Saints Sinners & Serial Killers- Episode #4 Season #2 Deflategate Part 1

In this episode, Sherman and Wedge take you inside one of the most sensational sports scandals in history as told in their massive bestseller 12: The Inside Story of Tom Brady’s Fight for Redemption. 

Transcript

Voice Over: [00:00:05] Welcome to season two of Saints, Sinners and serial killers with co-hosts New York Times, best-selling authors and renowned investigative journalists Casey Sherman and Dave Wedge. In this episode, Sherman and Wedge take you inside one of the most sensational sports scandals in history, as told in their massive bestseller Twelve. The Inside Story of Tom Brady's Fight for Redemption. And now Casey Sherman and Dave Wedge.

Casey Sherman: [00:00:40] Tom Brady in the New England Patriots seemed like an odd match up for this program. We talk about true crime, not sports, after all, but the breakup between the NFL's greatest player and the game's greatest coach is rooted in a legal drama that unfolded much like a John Grisham novel. We've written books about serial killers, mobsters, the FBI and the CIA. But in our long careers as investigative journalists, the toughest walls to crack, surround and fortify the shield of the National Football League and fortress Foxborough. This story is all about palace intrigue and betrayal from within and from outside the Patriots organization.

Dave Wedge: [00:01:23] Tom Brady's exodus to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers began on January 18th. Twenty fifteen after the Patriots drubbing of the Indianapolis Colts in the AFC title game at Gillette Stadium. Indianapolis sports columnist Bob Kravitz made his way to the losing locker room, responded the team's braintrust. Owner, Jim RSA head coach Chuck Pagano and general manager Ryan Grigson huddled in a corner in a heated powwow. The columnist figured that the owner was demanding heads to roll after such an embarrassing defeat. It was understandable, Kravitz thought. And over the next couple of hours, he stuck to his script and conducted player interviews that would make up his Monday morning hit piece. It was late in the evening when he returned to the press box to fetch his laptop and mobile phone after packing away his computer. He reached for his phone and noticed that he'd received a message from someone in the NFL league office. The text read something you need to know. Give me a call!

Casey Sherman: [00:02:21] Bob Kravitz waited until he got to the parking lot at Gillette Stadium and then took out his phone. The Patriots are being investigated by the league for deflating footballs, the source told him. Get the fuck out of here, Kravitz responded. I don't believe it. Believe it. The source told him, I can't run with a story unless I get confirmation. Then I suggest you do. Kravitz hung up and began texting and tweeting other league sources and soon got a hold of another trusted NFL insider. Is it true that the Patriots are being investigated for deflating footballs in the AFC Championship? He asked. If you write it, you won't be wrong, Insider replied. Kravitz mind was now racing. He still had to get back to his hotel in nearby Smithfield, Rhode Island, to finish his column about the Colts blowout loss. But the game itself seemed like an afterthought now. He'd been given the opportunity to break a major story, and it couldn't wait for the morning news cycle. The columnists decided to report the allegations in a tweet he began to type breaking. A league source tells me the NFL is investigating the possibility the Patriots deflated footballs Sunday night. More to come. He showed his phone screen to his boss. You know, this is going to raise holy hell. The boss warned. Kravitz nodded. He had begun to sweat in the cold New England night, taking a deep breath. He hit send. The time was one fifty five am. Here goes nothing. Let's go break the internet.

Dave Wedge: [00:04:05] Hours later, when he was back in Indianapolis, the columnist let out a loud and triumphant yell when ESPN reporter Chris Mortensen, one of the most respected media members covering the NFL, fired off a tweet of his own. Nfl has reported that 11 of the 12 Patriots footballs used in Sunday's AFC title game were underinflated by two pounds each. Per league sources, Tom Brady was first asked about the deflated balls the next morning during an interview with a Boston radio station after the interview. Tb12 received a text from Team Equipment assistant John Just Stransky. Call me when you get a second! The message read. It was just dreamscapes job to oversee Brady's footballs. And while the two men had a congenial relationship, it was the first time they had corresponded by text or a phone call in six months. Mr Lemke was a Massachusetts native and a lifelong Patriots fan. He bled red, white and blue like other equipment assistance to Stransky handed out player jerseys, adjusted helmets and distributed the proper cleats to satisfy any change in field and game day conditions. But over the past three seasons, his role had been elevated to game ball maker. The designation allowed him to work directly with Brady in preparing game day footballs. Each NFL team received nearly eight hundred footballs per season. Just Rimouski treated each one like a coveted bejeweled Faberge egg less than a minute after Brady received the text from Just Dreamscape. He called his game day ball maker, who answered immediately after seeing the contact. Tom Brady to appear in his cell phone screen. The discussion lasted 13 minutes and four seconds. The two men discussed the extent of the morning's media coverage after Kravitz's initial tweet. The NBC Pro Sports Talk website had posted a related story at 2:19 a.m. Newsday ran a story almost two hours later, with an NFL spokesman confirming that the league was looking into the matter. The spokesman also stressed that there was no timetable on the investigation and that the NFL rules prohibit teams from underinflated footballs during games.

