New England Patriots News & Rumors

6:28pm: The NFLPA has officially announced its suit on behalf of Brady, providing a brief summary of its arguments, along with the full text of the appeal.

6:08pm: The lawsuit from Tom Brady and the NFL Players Association seeking to vacate Brady’s four-game suspension has officially been filed in Minnesota district court, tweets Albert Breer of the NFL Network. According to Tom Pelissero of USA Today (Twitter link), NFLPA attorney Jeffrey Kessler says the union filed suit on four grounds, including a lack of notice and Roger Goodell’s partiality. Breer notes (via Twitter) that the suit also refers to Brady’s June appeal hearing as one that “defied any concept of fundamental fairness.”

Unsurprisingly, several news, notes, and opinions on the Brady situation have trickled in over the course of the day, so we’ll use this space to round them all up. Here’s the latest:

News/rumors/quotes:

• The NFLPA will ask the judge to either rule by September 4th or to issue an injunction allowing Brady to play pending a ruling, a source tells Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk (on Twitter). Kessler thinks the situation can be resolved by September 4th, as Pelissero tweets.
• At least two NFLPA player reps were “dismayed” by the union’s decision to vehemently defend Brady, since those players believe it’s likely that Brady is guilty and are concerned about the union’s spending on legal fees, says Jason Cole of Bleacher Report. (video link). In a letter to the NFL Players Association’s board of player representatives earlier this year, attorneys Tom DePaso and Ira Fishman explained why the NFLPA has paid so much more in legal fees than the MLB and NBA player unions over the last three years (Twitter links via Cole).
• Brady’s agent, Don Yee, told Ed Werder of ESPN (Twitter links) that his client was beyond cooperative with Roger Goodell and Ted Wells’ team and offered up all of his cell phone records. “I’m not sure there’s another person in America with a celebrity equal to Tom’s who would do that. Imagine Taylor Swift [doing that],” Yee said.
• Yee also offered up a theory on why the NFL has decided to file preemptively in New York federal court (via Twitter links). “One inference is they’re not confident in their reason, not confident in their evidence. [They’re] looking for a friendly jurisdiction down the street from Park Avenue because they’re saying to the world, ‘We doubt our evidence and reasoning can withstand any jurisdiction in America.’ They’re essentially admitting that.”
• Yee told Tom E. Curran of CSNNE.com (Twitter links) that he contacted AT&T’s general counsel to see if they could technologically retrieve the contents of Brady’s text messages, but they could not. Said Yee: “They are an independent third party. If we were trying to hide something, why would we even reach out?”
• More comments on the matter from Yee to Curran and to Jason La Canfora of CBSSports.com can be found here and here.
• Judge Richard Berman, described as “fair” and “more than capable,” has been assigned the NFL’s lawsuit in New York City, tweets Mike Garafolo of FOX Sports. Breer, meanwhile, tweets that Judge Richard Kyle drew the NFLPA’s suit in Minnesota, and suggests that could be good news for the league.

Opinions/editorials:

• In a Pro Football Talk column, Florio wonders why Goodell didn’t increase Brady’s suspension, if the new information he received – since initially deciding on four games – convinced him that the Patriots quarterback deliberately obstructed the investigation by destroying his cell phone.
• Brady didn’t just show contempt for Goodell — he disrespected every other NFL player too, Mike Vaccaro of the New York Post writes.
• When one of the league’s “most ambassadorial” owners like Robert Kraft makes such a strong statement about his lack of trust in the NFL’s ability to be fair and just, it’s hard to imagine things getting much worse for the league, writes Charles Robinson of Yahoo! Sports.
• Mike Freeman of Bleacher Report implores Brady to come clean so that the NFL can avoid a civil war. In a separate piece, Freeman passes along a text message he received from a Patriots player: “It’s us against the world.”
• We may never know whether Brady was involved in deflating footballs, but it seems that his true crime in the eyes of the NFL and Goodell was refusing to play ball with the league, writes La Canfora in a CBSSports.com column.

Earlier: Robert Kraft, Tom Brady issue statements

Zach Links contributed to this post.

9:15am: At a Wednesday morning press conference, Patriots owner Robert Kraft said that he was “wrong to put his faith in the league” (via Mike Reiss of ESPN.com on Twitter). Kraft explained that he was willing to “accept the harshest penalty in the history of the NFL for an alleged ball violation” because he believed that it would exonerate Brady, Jeff Howe of the Boston Herald tweets.

Kraft expressed regret for not taking legal action against the NFL and slammed Goodell. “There are those in the league office who are more determined to prove they were right rather than admit any culpability,” the Pats owner said, according to Mike Garafolo of FOX Sports (on Twitter).

Kraft’s full statement is below (transcript from Mike Florio of PFT):

I felt it was important to make a statement today, prior to the start of training camp. After this, I will not be talking about this matter until after the legal process plays itself out, and I would advise everyone in the organization to do the same and just concentrate on preparation for the 2015 season.

