National Football League

Really? Wells' Deflategate report 147 pages longer than Mueller's Ray Rice investigation

Published May. 6, 2015 3:11 p.m. ET

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Brett Smiley

On Wednesday, the Wells Report concerning the investigation into NFL's "Deflategate" was released to the public at a whopping 243 pages.

In it, attorneys led by Ted Wells found that "it is more probable than not" that the New England Patriots doctored footballs in the AFC Championship game "in a deliberate effort to circumvent the rules." 

Some four months earlier on Jan. 8, former FBI director Robert S. Mueller also released a report to the NFL about his law firm's independent investigation into the league's handling and collection of evidence in the Ray Rice domestic violence incident. That report? Registered at 96 pages.

Indeed, a larger page number does not necessarily indicate that a particular subject is of greater importance. But just to give it some perspective, the Wells Report is more than 82,000 words, longer than famous novels including "The Great Gatsby" (47,094), "Brave New World" (63,766) and "The Secret Garden (80,398)."

Nor does it necessarily speak to the thoroughness of an investigation. If anything, it probably speaks to the absurd depth of a report about deflated balls that will likely lead to no significant punishments for the Patriots. 

But those are just the figures. 

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