Casey Sherman: [00:06:14] There was no indication from either Yastremska or Brady that this initial phone call included discussion over what seemed to be the elephant in the room at the time. The fact that Yastremska coworker Jim McNally, the New England Patriots official locker room attendant, had been questioned about the team's footballs by two members of NFL security immediately after the Colts game. Joe Stransky knew this because McNally had called him at 12:15 a.m. during his 90 minute drive from the stadium to his home in New Hampshire. During the initial questioning, McNally told league security officials that he had walked the footballs 13 game balls stuffed in a sack onto the field at Gillette Stadium without an escort before the game. Oftentimes, he would be joined on such a walk by game officials or the NFL security representative for the Patriots. Nothing unusual happened during the walk from the locker room to the field, McNally insisted in that interview. What McNally failed to mention was the fact that he had taken the game balls with him into a bathroom before continuing onto the field. Nfl director of investigations John Roorkee, a 25 year veteran of the FBI, had asked McNally to make himself available for a follow up interview the next day.

Casey Sherman: [00:07:40] At first, the locker room attendant said he wouldn't be available for such a conversation because he had another full time job and would not return to Gillette Stadium until August 20 15 for the Patriots first preseason game. Unbowed by the apparent evasion, ROCE stressed the importance of the follow up interview in McNally accepted the two men scheduled to speak again on the evening of January 19 20 fifteen. As the morning wore on, Brady continued his text conversation with Yastremska, the quarterback appeared to be gauging how well his ball maker was handling the pressure. You're good, Johnny boy! Brady asked. Still nervous so far. So good though. I'll be all right. Just Tremseh typed in response. You didn't do anything wrong, but the quarterback insisted, I know I'll be all good. Joe Stransky told Brady that Dave Schoenfeld, the team's head equipment manager, would be picking his brain about the situation later. No worries, bud. We're all good, Brady replied. Concerned over the conversation, George Strunsky handed over his cell phone to the Patriots security team later that day for forensic imaging.

Dave Wedge: [00:09:06] Meanwhile, Tom Brady was attempting to smother the controversy to him and most other quarterbacks. Ball pressure came down to personal preference balls that were either overinflated or deflated, whether on purpose or as a result of the weather, didn't alter the course of a game. Brady's friend and fellow superstar Aaron Rodgers would later admit that he liked his footballs to be over inflated. Buccaneers quarterback Brad Johnson said that he paid his equipment guy seven thousand five hundred dollars to alter footballs before the Super Bowl against the Oakland Raiders among the fraternity of NFL quarterbacks. Ball manipulation was a commonplace accepted bending of the rules, but league officials didn't see it that way. At least now in the Sharks were circling the night after the story first broke. Demaurice Smith, executive director of the National Football League Players Association, was enjoying dinner out with his wife, Karen, near their home in suburban Maryland. He glanced at the large television screen above the bar, and his eyes were drawn to the ticker at the bottom of the screen. He saw the words deflated footballs and Tom Brady flashed before him. Fuck, he muttered. His mind began to race. And what number of directions can this possibly go? Dinner ended quickly. It was time for Smith to assemble his team and go to work. The story was already spiraling out of control. It led news coverage on every network and now had its own name deflate gate. The drumbeats were getting louder as Tom Brady and the Patriots coaching staff tried to block out the media distractions and focus on preparations to face the Seahawks. The defending Super Bowl champions DeMaurice Smith and his NFLPA legal team analyzed each step taken by Roger Goodell and the NFL. Up to this point in the case, Smith had developed a close relationship with Brady over time. Tom was one of the lead plaintiffs back in 2011, along with Peyton Manning and Drew Brees to sue the league for locking the players out. Smith told us in several interviews, Brady stood tall for the union at a time when they needed it most. And now it was Smith's turn to pay back the favor.

