#DFG: Canceling the Noise

[amarshal2]

If I were on trial and my reputation was at stake and I potentially had evidence that could clear me of any wrongdoing, I certainly would not destroy it. While Brady has a right to privacy and may not want the contents of some of his texts becoming public record, if he truly had nothing to hide and the texts on his phone prove that over 10,000 messages he never once instructed anyone to tamper with or illegally modify any game balls, he wouldn't have erased or deleted or destroyed that ace up his sleeve. He could have withheld
submitting the texts until he absolutely had to in federal court to finally clear his name after exhausting every other avenue. He didn't. Those texts no longer exist.
 
Him saying that he could give Goodell a list of all of the people he was in contact with over that time and ask them for their phones is basically giving him a huge middle finger. Because there's zero chance Goodell can get anyone outside of the NFL to turn over their phones to potentially incriminate Brady.

 
Again, in order for what you suggest to be logical, there had to be an upside to destroying his phone.  There had to be some sort of gain to be had.  Even if there was a text to his dad saying he ordered the deflation, there was no gain to be had by destroying his phone since he never had to turn it over.
 
Only someone oblivious to the downside that awaits them does something with only downside as an outcome.
 
edit: an important point here is that the phone does not clear him and would not have been relevant in federal court since they do not review the evidence. 

 

[RedOctober3829]

 
Precisely. Public opinion is fickle and can be swayed. Most importantly, it had been proven that public opinion will have a direct impact on penalties and that there are parties in the NFL willing to sway said opinion.
 
Additional leaks. More amped up data point getting out. Etc. 
 
Regardless... the entire foundation of this case is that the NFL is fully convinced the Pats did something wrong. A different statement from Brady is unlikely to change things.
 
Besides, this assumes that he'd be truthful in making such a statement. It's possible that he's totally guilty, partially guilty, perhaps even generally aware, but it's also possible he's entirely innocent as he's professed. Why would he admit to something he -- at this time -- it totally denying?
 
Sorry the idea that he could control the outcome of this is foolhearty

If the  NFL wants to bury somebody they will do it regardless of the evidence put forth.  Look at Bountygate.

 

[nattysez]

Great article by Ray Ratto, which essentially tells Kraft to either become Al Davis or stop posturing.  I heartily agree, and I fully expect Kraft is all hat and no cattle on this.  He's trying to win back the fans (which he's clearly done, based on this thread) without actually putting anything substantive at risk. 
 

What Al did was try to gut, bone, fry and eat Pete Rozelle. What you did was tell Roger Goodell you were going to hold your breath until he turns blue.
So what else you got, Bob? You ready to start working the room and convince owners that the monster they created needs to be replaced by a new monster? Are you going to make your team off-limits to them, including on game day? You want to pick the fight, you have to go for total war here, or back down like you did before, to your great public shame.
***
Are you willing to make this a crusade that consumes you? Are you willing to make calls (sorry, too soon?) and text and buttonhole and whisper and litigate to get the regime change you seem to hint that you want, or are you going to back down with a tepid, spineless “That’s already been addressed” by your own personal and decidedly less engaging Marshawn Lynch?
How badly do you want this, Bob? You talked it, or at least a version of it, but if you’re planning to walk it, you’d better bring provisions, a willingness to be outwardly contemptuous while being secretly cunning, and remember the fourth chapter of the Book Of Al.
“An enemy today is an enemy forever, and no body part is off-limits, ever.”
 

 

[Harry Hooper]

Legal folks, how does the NFL get to file suit in court when they have no "grievance" to complain about yet?

 

[RedOctober3829]

Legal folks, how does the NFL get to file suit in court when they have no "grievance" to complain about yet?

It wasn't a suit they were filing.  They were looking for the court to affirm it's findings.

 

[Valek123]

I'm less concerned with the "public" than I am about individual persons. All it takes is an accusation to get any Jets of Colts fan to shout all over twitter or whatever. This has reached a point where you probably can't even have a conversation with a rational fan of an opposing team. There's so many of these little things that if that's all you've been seeing (because that's all ESPN talks about) then it's going to take a powerpoint presentation to talk sense into anyone and you'll always look like a crazy, rabid cheater apologist. 

 
"Never argue with an idiot.  They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience."  I play this over and over and over in my head when confronted on an individual basis, it's just not worth the energy expelled and leaves you frustrated and them entitled.  Aka let it go, there will likely be patriots fan support groups by the time this is all played out.

