Tom Brady has maintained his innocence all along, but that didn’t stop the NFL from trying to get him to fess up.
ProFootballTalk.com reported Tuesday night that the New England Patriots quarterback could have had his four-game suspension reduced “at least 50 percent” if he was willing to accept guilt for his alleged role in Deflategate. Obviously, Brady opted not to do that, and NFL commissioner Roger Goodell upheld the four-game ban, the league announced Tuesday.
According to the PFT report, Brady’s suspension would have been cut to two games if he did three things. First, he had to admit having knowledge of Patriots employees deflating game balls. Secondly, he had to admit he failed to cooperate with the NFL. And finally, Brady had to apologize for his actions, according to the ProFootballTalk.com report.
PFT’s Mike Florio added, “It’s believed that Brady’s suspension would have been dropped at least to two games, with the possibility of dropping it to one if he were sufficiently persuasive and profuse in his acceptance of guilt.”
As mentioned, Brady, Brady’s camp and the NFLPA have insisted he did nothing wrong through the entire process. The NFLPA came out swinging with a vicious statement Tuesday, as did Brady’s agent, Don Yee. Wednesday morning, Brady released a statement of his own on his Facebook page.
“Most importantly, 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 in January,” Brady said as part of the statement. “To suggest that I destroyed a phone to avoid giving the NFL information it requested is completely wrong.”
The next step — barring any sort of last-minute settlement — is for the two sides to take the dispute to federal court.
Thumbnail photo via Brian Spurlock/USA TODAY Sports Images