Casey Sherman: [00:11:16] Tb12 was now getting pinned down by the media. What he thought was a small issue over deflated footballs had grown into a national scandal. You figured the best way to control the media fed wildfire was simply to address the allegations during the NFL required pre-Super Bowl news conference at Gillette Stadium. Demaurice Smith adamantly opposed the strategy. Stay cool, man. Don't discuss it, Smith warned Brady. You can't address it. We need to get a handle on this man. Tom didn't listen. Instead, he went rogue. He stepped up to the podium wearing a Patriots winter cap, complete with POM POM winning.

Speaker4: [00:11:58] Now you supposedly alter the balls. I didn't, you know, have any, you know, I didn't hold to the ball in any way. I have a process that I go through before every game where I go in and I pick the balls that I want to. The footballs that I want to use for the game are equipment. Guys do a great job of breaking the balls in. You know, they have the process that they go through when I pick those balls out. At that point, you know, to me, they're perfect. I don't want anyone touching the balls after that. I don't want anyone rubbing them, you know, putting in the air and I'm taking the air out. To me, those balls are perfect and that's what I expect when

Casey Sherman: [00:12:43] I show up on the field from there. Pandora's box was opened, and for the next 15 minutes, Brady was peppered with question after question time.

Speaker4: [00:12:53] There are people who are going to hear this, and they're going to say, if you're so familiar with the equipment, how could you not know that the balls were underinflated? What would you say to them? Well, I address a little bit earlier in that, you know, I said, I don't put any thought into the footballs after I choose them. You know, when you're out there playing, you know, in front of 70000 people like a home crowd, you don't think about it, you're just reacting to the game. I don't certainly think about the football. I just assume that it's the same one that I approved, you know, in the pregame.

Casey Sherman: [00:13:29] Another reporter asked Brady if he was a cheater. Brady's response? I don't believe so. These are the four words that would haunt him instead of emphatically denying any wrongdoing. Brady offered a safe response, a lawyered up reply. The superstar quarterback was rattled, and many in the media pool questioned whether. He was advised by legal counsel beforehand about what to say and how to say it. The odd response struck cynical reporters the same way that President Bill Clinton's phrase. It depends upon what the meaning of the word is is. During the Monica Lewinsky probe.

Dave Wedge: [00:14:11] Watching the news conference from his office and NFLPA headquarters in Washington, DC. Demaurice Smith grimaced. He certainly hadn't advised Brady to use such language. Smith didn't want Tom to talk at all as a professional football player. Brady was used to answering questions about his performance on the field, but he was now way out of his comfort zone. Brady was left twisting in the wind not only by the league, but even by his own head coach. Earlier in the day, Bill Belichick had defended his own actions and perceived lack of knowledge of any wrongdoing.

Speaker5: [00:14:44] I'm not a scientist, I'm not an expert in footballs, I'm not an expert in football measurements. I'm just telling you what I know. I would not say that I'm Mona Lisa Vito of the football world as she was in the car expertise area.

Dave Wedge: [00:15:05] The coach was making a reference to Marisa Tomei as character in the Joe Pesci comedy My Cousin Vinny. A film had seen numerous times. The coach told reporters he had no idea there were any concerns over the footballs during the game and that he had only heard about the potential issue that morning. However, given his reputation for control over his team and his attention to every tiny detail of the goings on at Gillette Stadium, it seems unlikely that Jim McNally's interrogation by NFL security would have escaped Belichick that day. David Gardi, senior vice president of football operations for the NFL, sent a letter to the Patriots stating that the league's investigation had found that none of the Patriots game balls in the AFC Championship were inflated to the league required twelve point five psi pounds per square inch. In the letter, Gardi stated that the footballs may have been tampered with after the normal inspection procedures were followed prior to kickoff. Despite the growing controversy, the Patriots beat the Seattle Seahawks in the Super Bowl thanks to an epic fourth quarter by Brady and a miraculous last second goal line interception by an undrafted rookie cornerback. Panthers. Many thought the deflate gate controversy would die with Brady's fourth Super Bowl ring. But NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell instead turned up the heat,