 

[amarshal2]

Great article by Ray Ratto, which essentially tells Kraft to either become Al Davis or stop posturing.  I heartily agree, and I fully expect Kraft is all hat and no cattle on this.  He's trying to win back the fans (which he's clearly done, based on this thread) without actually putting anything substantive at risk. 
 

So the argument is that Bob Kraft should behave like Al Davis.
 
And you don't see the flaw?

 

[Revkeith]

Great article by Ray Ratto, which essentially tells Kraft to either become Al Davis or stop posturing.  I heartily agree, and I fully expect Kraft is all hat and no cattle on this.  He's trying to win back the fans (which he's clearly done, based on this thread) without actually putting anything substantive at risk. 
 

 
Wow. I usually hate Ray Ratto but that pretty much sums up my feelings exactly. Kraft is playing both sides of the fence by hanging out in Palm Springs, Idaho with Goodell then turning around and saying he's a turd when the fans get restless. Pick a side and go with it.

 

[amlothi]

Given the way this whole thing has gone, I wouldn't be surprised if the true story is that Brady had to get a new phone because his old one was broken. Maybe his kid threw it in the swimming pool or someone ran it over with a car.

Very easy to spin that into "he destroyed his phone!"

 

[sodenj5]

 
It's so infuriating that you bought you the NFL's spin hook line and sinker.  Brady's texts in no way, whatsoever provide evidence that would clear him of wrongdoing.  If none of this texts mention football or PSI, then all that means is that none of his texts mention texts or PSI.  
 
The texts are not a smoking gun, no matter how badly the NFL wants you to believe that.  It is not hard to imagine a scenario where we end up in the exact same place today but Brady did turn over every single text to the NFL.  
 
It is also very unlikely that he would have had to ever submit his phone in federal court.  
 
I'm sorry to call you out directly, but this is a great example of how the NFL has spun this around and made the phone into evidence of wrong doing when it is really immaterial to the entire thing. 

 
While you may be right to a degree, that the NFL would discredit the texts and simply say he never sent any texts about deflating the balls, looking at it objectively, it's a pretty gigantic coincidence that Brady happened to break his phone the day he was supposed to meet with Wells and they asked him to submit his texts as evidence previously. He also convienetly not only got a new phone, but completely switched operating systems to start with a completely clean slate, with no backups cloud stored logs.
 

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

 

[amarshal2]

 
While you may be right to a degree, that the NFL would discredit the texts and simply say he never sent any texts about deflating the balls, looking at it objectively, it's a pretty gigantic coincidence that Brady happened to break his phone the day he was supposed to meet with Wells and they asked him to submit his texts as evidence previously. He also convienetly not only got a new phone, but completely switched operating systems to start with a completely clean slate, with no backups cloud stored logs.

 
Is it still convenient if they had already told Wells he wasn't ever going to turn over his phone?

 

[sodenj5]

 
Is it still convenient if they had already told Wells he wasn't ever going to turn over his phone?

 
It is when he can say, "see guys, I can't even turn over my phone even if I wanted to. Here's my new iPhone. Gisele washed my Android in the laundry. You know supermodels, amirite? Anyways, I had my old one destroyed/wiped/[insert choice  of words here]"

 

[cshea]

 
While you may be right to a degree, that the NFL would discredit the texts and simply say he never sent any texts about deflating the balls, looking at it objectively, it's a pretty gigantic coincidence that Brady happened to break his phone the day he was supposed to meet with Wells and they asked him to submit his texts as evidence previously. He also convienetly not only got a new phone, but completely switched operating systems to start with a completely clean slate, with no backups cloud stored logs.
 

It's a bad look, but he was under no legal obligation to turn the phone over, and he told them as much. What he did with the phone is up to him. The NFL and Wells has no right to it.

 

[drbretto]

 
"Never argue with an idiot.  They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience."  I play this over and over and over in my head when confronted on an individual basis, it's just not worth the energy expelled and leaves you frustrated and them entitled.  Aka let it go, there will likely be patriots fan support groups by the time this is all played out.

 
I'm not talking about idiots though. I mean genuinely intelligent and reasonable people. Or, basically, anyone who doesn't care about this as much as we do. Even the most reasonable person at this point who hasn't made up their minds but has only heard bits and pieces would roll their eyes or politely let us ramble on about our crazy conspiracy theories, then go back to assuming we're delusional. 

