Goodell had texts of McNally and Jastremski discussing deflating footballs for 'Tom' and Tom was going to pay them money to do so. There is no doubt in my mind that 'Tom' was Tom Brady.
Where Brady got suspended was he had a phone that the investigators wanted to see with Brady and his lawyers present to look at the texts. Tom heard about this and literally destroyed his phone on purpose so the investigators couldn't see it.
The footballs were deflated. They were not at least 12.5 PSI. While I agree that nature would reduce the PSI naturally, according to all of the scientists the footballs should have deflated by 1.0 PSI. The footballs were at an average of 11.33 PSI. The claim of the scientists is that there is some margin for error and that 11.33 PSI falls within that margin for error.
The problem is that nobody said you could use the average to prove Brady's innocence. If he deflated ONE football...he cheated. And there were at least 4 footballs that were well below the projected PSI with the margin for error.
Where Goodell screwed up is that he simply needed to properly calibrate the gauges and then record the footballs PSI prior to the game. All they did was check to see if the PSI was within the 12.5 to 13.5 PSI range. So, a football that may have been measured at 11.5 PSI at halftime may have started off at 13.3 PSI prior to the game. We won't know because Goodell and Wells overlooked this.
But given that there were footballs below that 11.5 PSI with the margin for error, the texts showing that they planned to deflate footballs in the past and that Tom was paying them to do so and the video of McNally sneaking off to the bathroom with the footballs which breaks the protocol and Brady destroying his phone on purpose to thwart an investigation...Patriots have little to argue about other than Goodell and Wells could have made this a lot easier on themselves if they had some sort of competence.
The thing that scares me is the Saints ordeal. They railroaded the team with no evidence that the players or coaches were taking Gregg Williams seriously, that anybody picked up any money or that they played dirty in any of the games.
Goodell may have bitten off more than he can chew. EE could easily argue that there was racism involved as Josh Brown, a white kicker who brutally beat his wife and fully admitted to it...got a 1 game suspension. He could also argue race given that the league is taking a white woman's word who was *proven* to have lied about being assaulted by EE over a black man's word. Combine that with Jerry's power and how he has treated the Brady, Ray Rice, Adrian Peterson, the Saints, the StarCaps, SpyGate, etc. situations...the patience is running thin with the owners, players and the fans.
Goodell will make out fine in the end given the ridiculous amount of money he's been paid over the years. But he could be fired as commissioner and enough owners have enough power to revoke his membership from Augusta National which will really sting for him since he covets it so much.
YR