Casey Sherman: [00:16:43] While Brady, his teammates and their fans celebrated their Super Bowl win. Demaurice Smith sat in the fifth floor conference room at NFLPA headquarters on K 20th Street in Washington, DC, with him where two of his toughest attorneys. Forty five year old Heather McPhee and general counsel Tom de Peso, a fifty nine year old former Penn State linebacker who had served on the union's legal team for over three decades. They were trying to predict the league's end game for Brady. Heather McPhee has been Smith's professional right hand for more than a dozen years. The pair had represented mega corporations and executives together, first at renowned international law firm Latham & Watkins and then at the most powerful lobbying firm in the United States. Patton Boggs Since they moved to the NFLPA, Smith and McPhee had successfully battled Roger Goodell in the NFL. Billionaire owners in several high profile cases, including most recently the suspension of Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice, who have been caught on videotape punching his then fiancee unconscious in a hotel elevator. Defending a domestic abuser like rice was difficult for McPhee, who was forced to put her moral judgment aside just to do her job.

Casey Sherman: [00:18:13] Ray Rice had been urged by Ravens Team President Dick Cass to soften his language when describing the incident. It would be truthful to say that you laid your hands on her, CAS told him. Mcphee, like Cass, was a Princeton graduate and a sophisticated lawyer who understood the word management that Cass was suggesting. But she knew this wasn't the time to deploy semantics. She smiled at Cass, whom she knew, respected and liked and slightly tossed her wild blonde hair. Come on, dick! That phrasing evokes visions of televangelists on late night cable TV, she said. Despite the nerves and intensity in the room, Rice slightly smiled at the remark, and soon thereafter, when asked by Goodell what happened in that elevator? Rice looked the commissioner in the eye and said simply. And then I hit her. It wisely taken McPhee's advice. The disgraced player told the commissioner that he had hit his girlfriend. Goodell handed down a mere two game suspension for Ray Rice and hoped the incident would quickly go away.

Dave Wedge: [00:19:33] Three months later, the case returned like a clap of thunder after TMZ published a security video showing Rice punching his fiancee. The video went viral and critics and reporters voiced their outrage at the running back. The Baltimore Ravens and Roger Goodell for his decision to suspend the player for only two games. The NFL league offices went into spin control, with Goodell stating publicly that he was appalled by the video and that he had increased the punishment from a pair of games to an indefinite suspension. The commissioner also claimed that Rice had not been honest with him during the disciplinary hearing. Heather McPhee knew this was a lie, and the intense, detail oriented lawyer had the proof during the meeting, as she always did. Mcphee took copious notes, including a record of Rice's simple, raw words, and then I hit her after the exchange with Cass before the Goodell meeting and McPhee's advice to Rice. She underlined the words on her legal pad. Rice had followed our guidance when Goodell tried to justify the new punishment of Rice. Mcphee and the NFLPA resoundingly won the case on appeal. For her, it was not a victory for Ray Rice, but a victory for the truth. The saga was a near fatal blow for Roger Goodell. His handling of the affair was roundly criticized, and many were now calling for his job. The once mighty commissioner was now wounded, vulnerable and under threat of losing what he craved most total power. Now, McPhee was staring across a conference table at her boss DeMaurice Smith, as they attempted to determine the motive behind Goodell's new investigation against Tom Brady, the proverbial face of the NFL.

Casey Sherman: [00:21:16] Smith was a high powered white collar lawyer with the experience and instincts that came from his background as a criminal prosecutor. He and his team quickly gathered information that triggered more questions than answers. They had learned that the Baltimore Ravens had tipped off the Colts to allegations that the Patriots had mishandled game balls during their win over the Ravens in the divisional round of the NFL playoffs. Colts general manager Ryan Grigson had brought the matter to the attention to league officials. Normally, the league would notify a team that was accused of a rules violation, especially if the infraction was minor. The proper inflation of a football had never been an issue in the long history of the NFL. The league should have simply called the Patriots and put them on notice, but instead they stayed quiet, Smith observed. Why? Maybe they wanted to catch them in the act, replied McPhee. Like a sting operation, but sting operations don't happen in the spur of the moment, Smith added. This one took careful planning. The NFL attorneys continued to pore over their notes. Smith and McFee notice that Goodell had sent his director of football operations, Mike Kessel, to the Pats Colts game to spy on New England's equipment. Guys at halftime cancel had approached equipment manager Dave Schoenfeld, who had supervised both John Yastremska and Jim McNally. We weighed the balls, Tencel told them. You're in big, fucking trouble. Smith couldn't believe what he was reading. The league was aggressively crafting its own narrative that the Patriots were cheaters from the get go. Roger Goodell had orchestrated an elaborate setup to expose a rule violation that few players, including Brady, even knew existed. The NFL had never tested footballs at halftime before. Once again, the NFLPA top lawyer asked himself the question why?