The decision handed down by the league yesterday is unfathomable to me. It is routine for discipline in the NFL to be reduced upon appeal. In the vast majority of these cases, there is tangible and hard evidence of the infraction for which the discipline is being imposed, and still the initial penalty gets reduced. Six months removed from the AFC championship game, the league still has no hard evidence of anybody doing anything to tamper with the PSI levels of footballs.

I continue to believe and unequivocally support Tom Brady. I first and foremost need to apologize to our fans, because I truly believe what I did in May, given the actual evidence of the situation and the league’s history on discipline matters, would make it much easier for the league to exonerate Tom Brady.

Unfortunately, I was wrong.

The league’s handling of this entire process has been extremely frustrating and disconcerting. I will never understand why an initial erroneous report regarding the PSI level of footballs was leaked by a source from the NFL a few days after the AFC championship game, [and] was never corrected by those who had the correct information. For four months, that report cast aspersions and shaped public opinion.

Yesterday’s decision by Commissioner was released in a similar manner, under an erroneous headline that read, “Tom Brady destroyed his cellphone.” This headline was designed to capture headlines across the country and obscure evidence regarding the tampering of air pressure in footballs. It intentionally implied nefarious behavior and minimized the acknowledgement that Tom provided the history of every number he texted during that relevant time frame. And we had already provided the league with every cellphone of every non-NFLPA that they requested, including head coach Bill Belichick.

Tom Brady is a person of great integrity, and is a great ambassador of the game, both on and off the field. Yet for reasons that I cannot comprehend, there are those in the league office who are more determined to prove that they were right rather than admit any culpability of their own or take any responsibility for the initiation of a process and ensuing investigation that was flawed.

I have come to the conclusion that this was never about doing what was fair and just. Back in May, I had to make a difficult decision that I now regret. I tried to do what I thought was right. I chose not to take legal action. I wanted to return the focus to football.

I have been negotiating agreements on a global basis my entire life. I know there are times when you have to give up important points of principle to achieve a greater good. I acted in good faith and was optimistic that by taking the actions I took the league would have what they wanted. I was willing to accept the harshest penalty in the history of the NFL for an alleged ball violation because I believed it would help exonerate Tom.

I have often said, ‘If you want to get a deal done, sometimes you have to get the lawyers out of the room.’ I had hoped that Tom Brady’s appeal to the league would provide Roger Goodell the necessary explanation to overturn his suspension. Now, the league has taken the matter to court, which is a tactic that only a lawyer would recommend.

Once again, I want to apologize to the fans of the New England Patriots and Tom Brady. I was wrong to put my faith in the league. Given the facts, evidence, and laws of science that underscore this entire situation, it is completely incomprehensible to me that the league continues to take steps to disparage one of its all-time great players, and a man for whom I have the utmost respect.

Personally, this is very sad and disappointing to me.

9:09am: On Tuesday, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell decided to uphold Tom Brady‘s four-game suspension and in the process, he asserted that the Patriots quarterback destroyed his phone in an attempt to hide critical evidence from league investigators. We then heard statements from virtually every party involved, with the exception of the accused. That changed this morning when Brady took to Facebook to give his version of events. In a lengthy statement, Brady refuted the notion that he broke his phone in order to conceal evidence:

“I also disagree with yesterdays narrative surrounding my cellphone. I replaced my broken Samsung phone with a new iPhone 6 AFTER my attorneys made it clear to the NFL that my actual phone device would not be subjected to investigation under ANY circumstances. As a member of a union, I was under no obligation to set a new precedent going forward, nor was I made aware at any time during Mr. Wells investigation, that failing to subject my cell phone to investigation would result in ANY discipline.

Most importantly, I have never written, texted, emailed to anybody at anytime, anything related to football air pressure before this issue was raised at the AFC Championship game in January. To suggest that I destroyed a phone to avoid giving the NFL information it requested is completely wrong.”

Brady also claimed that “the discipline was upheld without any counter offer” even though multiple reports indicated that there were settlement talks between the two sides before Goodell’s decision was handed down. Either way, Brady is set to serve a four-game suspension, unless a federal court intercedes in the ruling.

5:15pm: The two sides were moving close to a one-game suspension settlement, but Brady demanded that the records be sealed and the NFL refused, according to Judy Battista of NFL.com (via Ian Rapoport of NFL.com on Twitter).

NFLPA Assistant Executive Director George Atallah (on Twitter) strongly denies that any settlement was close to being reached. Albert Breer of NFL.com (on Twitter) hears that the two sides were never close.

The NFLPA’s federal court filing is slated to come tomorrow and it will be filed in Minnesota, Rapoport tweets.

5:05pm: The Patriots released a statement on the matter:

“We are extremely disappointed in today’s ruling by Commissioner Goodell. We cannot comprehend the league’s position in this matter. Most would agree that the penalties levied originally were excessive and unprecedented, especially in light of the fact that the league has no hard evidence of wrongdoing. We continue to unequivocally believe in and support Tom Brady. We also believe that the laws of science continue to underscore the folly of this entire ordeal. Given all of this, it is incomprehensible as to why the league is attempting to destroy the reputation of one of its greatest players and representatives.”

