Brady’s appeal of suspension goes into OT
NFL: Lawyers lead 10-hour Deflategate marathon
Tom Brady’s 10-hour appeal has been heard. Now we await word.
Will NFL commissioner Roger Goodell uphold his office’s four-game suspension of the star quarterback?
Or did Brady’s legal team provide new, compelling evidence to prove the New England Patriots icon’s innocence in the Deflategate scandal? Or at least do enough to get his suspension reduced?
Such news was not immediately forthcoming.
Brady privately and publicly has insisted since January he did nothing wrong and had no knowledge of any footballs being deflated before January’s AFC Championship Game.
His appeal took place Tuesday at NFL headquarters on Park Avenue in Manhattan.
The hearing started at 9:30 a.m. and ended at about 7:30 p.m. EDT — a 10-hour marathon.
Brady did not speak to reporters afterward, but his lead lawyer Jeffrey Kessler did briefly.
“I don’t know what the timetable (for a decision) will be,” Kessler told reporters afterward. “We put in a very compelling case, that’s all I’ll say.”
USA Today cited an unnamed person with knowledge of Brady’s testimony who said the quarterback stuck to what he has already said, that if there were a scheme to deflate footballs he was unaware of it and had no role in it.
Both sides said there will be no continuation meeting; the appeal is done.
To Brady’s and the NFL Players Association’s dismay, Goodell weeks ago refused to recuse himself as arbiter.
Ted Wells, former FBI director and lead Deflategate investigator for the NFL, was reportedly on hand to defend his muchmaligned probe and subsequent 243-page report. He said nothing afterward other than to confirm he testified.
The hearing was private. Yet drama continued to play out in this melodrama.
The league, which had handled virtually every Deflategate development poorly, inexplicably continued down that road on Tuesday.
ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported the NFL informed Brady’s lawyer, Kessler, that his side would be given up to four hours to argue its case. After an NFL spokesman denied the report, Schefter released a copy of the letter sent to Kessler on June 15 by NFL counsel Gregg Levy, which stated exactly that.
As the hearing dragged into early evening, it became clear the four-hour limit had not been enforced. NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport reported that Patriots owner Robert Kraft testified on Brady’s behalf only in written form, as he was unable to do so in person.
Goodell was not expected to rule on the appeal for at least several days.
According to NFL Network, decisions in recent high-profile appeals didn’t come for anywhere from four to 26 days (and counting).
For Brady to get his punishment reduced or perhaps even quashed entirely by the commish, all his legal eagles might have needed to do was further undermine the sketchy findings of the Wells Report.
The controversial document — blasted by some lawyers as biased advocacy — concluded last month it “is more probable than not” the three-time Super Bowl MVP was “at least generally aware” that two Patriots equipment managers conspired to release air from the dozen footballs New England used in the first half of the AFC title game.
New England beat Indianapolis 45-7 on Jan. 18 to advance to Super Bowl XLIX, which the Patriots won.
The science and methodology employed by the Wells team’s engineering consultants — who concluded the Patriots’ footballs likely could not have naturally deflated approximately a half-pound to a full pound per square inch without deliberate chicanery — has since been blasted.
Brady’s legal team surely spent a chunk of time pointing to the scientific uncertainties.
Brady agreed to be interviewed by Wells investigators and was fully co-operative except in one way. He refused to turn over his cellphone records or electronic information from his cellphone, such as text messages and emails.
Whether he did so Tuesday was one of the appeal’s compelling storylines.
Wells and the NFL viewed Brady’s lack of co-operation in that regard during the investigation as egregious, even though labour lawyers say it is practically unheard of in the real world for union employees to turn over such private information while under workplace investigation.
If unsuccessful in his appeal, it is believed Brady would not hesitate to take the NFL and Goodell to court to get his suspension vacated. The quarterback has sworn to friends and family he is innocent and they believe he will stop at no end until he is cleared.
As we’ve been advising, it could be a long time yet before all the air is let out of Deflategate.