Dave Wedge: [00:23:32] Demaurice Smith called the meeting, grabbed his jacket and took a walk around the block. He needed time to think. He believed that he understood Goodell, his primary adversary, better than most. But still, this was bizarre. As Smith strolled down K Street, another narrative began to form in his mind. The other NFL owners had been breathing down the commissioner's neck to punish the Patriots in some way to make up for his egregious behavior during the Spygate scandal in 2007, when Bill Belichick was caught red handed videotaping on field signals of opposing teams. No one had forgiven Goodell for destroying videotaped evidence of the act to protect his mentor, Robert Kraft. The commissioner needed to do something to protect his salary an estimated forty $2 million per year and reassert himself and salvage the power that he had recently lost. In order to regain control of the league, he must kill his father, Smith surmised metaphorically. He must tear down Robert Kraft. The saga had a Shakespearean ring to it. But why go after someone like Tom Brady, who has an unblemished Hall of Fame career? Smith came back to the one word that he often used when describing Goodell power if he can assert his power over Brady. The league's number one attraction. He can make all other players bend to his will, Smith told us in a series of interviews.

Casey Sherman: [00:24:58] For decades, Roger Goodell had quietly built a base of power through his relationship with Robert Kraft, but a debt needed to be paid. If Goodell were to maintain his lofty position and continue to justify his obscene salary, he had to build alliances with not just Robert Kraft, but also the other 31 one league owners who had their own franchises to run. And each was looking for a way to knock the Patriots from their throne as the league's most successful modern day dynasty. They bided their time and waited for New England to slip up again. But this time there would be no cover or cover up by Goodell. Heather McPhee knew that Goodell's lead investigator, Ted Wells, was a formidable opponent and would not rest until every detail of the case was scrutinized. The NFL had become a very important client for Wells. In fact, the league had paid his firm more than forty five million dollars for both the bully gate investigation involving the Miami Dolphins and for Deflategate. Wells was known to lock himself in hotel rooms for weeks at a time while poring over mountains of evidence. In the various cases, Wells asked McPhee for Brady's phone records. The attorney then reached out to Brady's agent, Don Yee, to get the ball rolling on the request. She was stunned by the reply. Ye's office told me flat out that they weren't going to comply and that they would handle things moving forward. Mcphee told us in an interview he didn't feel like Tom owed anything to Wells and his team. The NFLPA lawyer explained to the agent that the league was entitled to any information in Brady's phone, but Ye refused to budge. The agent then informed McPhee that his team would deal directly with the NFL. I knew this was a huge mistake and that it would only piss wells off, McPhee told us. Don Yee is an agent, not a litigator. Tom Brady was about to get some bad advice, but he was loyal to Don, so he didn't question it. Mcphee believes that Ye's refusal to cooperate turned what was a professional investigation into a personal vendetta for Ted Wells.

Dave Wedge: [00:27:29] On May 6th, 20 15, Wells released a two hundred and forty three page report outlining the NFL's case against Tom Brady. Investigators had interviewed nearly 70 witnesses, including the Patriots quarterback and head coach Bill Belichick. The report stated that all 11 footballs used by the Patriots in the 2015 AFC title game against the Colts were below the minimum air pressure level of twelve point five psi, while the four Colts balls measured within the twelve point five to thirteen point five psi allowed by the league. But was it a deliberate act? Ted Wells and his team, which included NFL Executive Vice President Jeff Pash, concluded that it was quote more probable than not that Patriots employees Jim McNally, the team's official locker room attendant and equipment assistant Jitendra Stransky, colluded in a deliberate effort to break the rules. Most importantly, the report stated that it was again more probable than not that Tom Brady himself was at least generally aware of the plot. Referee Walt Anderson went on the record to say that McNally had violated pregame protocol by taking the balls out of the official's locker room without permission. It was the first time in Anderson's 19 years in the league that he could not locate the game balls at the start of the game. The videotape surveillance also showed that McNally carried two large bags of footballs down the center tunnel toward the playing field and made a curious pit stop into a bathroom where he locked the door and remained inside for approximately one minute and 40 seconds.

