all this fun aside, as we head to court this is now about the NFLPA vs The Commish and just how much power he is given, and how to interpret his fairness in executing said power. It will not be as cut and dried as we laymen think we understand the language as it is written.
Unfortunately for Pats haters, the "Fairness" part may include looking into why certain evidence gathered by Wells (now known) was excluded from the Wells Report after NFL front office editing of it, why The Commish limited and deleted some of the witnesses Brady's side had lined up for his appeal, how to justify punishing for the phone destruction when Brady could not know ahead of time that it would be a punishable offense or at least what the punishment would be (no previous such punishments had ever been meted out)...
Unfortunately for the Brady side backers, there is a strong case allowing the Commish his power to do what he has done (other than play with allowable and not allowed evidence) based on the Basic Agreement.
So much has been said back and forth here and everywhere, all I want to add from a personal view is...what's the big deal about his phone? I ask because they had to already have his texts (if there even were any) made to the Pats ball boys because they had their phones! DUH!
So I predict the end result will be a settlement, Brady will accept a lesser punishment which may include game(s) for not cooperating, the league will drop it's demand that he admit guilt as they have been unable to prove the balls were actually deflated manually (I know haters hate this fact, but unbiased evidence would bear this out if it went to real court), and the Commish will retain his power albeit the appeals process will be reworded to exclude him from judging his own decisions a second time...that is not fairness.
One more pot stirrer...if Brady is an habitual ball deflating addict, why has no one else stepped up from his past to say he had them do it too, in nearly two decades in the NFL, four years of college, four years of High School, basically two and a half decades of being a control freak? People come out of the woods and gutters all the time when celebs are charged with stuff. But as big as this has grown...crickets.