 

[amarshal2]

 
It is when he can say, "see guys, I can't even turn over my phone even if I wanted to. Here's my new iPhone. Gisele washed my Android in the laundry. You know supermodels, amirite? Anyways, I had my old one destroyed/wiped/[insert choice  of words here]"

 
You're grasping at straws.  He didn't need a second made up reason, he had the CBA and they had already informed them of his choice.
 
Again, and again, there was no benefit to destroying the phone.  If he was guilty, it did not help him in the slightest to destroy the phone because he didn't have to turn it over.  Only a person oblivious of the downside makes a decision with only downside.   

 

[sodenj5]

It's a bad look, but he was under no legal obligation to turn the phone over, and he told them as much. What he did with the phone is up to him. The NFL and Wells has no right to it.

 
I agree with you and said Brady is entitled to his personal privacy. Both Richie Incognito and Jonathan Martin submitted their text logs as evidence, so it's not like it has never been done before.

 

[( . ) ( . ) and (_!_)]

 
While you may be right to a degree, that the NFL would discredit the texts and simply say he never sent any texts about deflating the balls, looking at it objectively, it's a pretty gigantic coincidence that Brady happened to break his phone the day he was supposed to meet with Wells and they asked him to submit his texts as evidence previously. He also convienetly not only got a new phone, but completely switched operating systems to start with a completely clean slate, with no backups cloud stored logs.
 

 
I don't think anyone would argue with you about the optics and timing.  But there are also legitimate reasons for Brady to have done this. One of the biggest is that at no point in the appeals process or the looming court case would the texts on his phone be relevant or ever included in the discussion. 
 
This whole thing is just a means to distract from the fact that the science shows that the balls were not artificially defalted and that the league is using the PSI in footballs as a medium to strengthen their relative positive vs. the union.  

 

[Harry Hooper]

 
It's so infuriating that you bought you the NFL's spin hook line and sinker.  Brady's texts in no way, whatsoever provide evidence that would clear him of wrongdoing.  If none of this texts mention football or PSI, then all that means is that none of his texts mention footballs or PSI.  
 
The texts are not a smoking gun, no matter how badly the NFL wants you to believe that.  It is not hard to imagine a scenario where we end up in the exact same place today but Brady did turn over every single text to the NFL.  
 
It is also very unlikely that he would have had to ever submit his phone in federal court.  
 
I'm sorry to call you out directly, but this is a great example of how the NFL has spun this around and made the phone into evidence of wrong doing when it is really immaterial to the entire thing.   If I do not have a single text on my phone that says I murdered someone, then that does not prove that I did not murder someone.  

 
 
Yes, not to pile on here, but the NFL's own statement says "on or before" the meeting, and yet they managed the PR to turn that into "on the very day" he attended the meeting. 

 

[Eddie Jurak]

https://twitter.com/jimpethokoukis/status/626427567956824064

https://twitter.com/jimpethokoukis/status/626427567956824064

link to tweet

Best line of this whole monstrosity, at least for Star Trek fans.

 

[geoduck no quahog]

2 things:
 
It's been stated over and over: An NFLPA member cannot be obliged to hand over his cellphone. Voluntarily doing so undercuts the union.
 
Occam's razor: Mr. Brady had some very personal stuff on that phone. He was concerned that a court ruling might come down one day that demanded he hand it over. The personal stuff included communications with others that would have been listed on the log...and it would be up to them whether they wanted to provide the text (which they wouldn't). Brady could not risk handing over hard information (the phone) to a League that had already demonstrated its eagerness to leak information detrimental to him, if somehow a court ruled that he must provide the hardware. He made a judgment that destroying the phone was better than risking Mr. Wells getting his hands on it.
 
As for the Colt's "mis-handling" of the balls - nowhere in that statement is it stated that the balls were used in practice "midweek...". They could have been older.

 

[Bongorific]

 
Wow. I usually hate Ray Ratto but that pretty much sums up my feelings exactly. Kraft is playing both sides of the fence by hanging out in Palm Springs, Idaho with Goodell then turning around and saying he's a turd when the fans get restless. Pick a side and go with it.

I think part of it is Kraft knows the key players better than we do and who has a bone to pick. He only mentioned Roger's name once during his speech. He may view this as more of a league/Pash issue than RG and he thought RG might pull this out of the fire as arbitrator. He was wrong and now he's pissed.

 

[KiltedFool]

Have been debating whether to chime in with this for a bit, considering Goodell being able to serve as judge, jury and executioner in disciplinary matters has loomed so large.
 
The vote on the most recent CBA was not unanimous by the teams.  One team voted against the CBA specifically because of the problem of Goodell's disciplinary powers.
 