Dave Wedge: [00:29:06] The video showed him then leaving the bathroom with the ball bags and heading to the field, according to Wells. The real smoking gun against number 12 could be found in the dozens of texts and phone records retrieved from the key players in the case, specifically, those of Jim McNally and John Just Stransky. Nfl investigators found a disturbing threat of texts between the two equipment guys dating back to the twenty fourteen off season in May of that year. The pair exchanged texts about what would become a running theme between the two McNally's demand for free stuff from Brady McNally. You working to stream ski? Yup. Mcnally. Nice, dude. Jimmy needs some new kicks. Let's make a deal. Come on, help the deflator. Mcnally Chill, buddy. I'm just fucking with you. I'm not going to ESPN yet. The word deflator jumped out to investigators. Wells and his team also found it damning that McNally had offered a veiled threat to go to ESPN. Two questions needed answers Why did McNally refer to himself as the deflator, and what information did he threaten to give the television sports network?

Casey Sherman: [00:30:17] The text conversations continued into the season after a Thursday night game between the Pats and Jets in October 2014, when Brady complained about the inflation levels of the footballs, the quarterbacks criticism was met with scorn by McNally McNally. Tom sucks. I'm going to make sure that the next ball is a fucking balloon. Just Stransky talk to him. Last night he actually brought you up and said, you must have a lot of stress trying to get them done. I told him it was. He was right, though I checked some of the balls this morning. The refs fucked us. A few of them were almost at 16. They didn't recheck them after they put air in them. Mcnally. Fuck Tom, 16, was nothing. Wait until next Sunday. Just Zamsky. Oh my god. Omg spaz! Mcnally blasted Brady over the next several days in texts he threatened to blow up the footballs to the size of rugby balls and even watermelons. When Yastremska pointed out that the text sounded so angry. Mcnally replied The only thing deflating son is Brady's passer rating, according to the texts.

Casey Sherman: [00:31:35] He later tried to extort the quarterback for cash and new kicks sneakers. If Brady didn't come through with the items, McNally warned his friend Just Tremseh that it would be a rugby Sunday in January 20. Fifteen. Mcnally continued to press Yastrzemski to ensure that Brady delivered the new sneakers, plus some autographed footballs. Mcnally remember to put a couple sweet pig skins ready for Tom to sign just Tremseh. You got a kid big autograph day for you, McNally. Nice throw some kicks in and make it real special. Just Tremseh if you're lucky. 11 McNally, 11 or 11 and a half kid, McNally eventually received an autographed jersey and two signed footballs from Brady. The conversations between just Tremseh and McNally were alarming and didn't bode well for Brady's case, but the evidence was circumstantial at best. Ted Wells needed science to back up his claim that the footballs used by the Patriots in the AFC title game did not lose air pressure naturally over the course of the game. He hired a Menlo Park, California, based company called Exponent to dig in further.

Dave Wedge: [00:32:57] Researchers at a company site in Phoenix, Arizona, used a 40 foot long thermal chamber to recreate the environment inside Gillette Stadium on that fateful night. The chamber floor was covered in green artificial turf and the temperature inside was set to forty eight degrees Fahrenheit. In another windowless space, they attempted to recreate the exact setting of the officials locker room at Gillette Stadium. The thermostat there was set with a balls would have been at room temperature for exponent. Scientists spent three months on their part of the investigation. After several experiments, they concluded that the reduction of pressure of the Patriots game balls cannot be explained completely by basic scientific principles. Those scientific principles included what is known as the so-called ideal gas law, which suggests that a given mass and constant volume of gas plus pressure exerted on both sides of an object was directly proportionate to its absolute temperature. It was a wonky way of saying that the pressure drop of the Patriots balls was greater than the pressure drop of the Colts footballs in the exact same. Climate scientists also simulated how quickly someone could deflate 13 balls. They found that the task could have been completed in the minute and 40 seconds. Jim McNally was alone in the bathroom with the Patriots footballs. The finger of suspicion was clearly pointed at McNally and just dreamscape. But did they act alone?

Voice Over: [00:34:27] Saints, Sinners & Serial Killers is a joint production of MuddHouse Media and Fort Point Media. Produced and edited by Mike Gioscia. Studio space provided by worklocalma.com. Original Music by Chris Speargun. For more from the MuddHouse Media Podcast Network, visit muddhousemedia.com and for the latest on their podcasts and all of the writing and film projects of Casey Sherman and Dave Wedge. Visit fortpointmedia.com.