I have really gone full arc on this. When along with the rest of the NFL fandom, I heard:
"The Patriot's balls were 2 psi under the minimum of 12.5 psig (the "g" here is important) and McNally was shown on film going into a bathroom with the balls"
I thought, OK, wow, I can't believe my Pats did this.
But if the first story was something more like:
"The Pats balls do not appear to be measurably underinflated and McNally took the balls into a bathroom for 90 seconds"
I think this whole thing would be a very different story.
Same now with the Phone:
"Brady destroyed his phone to avoid having to turn over information, continuing his pattern of lack of cooperation with the investigation"
or if you believe Sally Jenkins:
"Wells stated that Brady cooperated fully with the investigation and Wells did not need any further phone related information. Brady got a new phone and destroyed his old phone."
Context is very important and it is clear that the NFL is going out of their way to create the worst possible context for all of these leaks. Why??
Wells didn't say he did not need any further phone related information. He said that he didn't need to see the phone himself, he just wanted them to provide information from the phone that was related to the investigation. Brady refused to provide the information and directed someone to destroy the phone.
This is Sally Jenkins version of the alleged statements:
Wells never asked for Tom Brady’s cellphone and didn’t require it. “Keep the phone,” Wells told Brady and his agent. He insisted his investigation was thorough without it. “I don’t think it undermines in any way the conclusions of the report,” he said. Those were his exact words. So were these, after interrogating Brady for more than five hours: “Totally cooperative,” Wells said of Brady’s testimony.
Not even close to the way the NFL's leaks portrayed this. That is my point. The NFL is going out of their way to make it seem that Brady did not cooperate by "refusing" to give up his phone, then leaked that he "destroyed" his phone implying that this was further impeding the investigation.
Why didn't the NFL say what Well's said. We don't need his phone and he has been "totally cooperative".
This is from the Wells report:
"Similarly, although Tom Brady appeared for a requested interview and answered
questions voluntarily, he declined to make available any documents or electronic information
(including text messages and emails) that we requested, even though those requests were limited
to the subject matter of our investigation (such as messages concerning the preparation of game
balls, air pressure of balls, inflation of balls or deflation of balls) and we offered to allow Brady?s
counsel to screen and control the production so that it would be limited strictly to responsive
materials and would not involve our taking possession of Brady?s telephone or other electronic
devices. Our inability to review contemporaneous communications and other documents in
Brady?s possession and control related to the matters under review potentially limited the
discovery of relevant evidence and was not helpful to the investigation."
Jenkins (and you) seem to be taking that out of context.