The DeflateGate saga that has plagued the National Football League, and the New England Patriots star quarterback Tom Brady, drags on today, with the announcement that the NFL will uphold the four game suspension handed down to Brady back in May – despite earlier speculation that a settlement between the parties was near to being reached.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell confirmed that the suspension would stand for Brady – handed down for his role in the alleged knowing and deliberate deflation of game balls for Patriots home games; purportedly done to improve Brady’s grip on the ball in challenging weather conditions.
Reports had suggested that the NFL had been in talks with the NFL Players Association regarding a compromise outcome – and the general broad assumption was that the suspension would, at the very least, be reduced by a couple of games – the League upheld the suspension in full, hanging their hat on the fact that Brady destroyed a cell phone that was said to contain the proverbial “smoking gun” text messages.
The NFL believes that Brady sent as many as 10,000 messages on a cell phone that was in use for a total of four months, before both it and the associated SIM card were destroyed. Brady’s defence relied on the premise that Brady makes habit of not sitting on the same phone for any elongated period of time, but the NFL did not accept that.
As a result of the ruling, Brady has authorised the NFL Players Association to file an appeal on the ruling in the US Federal Court. The NFLPA stated their outrage at the suspension on in a short statement:
“The fact that the NFL would resort to basing a suspension on a smoke screen of irrelevant text messages instead of admitting that they have all of the phone records they asked for is a new low, even for them, but it does nothing to correct their errors.”
Pending Federal Court action – which at the very least should provide a stay of execution of sorts on the serving of the suspension – Brady now essentially faces the same amount of enforced time on the sidelines as Dallas Cowboys‘ defensive end Greg Hardy, who also faces a four game suspension but for Domestic Abuse charges; and this sentence over some balls that might have been less inflated, via a conviction based on a missing phone the league legally has no right to request.
Australian professional sporting judiciary decisions might be confusing, but they don’t hold a candle to the NFL.
Photo: Al Bello via Getty Images.
