New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady didn’t turn over his cell phone to Wells report investigators, and his agent, Don Yee, shared why that decision was made.

“You’re in a situation when it comes to the NFL disciplinary process where you’re generally assigned guilt and asked to prove innocence … so that’s a very difficult situation to put yourself in,” Yee explained in a Thursday night interview on CNN with Anderson Cooper and Rachel Nichols.

“Second, with the text messages, the scope that they asked for is very, very wide. I probably should have made the letter public that we received from the NFL’s lawyers. But in any event, if we would have provided the phone or text messages, you have to understand Tom is also a member of the [players] union. The commissioner’s office does not have any subpoena power. If a prominent player were to provide all of their private communications absent a subpoena, that sets a dangerous precedent for all players facing disciplinary measures.

“Finally, any information we would have provided -- and the Wells investigative team did ask us to go through Tom’s phone on our own and provide them with information if we chose to go that route -- but as you might surmise, if we would have chosen to go that route, any information we would have given them, they probably would have had skepticism about anyway. So what it came down to is either way you turn, you’re really not playing on a level playing field.”