Tom Brady Rumors: Patriots QB ‘Opened His Private Life’ To Goodell, ‘Sham’ Suspension Upheld Anyway

Though NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell on Tuesday accused Tom Brady — the New England Patriots superstar quarterback now embroiled in the “Deflategate” scandal — of “destroying” a cell phone that NFL-employed investigators wanted to scour, Brady’s agent said that the four-time Super Bowl champ actually provided an “unprecedented amount” of personal information from his electronic communications. But Goodell upheld Brady’s four-game suspension for allegedly deflating footballs anyway.

In a statement Tuesday afternoon following Goodell’s announcement that he had upheld the suspension, more than a month after Brady’s 10-hour appeal hearing in New York on June 23, Don Yee, who represents Brady, said that Goodell simply ignored the vast amount of electronic information that the quarterback provided, and “we don’t know why.”

“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,” Yee said in the statement. “The extent to which Tom opened up his private life to the Commissioner will become clear in the coming days.”

Yee also condemned the June 23 appeal hearing as “a sham” which simply resulted in Goodell “rubber-stamping his own decision.”

In his own statement, defending his decision to uphold the four-game suspension of Tom Brady, Goodell went well beyond the accusations contained in the Ted Wells investigation, which accused Brady, rather vaguely, of “more probably than not” being “generally aware” that Patriots employees were involved in deflating footballs before the January 18 AFC Championship game against the Indianapolis Colts.

Though he cited no new evidence beyond the allegedly “destroyed” cell phone, Goodell charged that Brady “participated in a scheme to tamper with the game balls after they had been approved by the game officials for use in the AFC Championship Game,” and “willfully obstructed the investigation by, among other things, affirmatively arranging for destruction of his cellphone knowing that it contained potentially relevant information.”

How Goodell knew that the phone “contained potentially relevant information” even though he also said that the alleged destruction of the phone caused the information it contained to be lost, was not made clear in his statement.

Also on Tuesday, in what appears to be a pre-emptive legal strategy, the NFL filed a request with a federal judge in New York to confirm the Goodell decision as the league looks to head off a lawsuit by Brady and the NFL Players Association that, many experts believe, has a good chance of vacating the suspension.

Finally, around close of business Eastern Time on Tuesday, Tom Brady reportedly gave the green light for the NFLPA to file that federal lawsuit.

[Image: Tom Brady Facebook]