In his ruling, Goodell said that “on or shortly before March 6, the day that Brady met with independent investigator Ted Wells and his colleagues, Brady directed that the cell phone he had used for the prior four months be destroyed”.
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Brady was too smart, proud or stubborn for his own good.
Maddie Meyer/Getty Images The NFL announces Tuesday it is sticking to four-game ban on Patriots QB Tom Brady.
But even a courtroom victory won’t change how Brady looks in the court of public opinion.
The NFL Players Association had said previously it would challenge the decision in court if Brady’s suspension wasn’t erased.
Deflategate began after January’s AFC Championship Game, in which Brady’s New England Patriots defeated the Indianapolis Colts to advance to Super Bowl XLIX, which they won.
In sticking to a four-game suspension, Goodell essentially viewed the cover-up worse than the crime and punished Brady for tampering with the truth more than footballs.
The NFL resorted to a nebulous standard of general awareness to predicate a legally unjustified punishment, the union said, adding, the NFL violated the plain meaning of the collective bargaining agreement..
Ben Volin of the Boston Globe broke word of the decision, with Rand Getlin of NFL Network passing along the league’s release. The Patriots were fined $1 million and docked two draft picks.
Yet, all of the craziness breaking out on ESPN and NFL Network is a complete waste of your time, because the Patriots are still going to roll. “The decision is wrong and has no basis, and it diminishes the integrity of the game”.
You half-expected James Carville to pop out and say none of the texts were classified by the State Department and Colin Powell had a needle-wielding equipment manager and that voters don’t care about any of this because they believe Brady. The destruction of the cellphone is fairly damning.
Brady, one of the National Football League’s most popular players and in many ways the face of the sport, could take the case to federal court in a bid to overturn to the suspension. The report said Brady and the NFLPA submitted alternative scientific analysis from AEI and had Dean Snyder, of the Yale School of Management, an economist who specializes in industrial organization speak giving counter arguments to the findings of the Wells Report. The first four games consist of hosting the Pittsburgh Steelers, traveling to take on the Buffalo Bills, facing the Jacksonville Jaguars at Gillette Stadium, a BYE week, and a trip to play the Dallas Cowboys.
But at this point, given how badly Brady feels he is being mistreated, he might as well fight this thing to the end.
“The appeal process was a sham!” But the story would have gone away months ago, instead of threatening to drag right into another season.
This raises a real question about what Brady does not want seen on his phone records.
During those negotiations, NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport said the NFL wanted “some admission of guilt” from Brady, either in the act of deflating footballs or in obstructing the investigation. This is not a criminal proceeding, and Brady didn’t destroy his phone in the course of a lawsuit, either.
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But it seems dubious that Kraft or the NFL could force Brady to turn over his private property. He admits destroying the phone but insists that’s what he typically does when receiving a new one.
