IIRC those rumors were post Flemming and started in the Bob Rock era.

And Justice For All was his last album at the helm and that was 1988 still to early to do that sort of thing digitally (ProTools came out in the early 90s) and no one is hand cutting tape for each beat. Even the Black Album is still early for that level of manipulation in 1991.

Which isn't to say he didn't use a click or many many takes and tracks to help ...

Back in the pre-digital era that this was recorded in, I think this would have been impractical.

Today, every piece of pop music, at least, is quantized to the point where the accuracy is perfect, but also sterile of feeling, as discussed in any number of Rick Beato videos.

It'd be interesting to find out how many times they practiced that song before recording it. It's hard to overstate how much time and attention people had before ubiquitous cell phones and internet.