...In the meantime, I still hold firm in my position (which is further supported by this report) that something happened in the 2007 season which began to aide the Patriots in preventing fumbles, and that carried on thru the 2014-15 season. I don’t believe the NFL has any desire to attempt an investigation back that far, nor do I believe they could find any evidence of anything significant. But then again, I didn’t think the Wells report would result in any key findings or punishment.
The Patriots may have simply learned a new way to hold the football starting in 2007, and it wasn’t until 2014 that they started deflating footballs. I (still) won’t say the Patriots became fumble-proof because of deflated footballs, because I don’t know. I only have the data, and the data says “something” happened. If, what the Wells report found from 2014 began to happen as early as 2007, than his report may have uncovered only the tip of the iceberg.