Brady begins his defense campaign

Depending on your perspective — OK, if you’re a Patriots fan or Tom Brady’s dad — there was no more fitting location for Brady to answer the first public questions about the Wells Report indicating his probable culpability in the deflation of 11 football prior to the AFC Championship Game.

The setting was Salem State University in Salem, Mass., a place best known for hosting America’s original witch hunt. Jim Gray, who was emceeing the already scheduled event, did not exactly put Brady over the coals though.

“I don’t have really any reaction, Jim,” Brady said when asked to address the report. “Our owner commented on it yesterday. And it’s only been 30 hours, so I haven’t had much time to digest it fully. But when I do, I’ll be sure to let you know how I feel about it.”

Gray also asked if the controversy surrounding “Deflategate” has taken away from Brady’s joy of winning a fourth Super Bowl.

“Absolutely not,” Brady said. “Because we earned and achieved everything that we got this year as a team. I’m proud of that and the fans should be, too.”

While Brady spent the night dancing around like he was avoiding defenders in the pocket, his agent went on the offensive.

Here is the statement from Brady’s agent, Don Yee, written in fluent blowhardese:

“The Wells report, with all due respect, is a significant and terrible disappointment. It’s omission of key facts and lines of inquiry suggest the investigators reached a conclusion first, and then determined so-called facts later. One item alone taints this entire report. What does it say about the league office’s protocols and ethics when it allows one team to tip it off to an issue prior to a championship game, and no league officials or game officials notified the Patriots of the same issue prior to the game?

“This suggests it may be more probable than not that the league cooperated with the Colts in perpetrating a sting operation. The Wells report buries this issue in a footnote on page 46 without any further elaboration. The league is a significant client of the investigators’ law firm; it appears to be a rich source of billings and media exposure based on content in the law firm’s website.

“This was not an independent investigation and the contents of the report bear that out — all one has to do is read closely and critically, as opposed to simply reading headlines. The investigators’ assumptions and inferences are easily debunked or subject to multiple interpretations.

“Much of the report’s vulnerabilities are buried in the footnotes, which is a common legal writing tactic. It is a sad day for the league as it has abdicated the resolution of football-specific issues to people who don’t understand the context or culture of the sport. I was physically present for my client’s interview. I have verbatim notes of the interview. Tom made himself available for nearly an entire day and patiently answered every question. It was clear to me the investigators had limited understanding of professional football.

“For reasons unknown, the Wells report omitted nearly all of Tom’s testimony, most of which was critical because it would have provided this report with the context that it lacks. Mr. Wells promised back in January to share the results of this investigation publicly, so why not follow through and make public all of the information gathered and let the public draw its own conclusions? This report contains significant and tragic flaws, and it is common knowledge in the legal industry that reports like this generally are written for the benefit of the purchaser.”

Cowboys sign La’el Collins as free agent

The saga of LSU offensive lineman La’el Collins finally appears to be over after he signed with Dallas on Thursday as an undrafted free agent.

Collins, expected to be a first-rounder until police wanted to question him about the murder of a former girlfriend in the days before the draft, had to wait to have his name cleared before a team would take a chance on signing him.

It was a bit of timing the cost Collins millions of dollars with his first contract, but he’s not worried about that.

“It’s still a lot more money than I was making in college,” Collins said.

Going undrafted gave Collins the luxury of picking who he wanted to sign with, and the Cowboys seemed to win by a landslide.

“This opportunity sitting here in front of this organization, everything that it stands for, everything that these guys are trying to build here,” Collins said. “I feel like I represent. I feel like I fit in. … I had the opportunity to choose from 32 teams where I wanted to be. I wanted to be a Dallas Cowboy.”

Collins said a phone conversation with Jerry Jones helped steer him to Dallas.

“We had a long conversation, man and that was the first time I really felt like somebody seeing me for who I am,” Collins said. “… He believed in me, he trusted me and I couldn’t have asked for anything else. I couldn’t be in a greater situation. I couldn’t be in a greater place.

“I just want to thank Mr. Jones, his family, this organization and everybody that is standing behind me because I guarantee you this: I’m going to give this organization everything I have and more. This is going to be the best offensive line in NFL history. Mark my words.”

Michael Bennett says he doesn’t want to be traded

Michael Bennett is unhappy with what the Seahawks are paying him. But he is not unhappy with being a Seahawk.

Bennett clarified rumors that he was seeking a trade in an interview with a Seattle TV station.

“I think everyone who has a job, they want a raise for whatever they’re doing,” Bennett told KING-5 TV. “I’m just like any other American. I think everybody wants to be paid a little bit more. So I don’t think I fall short of that.”

Bennett said that desire has been misconstrued as a want to leave Seattle.

“People assume when you ask for a little more money, they assume that you want to be traded or something like that,” he said. “But that’s not what I’m trying to go for.”

Bennett signed a four-year, $28.5 million contract last March. Seattle general manager John Schneider has stated that the team will not renegotiate, but it did give Marshawn Lynch a more player-friendly, front-loaded version of his contract last year.