you accept that McNally and/or Jastremski illegally tampered with balls (setting aside Brady’s possible involvement for the moment), what should the punishment be? These two guys should be fired, clearly. And even though Wells concludes that Bill Belichick, the coaching staff, team ownership, and the Patriots organization as a whole were unaware of and played no part in the tampering, I can see Goodell sanctioning the team since these guys were, after all, team employees. My opinion is that the maximum reasonable sanction here would be a middling fine (e.g. $250K), and/or loss of a late round draft pick (i.e. 5th round or later). In other words, more or less in line with the punishments recently handed out to the Atlanta Falcons and Cleveland Browns for their respective rules violations.
2) Wells concludes that it is "more probable than not" that Tom Brady was "generally aware" that there was illegal ball tampering being perpetrated by McNally and Jastremski. Here's where Wells loses me. For those who have read the the entire thing: are there any facts or evidence of any kind presented anywhere in the report that would support the conclusion that Brady was "aware" of
illegal tampering (e.g. deflating balls after pre-game inspection)?
Furthermore, even assuming Brady was hypothetically "aware" that such tampering was occurring, but played no part in directing or participating in said tampering, is that actually a rule violation? Do NFL rules mandate that players are compelled to report to management or to the league any rule infractions perpetrated by other players or team personnel that they observe or have knowledge of, however minor? I would be surprised if this was the case. If anyone honestly knows the answer to this one way or the other, I'd love to hear it.
If being "aware" of ball tampering is the maximum extent of Brady's "crime", then I think it kinda makes him look a little bad, but nothing major. Maximum penalty for this sort of thing should be a small fine at worst (I would actually argue that no fine is warranted if "failure to report infractions" is not actually a rule violation).
The other "conclusion" that various simple-minded media blowhards and Patriots bashers seem to be asserting is that Brady was somehow
complicit in the illegal ball tampering allegedly performed by McNally and Jastremski. In other words, that Brady actively directed these employees to
illegally doctor the balls. This is a far more serious charge. However, this conclusion seems utterly ridiculous in my opinion. I have not seen or heard any facts or even unsupported allegations that would support such a conclusion. In other words, not only is there not a "preponderance of evidence" to back up such a claim, there is really no evidence whatsoever. In fact, Wells apparently
draws no such conclusion himself (correct me if I missed something). "Illegally" in this context would mean that Brady specifically directed the employees to tamper with the balls
after the officials' pre-game inspection, or somehow otherwise mandated that the balls be deflated to a level
under the legal limit of 12.5 PSI "by whatever means necessary". Note that Brady expressing a preference for balls to be inflated towards the lower end or right at the legal PSI limit is not a rule violation, or even the least bit improper for that matter. Nor is Brady bitching about some balls in prior games having possibly been over-inflated a rule violation. Nor is possibly under-inflating balls
prior to the officials' pre-game inspection a rules violation or "illegal tampering", as far as I understand things.
Bottom line: the most damning indictment being leveled at Tom Brady in the media and elsewhere (that he actively participating in cheating with respect to ball inflation) is something that is wholly unsupported by the facts, and is
not even claimed by the guy responsible for gathering the relevant evidence and generating the report, at considerable time and expense. If Brady had been found to have actively participated in the ball tampering, that would perhaps warrant a more serious fine and/or possible suspension, and maybe justify some of the insane media hoo-hah about his "legacy being tainted" and all that silly kind of crap that's currently being thrown around. But this simply isn't the case. People asserting that this
is the case are basically, well... dumb, I guess.
Lastly, regardless of Brady's involvement and the possible misconduct by the two team employees, claims that alleged ball under-inflation provided a significant competitive advantage for the Patriots, and that their Super Bowl title should be vacated, etc., are also super-duper dumb. (And unfortunately, you can't fix stupid.)
(Also, apologies for the TL;DR nature of this post, it ended up a lot longer than I expected...

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