That's a much stronger condemnation than I expected. Intense criticism of the NFL's handling of the Brady case has become pervasive in national sports media outside ESPN and NFL Network/NFL.com over the last couple months, in a way I didn't expect. The NFL really shoot themselves in their own foot here by putting a foot on the scale several times in order to undermine Brady's and the Patriots' reputations. They could have so easily escaped the criticism they are getting now just by being transparent about the investigation, publicly reporting accurate information at the beginning, having Goodell directly apply whatever discipline he seemed appropriate, choosing one of the neutral systems arbitrators for the appeal hearing, and living with the final decision. It was only by deliberately maligning Brady with lies and slander and deception and tricks that they made this into such a huge media circus and ended up hurting their own reputations.
