NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has upheld New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady’s four-game suspension for his alleged involvement in the Deflategate scandal, the league announced Tuesday.
Brady appealed the suspension during a 10-hour meeting at NFL headquarters in New York on June 23.
In its ruling, the NFL rejected Brady’s appeal because it found he purposely tried to impede the league’s investigation by destroying his cellphone.
Goodell “found that Brady’s deliberate destruction of potentially relevant evidence went beyond a mere failure to cooperate,” the NFL stated.
“Commissioner Goodell concluded in his decision that Brady was aware of, and took steps to support, the actions of other team employees to deflate game footballs below the levels called for by the NFL’s Official Playing Rules,” the statement continued.
According to multiple reports, Brady is prepared to fight any suspension in federal court. To defend him in the so-called Deflategate case, Brady retained lawyer Jeffrey Kessler, who has successfully fought the NFL on multiple occasions, including the New Orleans Saints’ bountygate scandal in 2008.
In May, days after being suspended without pay for the first four games of the 2015 season, the star quarterback filed an appeal. The punishment was for conduct detrimental to the integrity of the NFL and stemmed from a report by renowned investigator Ted Wells finding Brady was likely generally aware that equipment assistants had deflated the Patriots’ footballs for the AFC championship game Jan. 18 against the Indianapolis Colts. Deflated footballs are easier to throw and catch.
Goodell, who imposed the original penalty, appointed himself to hear the appeal. Goodell had also fined the Patriots $1 million and stripped them of a first-round pick next year, and a fourth-round selection in 2017. The fine is tied for the largest in NFL history, matching that imposed on former San Francisco 49ers owner Eddie DeBartolo in 1999 for his role in a Louisiana riverboat gambling scandal.
The alleged football-deflation scheme marked the second time in eight years the Patriots had been accused of cheating. In 2007, they were caught improperly videotaping the sideline hand signals of New York Jets coaches. That incident, nicknamed Spygate, cost New England Coach Bill Belichick $500,000 – the maximum allowable fine at the time – and the league docked the Patriots a first-round draft pick.
If Brady were to file in federal court, he would likely do so in either Minnesota, where the NFL Players Association has had success before, or the Patriots’ home state of Massachusetts.
The NFL has been on a losing streak lately when it comes to getting original suspensions to stick. The high-profile discipline cases involving players Ray Rice, Adrian Peterson and Greg Hardy were all successfully challenged on appeal or in court.
Were Brady to file an appeal in federal court, he almost certainly would request an injunction that would delay any suspension until a decision were reached. That would at least allow him to play in the Sept. 10 Kickoff Opener against Pittsburgh.
Last week, ABC News was the first of multiple media outlets to report Brady’s strategy for fighting any eventual suspension. That included arguing that the league’s policy for handling equipment applies to club personnel and not players; that having a “general awareness” of a plan to deflate footballs doesn’t justify punishment; that Brady didn’t have fair notice of the punishment he faced; and that other such instances of alleged tampering with footballs didn’t result in player suspensions.
The Patriots also have questioned Wells’ methodology and procedures in the production of his report.
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