Ya think that issue is going to be front and center and bloody in the next CBA negotiation?

 

[sodenj5]

 
You're grasping at straws.  He didn't need a second made up reason, he had the CBA and they had already informed them of his choice.
 
Again, and again, there was no benefit to destroying the phone.  If he was guilty, it did not help him in the slightest to destroy the phone because he didn't have to turn it over.  Only a person oblivious of the downside makes a decision with only downside.   

 
I agree that there was no benefit to him destroying the phone. It's very easy to sit back from afar and say that there was no upside to Brady destroying the phone, therefore he did not destroy his phone or intentionally destroy it to hide incriminating evidence. It's entirely different when you're under investigation and your entire career and legacy may be at stake. People make irrational decisions all the time.

 

[DeJesus Built My Hotrod]

Scarborough ME Police watch over Goodell's property.
 
http://www.pressherald.com/2015/07/29/scarborough-police-watch-over-roger-goodells-home-on-prouts-neck/

Anyone who feels like physically threatening RG's property or his person is more fucked up than this entire situation. I don't doubt that these people exist but they concern me far more than an unchecked league commissioner or anything else related to this entire farce.

 

[ALiveH]

I work with a bunch of high-IQ people, a good chunk of them are from the midwest or west coast that have no Pats love.
 
On the positive side, the consensus seems to be: the cheating made no competitive difference; the punishment is very disproportionate; the whole affair is a silly, contrived media circus, ultimately signifying nothing.
 
On the negative side, they believe that there is enough circumstancial evidence & funny business to come to a pretty firm conclusion that the balls were doctored in some way.
 
Ultimately, nobody wants to take the time to learn the science because it's not in the top-100 things they care enough about to research.  So, they just see what's on ESPN or front page of msn.com.

 

[Spelunker]

 
And fans of George Orwell

I...love The Commissioner

 

[Bongorific]

As to Kraft and the organization continuing to back Brady's character, I am pretty impressed at how loyal Tom has been. He could have partially thrown McNally and Jastremski under the bus and he didn't. His statement regarding his cell phone invokes the interest of the Union and fellow players. He has brought heat on himself for these actions but appears to have done it, at least in part, because he thinks it's the right thing to do. I'm sure the Brunells and Polians off e world eould have had no problem trashing others to save themselves if they were in a similar situation.

 

[Marciano490]

Davis Polk alums are the best.

 
yup! In all seriousness, Berman is very solid.  Like I said, the SDNY has pretty uniformly good judges.  It's not like by filing there the NFL was hoping to find some yokel, nor could they expect to find a judge impressed or bullied by a big corporation.

 

[WayBackVazquez]

 
yup! In all seriousness, Berman is very solid.  Like I said, the SDNY has pretty uniformly good judges.  It's not like by filing there the NFL was hoping to find some yokel, nor could they expect to find a judge impressed or bullied by a big corporation.

 
:blink:

 

[LuckyBen]

 
I agree with you and said Brady is entitled to his personal privacy. Both Richie Incognito and Jonathan Martin submitted their text logs as evidence, so it's not like it has never been done before.

And how did that turn out? We saw every text.

 

[nighthob]

Not a good argument for Roger, unlike PSI this isn't something the refs can inspect nor test for.
 
I tweeted the link to post 936 to Florio, maybe he'll pick up on it.

Better retweet it again since I'm all the way down in the 800s now. I suppose I could put it up on Not the Onion, or screenshot and post it to my twitter.

 

[Al Zarilla]

 
Wow. I usually hate Ray Ratto but that pretty much sums up my feelings exactly. Kraft is playing both sides of the fence by hanging out in Palm Springs, Idaho with Goodell then turning around and saying he's a turd when the fans get restless. Pick a side and go with it.

I think Ratto is succinct and cuts through bullshit with the best of them. What don't you like about him?

 

[Seabass]

Posnanski is the adult in the room, again.
 
http://sportsworld.nbcsports.com/tom-brady-broken-phone/
 

No, Brady’s phone destruction (as described by the NFL) does not replace any of those maybes with facts. But it does getthe mind rolling into more maybes. Maybe there were smoking guns on that phone! Maybe he sent a text saying, “If any of those referees put up a fight, silence them for good!” Maybe he sent one saying, “Meet me in the stadium bathroom, I have a special plan for those footballs!” Maybe he sent one saying, “While those fools chase deflated footballs, we will focus on our true plan: Robbing Fort Knox!”

