Legal Expert: NFL’s Reported Offer To Tom Brady ‘Really Ridiculous’
Did the NFL really expect Tom Brady to budge for that?
Gary Myers of the New York Daily News reported Monday after Brady and the NFL failed to reach a settlement that the league never made an official settlement offer to the New England Patriots quarterback. However, according to Myers, the NFL indicated a willingness to cut Brady’s four-game suspension to three games if the QB admitted Deflategate guilt.
Sports Illustrated legal analyst Michael McCann considers that an insane proposal.
“It’s maybe the worst offer I’ve ever heard,” McCann said Tuesday morning on WEEI’s “Dennis and Callahan” radio program. “That offer, they had to have made it knowing there’s zero percent chance that Tom Brady would take it. If they had offered a more nuanced admission — you admit to reckless behavior in terms of your cooperation, something like that, maybe that’s a start. But to expect he’s going to admit to the Wells Report is really absurd.”
U.S. District Court Judge Richard Berman is expected to rule either Tuesday or Wednesday and no later than Friday. His ruling won’t end the Deflategate drama — there are additional steps the case’s loser can take — but it still marks a significant point in the ongoing saga.
Either way, it looks like both Brady and the league are all in after failing to reach a settlement Monday. It’ll be interesting to see if Berman takes the NFL’s underwhelming reported offer under consideration.
“First of all, that offer is really ridiculous,” McCann said. “Why even make that offer? What kind of concession is that if it’s three games plus an admission of fault? There’s absolutely no reason for Tom Brady to take that and I am sure Judge Berman at a minimum was disappointed to hear that if it turns out to be true, that’s the best offer the NFL has made after literally weeks of settlement conferences, that that’s all they could come up with.
“I don’t know if Judge Berman is going to rule against the NFL because of that, but it’s yet another factor to say, ‘Look, I know the NFL will appeal if I vacate the order, but I think it’s the right thing to do.’ ”
NESN.com caught up with McCann on Monday night. The legal expert said that while it’s difficult to predict how Berman will rule, it’s “more probable than not” that Brady will play in the Patriots’ season opener Sept. 10 against the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Click for McCann’s full WEEI interview >>
Thumbnail photo via Chuck Cook/USA TODAY Sports Images
