Suspension and disbelief: The entire NFL is deflated in Tom Brady case
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Version 0 of 1. The last week of July has brought the first familiar whiffs of professional football’s annual return: players in helmets and shoulder pads, gorgeous green fields, fans’ tickets arriving in the mail, and the sport’s most powerful figure issuing a 20-page ruling parsing the mobile phone habits of the game’s most prominent player. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell’s decision Tuesday to uphold Super Bowl MVP Tom Brady’s four-game suspension for his role in the DeflateGate controversy perfectly fit in with the narrative of this surreal scandal: Nothing much ever seems to happen, even as more and more outlandish details emerge. This time, the news was that “on or about March 6” — the same day Brady was to be interviewed by the investigator spending millions to study the air pressure of 12 potentially underinflated footballs from the AFC championship game — the quarterback gave a cellphone he had been using for four months to an assistant, with instructions that it be destroyed. Brady’s team argued it was the quarterback’s ordinary practice to destroy his phones periodically, presumably to protect his privacy. Goodell testily inquired why Brady’s previous phone had not been destroyed, also noting that Brady had exchanged nearly 10,000 text messages over four months, which works out to a rate of more than 80 texts a day. So, uh, are you ready for some football? [ After Brady’s failed appeal, a legal battle with the NFL looms ] As this scandal — which perfectly bridged the normal doldrums between the Super Bowl and the start of training camps — meanders its way toward the legal system, the only thing that’s clear is that it will smear everyone involved. Goodell repeatedly insisted in his decision that nothing less than the integrity of his sport was at stake, but it’s hard to find many exemplars of integrity amid this ordeal’s slapstick cast of characters. That starts with Goodell himself, whose performance on this matter can’t be separated from previous mishandlings of scandals involving domestic violence, player bounties and head injuries. When Brady’s agent issued a statement Tuesday calling Goodell’s decision a sham, “thoroughly lacking in procedural fairness” that “diminishes the integrity of the game,” he knew it would be lapped up by hordes of NFL fans (and media members) who delight in mocking Goodell. And the commissioner made things easy on his critics, virtually handing them all the piñata ingredients, with easy assembly instructions. He commissioned the investigation, authorized the initial punishment and then heard the appeal. He issued a tendentious ruling citing “Ideal Gas Law” and the length of time one attendant spent in the bathroom, referred to a host of unseemly previous cases (including Brett Favre’s sexting scandal and the Saints’ BountyGate), and argued that Brady’s behavior “indisputably constitutes conduct detrimental to the integrity of, and public confidence in, the game of professional football.” This, bear in mind, was over Brady’s behavior in a 45-7 win over the Indianapolis Colts in January’s AFC title game. Goodell’s fainting rhetoric aside, the public seemed pretty confident that the Patriots were the better team in that game of professional football. So what of Brady? He was initially flippant, saying “God, it’s ridiculous” when first asked about what would become DeflateGate during a radio interview. That same day, he texted and spoke with a Patriots equipment assistant, calling the assistant into the quarterbacks room for the first time in 14 years, and talking to him on the phone for 25 minutes. But the quarterback later told investigators he couldn’t remember exactly what they discussed. Brady told investigators he didn’t know the name or game-day responsibilities of a locker room attendant, a claim contradicted by the assistant equipment manager. That attendant, remember, had “told NFL Security that he had been personally told by Brady of Brady’s inflation level preference,” according to investigators. Then came Tuesday’s cellphone news, which was at once thoroughly absurd and of a piece with everything that had come before. After months of arguing that Brady had not been cooperative, Goodell could now claim that the quarterback “made a deliberate effort to ensure that investigators would never have access to information that he had been asked to produce.” Brady’s agent, of course, objected, saying no private citizen “would have agreed to provide anyone with the amount of information that Tom was willing to reveal to the Commissioner.” Which may well be true. But most private citizens weren’t facing the threat of a suspension and/or courtroom battle with an overzealous commissioner intent on deciphering text messages between low-level employees about the air pressure of footballs. [ With Brady case, the NFL’s shattered disciplinary system is exposed ] And if Brady wanted to back up his breezy assurances from the scandal’s first days — “I have no knowledge of anything,” he said — he might have chosen a strategy other than requesting his four-month-old cellphone be destroyed within hours of a scheduled interview with an investigator. What happens next? Plenty of jokes, for one thing. “My assistant Jack Daniels and I actually destroy a cellphone every four months or so. Usually just the screen but I get it,” Rams defensive end Chris Long tweeted Tuesday. But there will also be more dueling statements, and more legal posturing, with Brady and the players’ union set to challenge the four-game suspension in court. Goodell compared Brady’s behavior — his possible involvement in the possible underinflation of footballs during a blowout win — to the abuse of performance-enhancing drugs. Brady’s agent said the commissioner had relied on junk science and was screwing with the league’s competitive balance. Goodell’s mission, remember, was to prevent the “impairment of public confidence in the honest and orderly conduct of NFL games or the integrity and good character of NFL players.” Now we’re left with a commissioner looking foolish — upholding his own decision in a circular appeal process and sullying the reputation of one of his biggest stars — and a Super Bowl MVP giving the unmistakable appearance that he had something to hide. But NFL season is here. That means legal filings, claims of foul play and procedural unfairness, and televised debates about exactly who has the right to review private text messages. It’s possible there will also be some football. For more by Dan Steinberg, visit washingtonpost.com/dcsportsbog. More coverage: After Brady’s failed appeal, legal battle with NFL looms Brady’s four-game suspension is upheld by Goodell Result perfectly exhibits NFL’s shattered disciplinary system Statement from Brady’s agent, Don Yee Stephen A. Smith says Brady destroyed his cellphone |