The league already has one suit in motion, filing it in New York on Tuesday immediately after Commissioner Roger Goodell turned aside Brady’s appeal of his four-game suspension.
Advertisement
Brady was suspended for the first four games of the 2015 season on May 11, after Ted Wells’ investigators found that it was “more probable than not” that Patriots personnel deliberately deflated footballs during the AFC Championship Game in January and that Brady was “at least generally aware” of the rules violations.
If anything, the NFL’s recent decision added fuel to the fire, especially after the league alleged that the Super Bowl-winning quarterback had ordered that his cell phone be destroyed rather than turn it over.
Mara said he was “saddened” the issue is still lingering over six months after Brady and the Patriots allegedly tampered with footballs in the AFC Championship Game. The move to consolidate the lawsuits involving Brady in New York is seen as an initial victory for the NFL in that the league was successful in choosing the jurisdiction to hear the arguments. Brady, through the union, will seek an injunction that will allow him to play for the Patriots until the case is final.
On Wednesday, the NFLPA was asked by a judge in Manhattan to have its response by August 13. But Kessler made clear he wasn’t pleased about the way Goodell’s decision presented the destruction of the phone, which Brady says he does regularly when he gets a new one, before an interview with investigators as evidence of a cover-up.
“I truly believe that what I did in May… would make it much easier for the league to exonerate Tom Brady”.
“Tom’s always been a pretty cool customer, but he is rattled to the extent that possibly his privilege to playing NFL for four games is being taken away”, Yee said.
The players union said in its lawsuit that Brady wasn’t given proper notice of the disciplinary standards, policies and potential penalties that the league applied in its arbitration.
He also denied that there was anything suspicious about Brady ordering his cell phone destroyed. “Unfortunately, I was wrong”.
“There is no ‘smoking gun, ‘ and this controversy is manufactured to distract from the fact they have zero evidence of wrongdoing”, the 37-year-old quarterback said in his post.
Brady’s comments came a few hours before the Patriots opened training camp and the defence of their Super Bowl title.
Earlier, coach Bill Belichick declined to answer questions about the deflated footballs scandal for the second straight day, citing Kraft’s admonition that the team shouldn’t discuss it.
Belichick said what’s in the past doesn’t concern him. “The guys in this locker room, we feel we are part of a family”, he said.
Advertisement
Atallah said league officials told them the NFL wouldn’t even discuss anything unless Brady admitted his guilt. “You can’t focus on everything at once because it’ll overwhelm you, so you just gotta take it one day at a time, focus on the little things, focus on improving every day”.
