Tom Brady is 37 years old. He looks 27 years old. And now, he’s acting 17 years old, using his Facebook account — gee, what’s his relationship status? — to deny that he conspired with two team underlings to deflate footballs and deny that he destroyed his cellphone to dump incriminating text messages. If he was a mature, reasonable person, he’d call a news conference, invite the world, look every reporter in the eye, stare every camera in the lens and say, for posterity, “I’ll take your questions for the next two hours.”
Instead, Brady logged onto Facebook, where he doesn’t have to answer questions but can continue to twist his obvious wrongdoing into an increasingly absurd drama that is becoming a national headache.
“To suggest that I destroyed a phone to avoid giving the NFL information it requested is completely wrong,” he wrote. “There is no ‘smoking gun’ and this controversy is manufactured to distract from the fact they have zero evidence of wrongdoing.”
Zero evidence? The NFL has 11 underinflated footballs from the first half of January’s AFC championship game. The NFL has numerous text messages communicated over several months, some from an equipment manager calling himself “The Deflator,” that indicate an illegal deflation scam involving Brady. The NFL has videotape of another equipment manager taking those footballs into a bathroom and spending a minute and 40 seconds there, just enough time to use a needle to release air pressure. The NFL knows that both equipment managers were fired by the New England Patriots. And when the NFL asked Brady to provide a cellphone that might help prove his innocence, he chose to get rid of the phone just before his meeting with investigator Ted Wells.
We’ve already lost considerable respect for Brady as a competitor.
Now, we’ve lost respect for him as a human being.
Would he please accept his four-game suspension like a man rather than pouting like Bart Simpson? The NFL, after its various crises involving murder and domestic violence and brain trauma, has no interest in taking down its most visible ambassador, one of the all-time greats. If anything, commissioner Roger Goodell might have preferred participating in a Brady cover-up to protect the golden boy. There is no conspiracy here, folks, other than the one that Brady and Patriots owner Robert Kraft are foolishly trying to propagate — and one that Brady and the players’ union took to federal court Wednesday in an effort to overturn the suspension.
“Despite submitting to hours of testimony over the past 6 months, it is disappointing that the Commissioner upheld my suspension based upon a standard that it was ‘probable’ that I was ‘generally aware’ of misconduct,” Brady wrote on Facebook. “The fact is that neither I, nor any equipment person, did anything of which we have been accused. He dismissed my hours of testimony and it is disappointing that he found it unreliable.
“I also disagree with yesterday’s [sic] narrative surrounding my cellphone. I replaced my broken Samsung phone with a new iPhone 6 AFTER my attorneys made it clear to the NFL that my actual phone device would not be subjected to investigation under ANY circumstances. As a member of a union, I was under no obligation to set a new precedent going forward, nor was I made aware at any time during Mr. Wells’ investigation, that failing to subject my cell phone to investigation would result in ANY discipline.”
Hey, while he’s sitting in September, at least Tom can bank his check from Apple for the iPhone 6 plug. As for the broken Samsung phone, we’ll just assume the dog ate it.
“Most importantly,” Brady went on, “I have never written, texted, emailed to anybody at anytime, anything related to football air pressure before this issue was raised at the AFC Championship game.
“To try and reconcile the record and fully cooperate with the investigation after I was disciplined in May, we turned over detailed pages of cell phone records and all of the emails that Mr. Wells requested. We even contacted the phone company to see if there was any possible way we could retrieve any/all of the actual text messages from my old phone. In short, we exhausted every possibility to give the NFL everything we could and offered to go thru the identity for every text and phone call during the relevant time. Regardless, the NFL knows that Mr. Wells already had ALL relevant communications with Patriots personnel that either Mr. Wells saw or that I was questioned about in my appeal hearing.”
There may be no smoking gun, but there is a smoking cellphone, wherever it went. And I can’t wait for a judge, assuming Brady’s legal challenge actually advanced that far, to subpoena Samsung for his cellphone records. Does Brady really want to go there? Doesn’t he realize how the lies are piling up and digging him a deeper grave?
The operative word is entitlement. Every time a cheating athlete is caught red-handed — for performance-enhancing drugs, for gambling, for bimbo sex, for corked bats, for lubed baseballs and, now, for doctored footballs — he feels enabled to deny the charge rather then fess up. While Brady’s sin doesn’t rise to the same level, he joins Lance Armstrong, Tiger Woods, Pete Rose and all the baseball juicers on Rebuttal Row. Ultimately, all were proven wrong and forced to acknowledge guilt. Brady will have to do the same, but not anytime soon.
He is being supported, you see, by Kraft. Never mind that the Patriots, under his ownership thumb, have been tarnsihed by two rules-breaking scandals that have cost them almost $2 million in fines, three draft picks and much esteem. He said Wednesday that he continues to “believe and unequivocally support” Brady and will continue to fight the suspension.
“It is completely incomprehensible to me that the league continues to take steps to disparage one of its all-time great players, and a man for whom I have the utmost respect,” Kraft said. “I was wrong to put my faith in the league.”
By that, Kraft was acknowledging that he’d agreed to accept the NFL’s penalty for the Patriots — a $1 million fine and forfeiture of two draft picks — during the May league meetings in San Francisco. In other words, he thought he was playing a wink-wink game with Goodell: The Patriots would take the hit if Brady’s ban eventually was reduced or eliminated. Shame on Kraft for thinking a commissioner should work in such a wishy-washy manner. The terms of punishment for a cheating scandal should not be negotiable.
“I, first and foremost, need to apologize to our fans because I truly believe what I did in May — given the actual evidence of the situation, and the league’s history on discipline matters — would make it much easier for the league to exonerate Tom Brady. Unfortunately I was wrong,” Kraft said. “I’ve come to the conclusion that this was never about doing what was fair and just. Back in May, I had to make a difficult decision that I now regret.”
The New England sleaze is a reminder of how fortunate we are, in the Bay Area, to enjoy two championship teams that aren’t scandalized. Let’s make this clear: Kraft is not apologizing to Patriots fans. He is firing a missile at the commissioner in a declaration of war, and that the owner who helped Goodell get his job — one that pays him as much as $44 million annually — now can be considered a mortal enemy. In the end, the powerful owners run this league, and while Kraft and Brady won’t win in court, Kraft can exact his revenge by trying to rub Goodell out of office. Kraft sounds silly in claiming ESPN is in cahoots with the NFL to get the Patriots, ignoring that the media behemoth has been one of Goodell’s biggest critics in his mishandling of the Ray Rice case and other issues.
“The decision by commissioner Goodell was released … under an erroneous headline that read, ‘Tom Brady destroyed his cellphone.’ This headline was designed to capture headlines across the country and obscure evidence regarding the tampering of air pressure in footballs,” Kraft said. “It intentionally implied nefarious behavior and minimized the acknowledgement that Tom provided the history of every number he texted during that relevant time frame.”
He expects us to believe that, too. Somewhere, Al Davis is snickering.
Training camps have started, gentlemen. The football season is here. Tom Brady destroyed his cellphone. Innocent men don’t destroy their cellphones.
I need two aspirin.
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