Patriots owner Robert Kraft and Tom Brady Elsa / Getty Images
The Patriots have removed a much-mocked suggestion that a locker room attendant called himself “the Deflator” because he was trying to lose weight from their rebuttal to the NFL’s investigation into the team’s use of under-inflated footballs during the 2014 AFC Championship Game.
Brady was suspended without pay for four games and the Patriots were fined $1 million. Brady has appealed his suspension.
In the report, prepared by attorney Ted Wells, and therefore commonly known as “The Wells Report,” two locker room attendants — John Jastremski and Jim McNally — exchanged a series of text messages that Wells and the NFL have used to assert that Brady was “generally aware” of the under-inflated footballs.