National Football League

Pats: Jim McNally called himself 'Deflator' in terms of weight loss

Published May. 14, 2015 12:27 p.m. ET

foxsports

The New England Patriots published a lengthy rebuttal to the Ted Wells report on Thursday, and it is obvious the most difficult aspect of the report for the team to defend is Jim McNally referring to himself as “the deflator” in a text message.

The Patriots, through one of their attorneys, point out that McNally was never once asked about the “deflator” reference in an interview. If McNally had been asked, he supposedly would have explained that he and equipment manager John Jastremski use that term to describe weight loss:

Of course, this blew up on social media. Twitter is already having a field day with it.

The Patriots also provided an explanation for why McNally joked that he is “going to espn.” Here’s the context of the text conversation in question:

In their rebuttal, the Patriots claim Jastremski made it clear to McNally that his boss would be angry if he gave McNally free sneakers.

Again, people aren’t going to buy this stuff. But at this point, the Patriots probably don’t care. They don’t need they approval of Twitter -- they need to convince an arbiter (assuming it’s not Roger Goodell himself) that the text messages are all open for interpretation and there is no way to prove they are about illegally deflating footballs.

Most people consider the “deflator” explanation to be laughable. But if it somehow helps the Patriots accomplish this goal, they don’t care.

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