The NFL wants to make this about a destroyed phone (as described by the NFL) because that’s a fact that they can work with. Now, nobody’s arguing whether or not Tom Brady really cheated. Nobody’s arguing at all, really. Everybody’s talking about just why Tom Brady destroyed his phone (as described by the NFL) and what a moron/cheat/liar he was to do so. For the record: Brady says his phone broke. But who is going to believe that one, right? Phones don’t break.

 

 

[Hoya81]

Anyone who feels like physically threatening RG's property or his person is more fucked up than this entire situation. I don't doubt that these people exist but they concern me far more than an unchecked league commissioner or anything else related to this entire farce.

I'd much prefer the Town Council pass a law that is specifically written to raise RG's property tax 1000%.

 

[MarcSullivaFan]

 
yup! In all seriousness, Berman is very solid.  Like I said, the SDNY has pretty uniformly good judges.  It's not like by filing there the NFL was hoping to find some yokel, nor could they expect to find a judge impressed or bullied by a big corporation.

Agreed. Don't know Berman, but SDNY is considered one of the best and most influential federal district courts. And from an employment law perspective, it's considered to be employee-friendly. But I can't say I know if that's true for Berman in particular, and Tom Brady is not a typical employee.

 

[amarshal2]

 
I agree that there was no benefit to him destroying the phone. It's very easy to sit back from afar and say that there was no upside to Brady destroying the phone, therefore he did not destroy his phone or intentionally destroy it to hide incriminating evidence. It's entirely different when you're under investigation and your entire career and legacy may be at stake. People make irrational decisions all the time.

 
So essentially your stance is:
1. the scientific evidence is irrelevant
2. the optics/circumstantial evidence is more powerful
Therefore Brady did something irrational and extremely counterproductive to his long-term future that he didn't have to do because he was paranoid.
 
And my stance is:
1. the scientific evidence is relevant, this is a murder trial without a dead person
2. the optics/circumstantial evidence is all consistent with nothing having happened
 
You don't disagree with my point #2.  You just think he did it.  Therefore you disagree with my point #1.
 
I concede your point about him doing something irrational is possible but I think you're on the wrong side of this one.
 
edit: clarity
edit 2: re-reading, i totally failed at clarity my first time.

 

[MuppetAsteriskTalk]

 
The hearing was supposed to be fair. That's over. They are now adversaries and while I think RG should be drawn and quartered, you can't think that they aren't going to act in their best interests at this point.
 

 
An independent arbitrator does not delay his ruling, while sharing the results with only one side in order to let that side get all their ducks lined up in a row, before releasing his findings. An independent arbitrator also doesn't carefully craft his ruling in a manner such that it gives one side (coincidentally the side that writes his paycheck) the best possible shot at defending the ruling.

 

[nighthob]

Agreed. Don't know Berman, but SDNY is considered one of the best and most influential federal district courts. And from an employment law perspective, it's considered to be employee-friendly. But I can't say I know if that's true for Berman in particular, and Tom Brady is not a typical employee.

I have a serious question here, I understood that any suit filed by the NFLPA to overturn the NFL's power play had to be based on the fairness of the process/applicability of the rules and that the facts of the case are/were largely irrelevant. But since the NFL is asking for an affirmation of their ruling, does that open the door for the actual facts? Since their ruling is, allegedly, based on the facts of the matter.

 

[ehaz]

Agreed. Don't know Berman, but SDNY is considered one of the best and most influential federal district courts. And from an employment law perspective, it's considered to be employee-friendly. But I can't say I know if that's true for Berman in particular, and Tom Brady is not a typical employee.

 
Berman's wiki says he has a BS from Cornell... Total speculation, but maybe he was at ILR?  They do send a disproportionate amount of their undergrads to law school.

 

[Shelterdog]

 
An independent arbitrator does not delay his ruling, while sharing the results with only one side in order to let that side get all their ducks lined up in a row, before releasing his findings. An independent arbitrator also doesn't carefully craft his ruling in a manner such that it gives one side (coincidentally the side that writes his paycheck) the best possible shot at defending the ruling.

 
Yeah but what are the arbitrator's obligations under this CBA? The CBA lets Goodell be the arbitrator (as opposed to get an impartial arbitrator) but does a partial arbitrator have obligations to treat both side fairly, act independently, etc, and what are those obligations? MarcSullivanFan a lonely message board turns its eyes to you!

