DeflateGate: NFL Wanted Patriots to Suspend Jim McNally and John Jastremski

Ever since the release of the Wells Report and the subsequent punishments handed down by the NFL, the question why the New England Patriots suspended its two employees around whom the Deflategate scandal centers – Jim McNally and John Jastremski – lingered. Now, according to ESPN's Adam Schefter, we have an answer to that:

For those asking why Patriots suspended two employees if those two did nothing wrong, as New England claims: NFL asked Pats to suspend them prior to discipline being handed down, per a league source in New York. New England obliged with the NFL's request.

It has been known that only Troy Vincent, the league's executive vice president of football operations, could reinstate McNally and Jastremski, but not much more. Naturally, this lead to a lot of speculation. After all, why would the Patriots suspend two employees if the team believes those two did nothing wrong?

As Schefter's post shows, it has all been part of the Patriots cooperating with the league. Cooperation, the very thing whose apparent lack of the NFL punished the franchise for...