4:43pm: The NFLPA officially announced that it will appeal the decision. Their full statement is reprinted below.

The Commissioner’s ruling today did nothing to address the legal deficiencies of due process. The NFL remains stuck with the following facts:

• The NFL had no policy that applied to players
• The NFL provided no notice of any such policy or potential discipline to players;
• The NFL resorted to a nebulous standard of “general awareness” to predicate a legally unjustified punishment;
• The NFL had no procedures in place until two days ago to test air pressure in footballs; and
• The NFL violated the plain meaning of the collective bargaining agreement.
• 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.

The NFLPA will appeal this outrageous decision on behalf of Tom Brady.

3:57pm: Brady’s agent, Don Yee, issued a strongly-worded statement on the matter. The statement is reprinted below, courtesy of ESPN’s Adam Schefter on Facebook:

“The Commissioner’s decision is deeply disappointing, but not surprising because the appeal process was thoroughly lacking in procedural fairness.

Most importantly, neither Tom nor the Patriots did anything wrong. And the NFL has no evidence that anything inappropriate occurred.

The appeal process was a sham, resulting in the Commissioner rubber-stamping his own decision. For example, the Wells investigative team was given over 100 days to conduct its investigation. Just days prior to the appeal hearing, we were notified that we would only have four hours to present a defense; therefore, we didn’t have enough time to examine important witnesses. Likewise, it was represented to the public that the Wells team was ‘independent’; however, when we requested documents from Wells, our request was rejected on the basis of privilege. We therefore had no idea as to what Wells found from other witnesses, nor did we know what those other witnesses said.

These are just two examples of how the Commissioner failed to ensure a fair process.

Additionally, the science in the Wells Report was junk. It has been thoroughly discredited by independent third parties.

Finally, as to the issue of cooperation, we presented the Commissioner with an unprecedented amount of electronic data, all of which is incontrovertible. I do not think that any private citizen would have agreed to provide anyone with the amount of information that Tom was willing to reveal to the Commissioner. Tom was completely transparent. All of the electronic information was ignored; we don’t know why. The extent to which Tom opened up his private life to the Commissioner will become clear in the coming days.

The Commissioner’s decision and discipline has no precedent in all of NFL history. His decision alters the competitive balance of the upcoming season. The decision is wrong and has no basis, and it diminishes the integrity of the game.”

3:48pm: Tom Brady has authorized the NFLPA to appeal his case in federal court, a source tells Jim Trotter of ESPN.com (on Twitter). Just prior to that, the NFL asked a federal court to confirm Brady’s suspension, Scott Soshnick of Bloomberg News tweets. The league filed its complaint in Manhattan.

Earlier today, the league announced that commissioner/arbitrator Roger Goodell has upheld Brady‘s full four-game suspension. The statement described that Brady actually destroyed his cell phone in order to hide incriminating evidence from NFL

Arbitrator Roger Goodell has upheld Tom Brady‘s full four-game suspension, the league announced today (Twitter link via Ben Volin of the Boston Globe). The NFL’s statement on the ruling cites “important new information” when explaining Goodell’s decision to keep Brady’s penalty at four games, as Adam Schefter of ESPN.com details. The statement reads, in part, as follows:

“On or shortly before March 6, the day that Tom Brady met with independent investigator Ted Wells and his colleagues, Brady directed that the cell phone he had used for the prior four months be destroyed. He did so even though he was aware that the investigators had requested access to text messages and other electronic information that had been stored on that phone. During the four months that the cell phone was in use, Brady had exchanged nearly 10,000 text messages, none of which can now be retrieved from that device. The destruction of the cell phone was not disclosed until June 18, almost four months after the investigators had first sought electronic information from Brady.

“Based on the Wells Report and the evidence presented at the hearing, 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 commissioner found that Brady’s deliberate destruction of potentially relevant evidence went beyond a mere failure to cooperate in the investigation and supported a finding that he had sought to hide evidence of his own participation in the underlying scheme to alter the footballs.”

We’ve heard all along that, with no reduction on the penalty for the Patriots quarterback, Brady and the NFLPA were expected to continue to fight the decision in court. It’s not clear if the revelation that Brady had his cell phone destroyed changes that at all, but I’d be surprised if the Super Bowl MVP and the players’ union simply accepted Goodell’s ruling. According to Brady, “it is his practice to destroy his cellphone and SIM cards when he gets a new cell phone.”

Assuming Brady and the NFLPA do take the case to court, they’d likely seek an injunction so that he could continue to see the field for the Pats while the legal situation plays out. However, that could be a risky approach, depending on when the case is resolved — if Goodell’s decision is upheld in court, Brady would have to serve the suspension immediately, potentially during a much more crucial point in the season.

Goodell’s full 20-page explanation of his decision can be found here.