 

[Ralphwiggum]

The optics of the phone thing sucks, and I wish I knew why Brady didn't have someone telling him to just put the phone in a safe deposit box somewhere.  But aside from that you still have Kensil on the sidelines telling the Pats they are fucked before anyone even know what the fuck was happening.  You still have the Mort leak that was never taken back.  You still have the Wells report which anyone can plainly see is the farthest thing from an independent investigation as you can get, with every piece of evidence or testimony pointing towards Brady's innocence being discounted.  You have Wells himself giving a press conference where he "knows in his heart" Brady is guilty. You have the shitty science in the Wells report that the NFL not only believed, but then doubled down on even in light of the AEI report.  And now you have Roger using the cell phone thing to affirm a four game suspension when almost every suspension gets knocked down a game or two as a matter of course.

On the other side you have Brady who has denied any wrongdoing all along, and the shitty timing of a "destroyed" cell phone that he was never going to allow them to see anyway. 
 
Yeah, the phone thing sucks and I don't know what to make of it, but the preponderance of everything above still points towards the league marshaling resources from Day 1 to catch the Pats doing something that they probably weren't doing, and then going to the ends of the earth to "prove" it rather than admit they fucked up.

 

[gingerbreadmann]

I work with a bunch of high-IQ people, a good chunk of them are from the midwest or west coast that have no Pats love.
 
On the positive side, the consensus seems to be: the cheating made no competitive difference; the punishment is very disproportionate; the whole affair is a silly, contrived media circus, ultimately signifying nothing.
 
On the negative side, they believe that there is enough circumstancial evidence & funny business to come to a pretty firm conclusion that the balls were doctored in some way.
 
Ultimately, nobody wants to take the time to learn the science because it's not in the top-100 things they care enough about to research.  So, they just see what's on ESPN or front page of msn.com.

 
These two phrases seem to be at odds. Also, I admit I am pretty surprised by this:
 

 

[drbretto]

I am skeptical of that map's authenticity.

 

[djbayko]

When Goodell says Brady destroyed his phone "on or before" the date of the Wells interview, we know it was before:

http://www.sbnation.com/lookit/2015/4/24/8494331/tom-brady-apple-watch-photo-perfect-teeth-amazing-skin

Edit: This is innaccurate. I got the dates wrong. Brady was interviewed on March 6.

 

[Ed Hillel]

 
I agree that there was no benefit to him destroying the phone. It's very easy to sit back from afar and say that there was no upside to Brady destroying the phone, therefore he did not destroy his phone or intentionally destroy it to hide incriminating evidence. It's entirely different when you're under investigation and your entire career and legacy may be at stake. People make irrational decisions all the time.

 
But Brady had already said that he was not going to hand over the phone, and I'm sure was under the impression that he would never be forced to. So what was he scared of? He knew before he met with Wells that they wanted information from his cell phone. If he was in a panic to destroy it, wouldn't he have done so before he even met with him?

 

[djhb20]

I wonder if that will hold, or if the voting that's going on now is mostly Pats fans who are the most invested in it.

 

[djhb20]

I am skeptical of that map's authenticity.

I know of a firm of scientists that will vouch for its authenticity and reliability if you're willing to pay their fees.

 

[Bleedred]

 
But Brady had already said that he was not going to hand over the phone, and I'm sure was under the impression that he would never be forced to. So what was he scared of? He knew before he met with Wells that they wanted information from his cell phone. If he was in a panic to destroy it, wouldn't he have done so before he even met with him?

IMO opinion Brady did a stupid thing out of expediency, not an incriminating thing out of panic.  He may pay for his stupidity/naivete/ignorance or Yee's malpractice.

 

[drbretto]

Do I look like I got $5 million layin around?
 
Serious face though, where's that map from? Because the only way I can see that being true is if some pats fans created 49 accounts and repeatedly voted

 

[soxfan121]

Have been debating whether to chime in with this for a bit, considering Goodell being able to serve as judge, jury and executioner in disciplinary matters has loomed so large.
 
The vote on the most recent CBA was not unanimous by the teams.  One team voted against the CBA specifically because of the problem of Goodell's disciplinary powers.
 
Ya think that issue is going to be front and center and bloody in the next CBA negotiation?

 

 
At the next CBA negotiation - win or lose on the Brady case - the NFLPA's opening offer will be 75% of revenue for the players and Goodell can keep on playing Judge Judy. Otherwise, he's out of discipline entirely (it'll end up a tribunal of ex-Judges & former players as a compromise) and the players will "settle" for a much lower %.