It took Six Months, But We’re Finally Right Where Everyone Thought We’d End Up

Headed to federal court….

With Roger Goodell finally reaching the decision that we all kind of expected yesterday and upholding the entire four game suspension for Tom Brady we now get to talk about this whole deflated football situation for another few months. Roger also decided that yesterday would be a good time to tell us all that “on or around the day” of his meeting with Ted Wells, Tom asked his assistant to maliciously destroy his phone a la Aaron Hernandez. He took 20 pages to tell us how in his humble opinion, the only scientists that got this thing right are the ones who will also testify under oath that second hand smoke has no adverse effect on the human body. Also, that this case is different than any other case situation that has ever come up in the NFL; he is kind of right, never before has a player named Tom Brady who plays for the Patriots been accused of any wrong doing. There have been other cases of league icons refusing to turn their cell phones over to investigators (but that was a mere case of sexual misconduct and the mistreatment of women and as everyone knows, Roger don’t care about no broads), there have been cases of a teams’ equipment staff monkeying around with the equipment under their control so as to give their team a competitive advantage (but no one watches that team so who cares?) and there has been a recent case of teams’ equipment staff mishandling balls during a game (but that was different because in Rogers’ own words “it is implausible that the ball boys would do anything with the balls without the QBs knowledge”, um…wait…well not that time…)…

Now Mr. Brady has “spoken” about this matter for the first time since before the Super Bowl and released his rebuttal on Facebook this morning. He tells us that the phone was “broken” not destroyed and it was disposed of well after his legal team informed the league that they would not be permitted to inspect the physical device because (just as the aforementioned iconic QB had done before him) Mr. Brady, being the good union man that he is, refused to set a precedent that could harm his fellow union members in the future. He did however offer spreadsheets detailing the entire contents of the phone. He also continues to stand firm in his defense that he did nothing wrong nor does he know of any wrongdoing by anyone else.

Who do you believe? Personally I believe no one. Neither side has any credibility in my eyes. The league lies at every turn and Roger Goodell deserves nothing less than a swift kick to the nuts from every NFL fan the world over. And sorry Tom, I am a Pats fan, but you guilty by association here. You play for an organization that has a history of pushing the limits of the rules and occasionally stepping over the line. Had the Pats organization just bit the bullet and tossed the Dorito Dink out in front of that speeding locomotive we may have avoided this year long charade.

Now to what’s going to happen next. Some folks are reporting that the NFL looks strong by filing a preemptive suit begging the courts to make sure the case is heard in New York is a strong move, showing that they are digging in their heels for a bi fight. To me it just says that they are not very confident in their case and will need some sort of home court advantage to win.

I had the chance to speak with a Federal District Court Judge about this case last week. She has probably no chance of hearing the case but is a colleague of the Justices in New York, Minnesota or Massachusetts that would and she seems to think that the NFL doesn’t stand much of a chance here based on past precedents set by Roger himself and the CBA. Long story short, Roger thought that he actually has absolute power, but he doesn’t and he handled this case very sloppily in the beginning.

So there we have it. As of today Brady is suspended, but he will more than likely be granted an injunction to stay the suspension until the federal appeal is heard, said appeal probably won’t be hear until after this season is over so really this is a best case scenario for Pats fans. They’ll get their QB for the entire 2015 season, he will probably be in full “F-You” mode and a pissed off Brady might be enough to make up for the Swiss secondary that Belichick and company have assembled.

Training camp starts today, it’s gonna bea fun season.