Tom Brady Suspension Upheld: NFL Unhappy Brady Destroyed Phone, Upholding Four-Game Suspension
Tom Brady’s suspension is being upheld by the NFL. Brady will miss the New England Patriots’ first four games of the 2015 NFL season. A report from MSN on Tuesday (July 28) states that the NFL will reject Brady’s appeal. Hie role in “Deflategate” will continue to be a black mark on the league, and the punishment is going to remain a steep one.
As previously reported by the Inquisitr, Brady received a four-game suspension from the NFL for allegedly taking part in a scheme to deflate footballs before the 2015 AFC Championship Game. Brady immediately appealed that decision, and NFL commissioner Roger Goodell met with him about the situation. Now Stephen A. Smith of ESPN is stating that he has two sources telling him that the commissioner is going to uphold the suspension.
One of the reasons that the Tom Brady suspension will remain in place appears to be that he destroyed his own personal cell phone before the league could take a look at it. By refusing to turn it over to the NFL, it may have underscored a lack of real cooperation that Brady gave the Ted Wells investigation. There seems to just be too many questions that Brady didn’t answer for the “Deflategate” investigators, leading to a conclusion that he was complicit in the cheating scandal.
Brady will now officially miss games against the Pittsburgh Steelers (Sept. 10), Buffalo Bills (Sept. 20), Jacksonville Jaguars (Sept. 27), and Dallas Cowboys (Oct. 11). The first game that he will be eligible to play in won’t come until Week 6 of the NFL season. That game is against the Indianapolis Colts, and is already scheduled to be the Sunday night (Oct. 18) primetime game for the week. With the revelation that Brady will now debut against Andrew Luck and the Colts, the promotion department is going to go into overdrive trying to sell those advertising slots.
This might finally bring a bit of closure to the entire “Deflategate” saga, and allow NFL fans to start moving away from it. The league is expected to also release an official statement about the findings, with Stephen A. Smith stating it should come within the next 24-48 hours. It might shed additional light on the final decision by the league, but it is pretty clear that the NFL and commissioner Roger Goodell was ready to make a statement with the Tom Brady suspension. As for the New England Patriots, the team is going to have a tough time starting out the regular season well.
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