The appeal hearing for Tom Brady‘s four-game suspension lasted over 10 hours yesterday, but things eventually wrapped up, and another session won’t be necessary. While the hearing came to an end on Tuesday, we probably shouldn’t expect a ruling until July, as arbitrators typically take at least a couple weeks to announce their decisions on appeals.
Still, we have plenty of reactions and updates on Brady’s appeal to pass along, so let’s dive in and round up the latest….
- The post-hearing briefs in the Brady appeal are due late next week, sources tell Mike Garafolo of FOX Sports (Twitter link). That will give Goodell even more information to consider, so his ruling won’t come until some time after that.
- As expected, the reviews on Brady’s Tuesday performance from NFL sources weren’t quite as glowing as the one’s from Brady’s side, writes Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk. Florio cites a league source who says that the Super Bowl MVP simply reiterated that he wasn’t involved and didn’t have knowledge of any tampering with the footballs. When pressed on certain issues, Brady’s answers were “regarded by some in the room as not entirely credible,” says Florio.
- Within the same PFT piece, Florio suggests that it’s unlikely Brady will be completely exonerated, and notes that the NFLPA’s defense for Brady hinged in large part on attacking the science in the Wells report.
Earlier updates:
- Sources tell Adam Schefter of ESPN.com that Brady came off as “very genuine, earnest, and persuasive” during his testimony on Tuesday. According to Schefter, the Patriots quarterback every issue raised in the Ted Wells report, with one source calling it “an A+ performance.” I have to imagine Schefter’s sources are on the NFLPA’s camp rather than from the NFL side.
- Within Schefter’s piece, NFLPA rep Jeffrey Kessler indicated that Brady and the union put forth a “very compelling case,” adding that no timetable for a decision was provided.
- The transcript of Tuesday’s hearing won’t be released, though that could change if Brady and the NFLPA file a lawsuit against the NFL challenging the outcome of the appeal, writes Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk.
- Florio has two more pieces up on the DeflateGate saga, pointing out that the NFL only seems to come out to contradict erroneous reports when it benefits the league to do so, and suggesting that the NFL ought to study the inflation level of its footballs during the coming season to accumulate more scientific data on the subject.
- Given all the gray area and lack of hard evidence in the case, Jarrett Bell of USA Today believes DeflateGate will end up being no more than a footnote to Brady’s legacy.
This will also go down as one of the most embarrassing and ridiculous “making a mountain out of a molehill” stories in sports history. I still say this should be the end of Roger Goodell’s NFL commissioner career
I hate that we need to announce fandom when talking about this issue, but I’m a Colts fan and this whole thing is hilariously insane. With a decade of Brady-Manning, plus the most recent humiliations he’s put us through, it’s safe to say I don’t particularly care for Brady on the football field, but come on, people. Did he do anything illegal? Maybe, but it’s laughable that people believe anything Goodell or the “paid by the NFL” Wells report say when we’ve recently had multiple independent organizations speak to the contrary, all of which are far more unbiased (and not compensated) than Goodell and Wells.
Do I sort of wish Brady actually did this stuff and we had evidence to prove it. Yeah, a little, but that’s only because I don’t like the man as a football player and it would make me feel better about getting crushed in the AFC Championship Game. But anyone out there who’s throwing around “liar” and “cheater” and “asterisk” when it comes to Brady is just begging to be called a hater, and those people are even more insane than the Pats fans who can’t fathom their golden boy would do something to bend/break the rules.
Bottom line: This is all incredibly overblown, and regardless of what team you root for we all need to just take a step back and realize this is such a non-issue and that Goodell, Wells, and the NFL are looking worse by the day. We don’t know if Brady did anything wrong, and we probably won’t ever know, so neither side should brandish him with labels or pronounce themselves judge, jury, and executioner with regard to his legacy. It’s just a rumor of something we have no solid of ever happening (and that goes for the non-science evidence too like the texts). And that’s all coming from a rational Colts fan.