It’s not like Tom Brady has been sitting on his hands since Super Bowl XLIX. The New England Patriots quarterback still has been working hard to prepare for the 2015 season.
But now that Brady’s four-game suspension over his alleged involvement in Deflategate has been nullified by U.S. District Court Judge Richard Berman, the future Hall of Famer can focus entirely on the Patriots’ attempt to repeat as champions. And that’s scary for the rest of the NFL.
“Tom Brady wants to play football,” Jeffrey Kessler, the attorney who worked for the NFL Players Association in Brady’s case, said Friday morning on ESPN Radio. “He wants to focus on his team. He wants to try and win another Super Bowl. I think you’ll see a very determined competitor out there Thursday night (in the Patriots’ season opener) and frankly I hope to be there.”
Kessler pulled no punches in going after NFL commissioner Roger Goodell’s appeal ruling last month — it was “more smear campaign than reasoned decision,” Kessler wrote in his official filing to Judge Berman — and he still can’t wrap his head around why the league approached Deflategate the way it did.
“The real lesson of this is: Why does the NFL want to keep going through this?” Kessler asked Friday. “This is the only league where fans, instead of focusing on the game, have to be bombarded with and listen to people like me.”
Deflategate looks like another black eye for the NFL. It’ll be interesting to see whether the NFL owners will consider changes to the league’s disciplinary process in the near future.
In the meantime, Brady will just do his thing, which finally again means focusing on football.
Read Judge Berman’s full ruling vacating Brady’s suspension >>
Thumbnail photo via Joe Toth/USA TODAY Sports Images
