The NFL’s commitment to sharing the report of Ted Wells’ Dolphins investigation with the public could force Wells to get creative in order to get people to talk privately.
The league’s vow to disclose the outcome publicly has created concerns regarding the willingness of witnesses to tell all that they know, for fear of being outed as people who betrayed co-workers and/or violated the supposed code of the locker room.
Per a source with knowledge of the situation, Wells could strike the balance between the inevitable release of information and the importance of coaxing the facts from reluctant witnesses by agreeing not to identify the witnesses who provided certain information.
While this could be the only way to get the information from the witnesses, it will make it harder for the public and the media to properly scrutinize the evidence on which Wells makes any specific conclusions or recommendations.
As a result, in a case where it’s alreadly impossible to know what happened, it ultimately will be impossible to understand precisely how Wells comes to know what he ultimately believes he knows.