The NFL announced they will uphold the four game suspension of Patriots quarterback Tom Brady relating to his alleged involvement in the "DeflateGate" controversy, the league announced on Tuesday.
Brady will lose about $2 million in salary as New England opens the regular season hosting the Steelers, visiting the Bills, against the Jaguars, and at the Cowboys. He will be eligible to return to the field in Week 6 at the Indianapolis Colts.
The decision comes more than six months after the Patriots were accused of playing with underinflated footballs in January's AFC Championship Game against the Colts before claiming the Super Bowl the following month.The NFL commissioned attorney Ted Wells to investigate into the matter, eventually publishing in its findings that Tom Brady was "generally aware" of a scheme to take air from footballs used in competition last season.
The NFL Players Association has said publicly they will challenge the ruling in court should the four-game ban be upheld.
A turning point in the proceedings came when the NFL learned that Brady may have destroyed his cell phone to keep the league from acquiring what they feel were damning text messages between he and Patriots equipment managers in relation to the alleged scheme.
"On or shortly before March 6, the day that Tom Brady met with independent investigator Ted Wells and his colleagues," the league's statement reads, "Brady directed that the cell phone he had used for the prior four months be destroyed.
"He did so even though he was aware that the investigators had requested access to text messages and other electronic information that had been stored on that phone. During the four months that the cell phone was in use, Brady had exchanged nearly 10,000 text messages, none of which can now be retrieved from that device.
"The destruction of the cell phone was not disclosed until June 18, almost four months after the investigators had first sought electronic information."
That new development was the closest thing Goodell and the NFL had to an admission of guilt to keep the suspension in tact. Until June 18, the league admittedly had little convincing proof to act on.
"The commissioner found that Brady's deliberate destruction of potentially relevant evidence went beyond a mere failure to cooperate in the investigation and supported a finding that he had sought to hide evidence of his own participation in the underlying scheme to alter the footballs."
@MrJamesParks
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