In fairness to Florio, this kind of rings true. Probably pretty much everyone in that room was working for the commissioner's office, the NFLPA/Brady, or Wells. There aren't any neutral parties here, which is what makes this appeal so stupid and unfair in the first place. Wells and his people obviously aren't in the business of undermining their own $5 million study, so the comment had to either come from a Brady/NFLPA source or from an NFL source. And do we think Troy Vincent is giving glowing reviews of Brady's testimony? Pash? Manara? Goodell himself? The only way I could see this coming from the commissioner's office and not from Brady is if Goodell intends to reduce Brady's suspension and decided to send out trial balloon signals to the press so that it doesn't look like it shadily came out of nowhere. Alternately, it could be Yee or one of Brady's lawyers, who have every incentive to ensure that Brady looks good in the public eye. But considering Schefter is pretty smart and published this without any caveats about the motivations of the source, I think one of the most likely possibilities is that Schefter has an NFLPA source who isn't so closely connected to Brady's case that s/he has an obvious personal stake in the results of the case and thus isn't completely unreliable, but would still be biased in favor of the player over the NFL. Whoever the source is, they probably have their own agenda for leaking this information to Schefter, and we should not take their word uncritically.
Of course, in the end, only two people will matter when it comes to deciding whether or not Brady's testimony at the appeal was credible: Roger Goodell, and whichever judge hears the case if Brady takes this to court.
