Actually he would have a decent chance. Given that the report says only McNally and Jastremski did it and Brady maybe knew about it. No where does it say anyone else in the Patriots organization knew.
The entire way that the NFL and Roger Goodell has handled this affair has smacked of a poorly concealed effort to attack, undermine, penalize and defame the Patriots management, employees and athletes. A few (OK, not so few) select incidents (there are many to choose from):
- publicly denying they had any concerns about possible underinflated footballs before the AFC Championship game when, in fact, they were informed before the game about this concern
- the statement at halftime that the NFL was now going to get the Patriots
- the incredibly damaging leak of totally made-up stats about 11 of 12 footballs being 2 lbs. under while all Colts footballs were in the legal range and the refusal to ever (to this day) directly refute this lie. In fact, they forced the Patriots organization to not publicly refute this lie.
- the claim to investigate all aspects of what went on and then only investigate the Patriots, tell the Patriots that they were not going to investigate the NFL's role and then lie to the public saying that they investigated the NFL's actions.
- the claim to hire an "independent" law firm that they actually have a longstanding relationship with to which they pay many millions of dollars a year. This firm made no pretense of independence during the appeals process in fact claiming both attorney/client privilege over all information relating to the investigation while simultaneously acting as prosecuting attorney.
- the Wells report made no pretense to be free from bias as the only evidence ever discussed was always evidence that they interpreted as pointing to guilt. Every assumption made by Wells assumed the worst case scenario for the Patriots. As the WellsReportContext.com site makes abundantly clear, the Wells report consistently presented many half-truths as evidence of improper activity when, in fact, an analysis of all the facts shows exactly the opposite.
- the hiring of the outside firm Exponent which has a long history of doing whatever it takes to produce a report to fit an already determined agenda (think second-hand smoke and asbestos exposure not being in any way harmful to health)
- As the complaint filed in Minnesota makes abundantly clear (what a pleasure to read such a well-written and researched legal brief that didn't sound like legalese), Roger Goodell and the NFL ignored well-established procedures required under their collective bargaining agreement, based their punishment of Brady on parts of the CBA which don't apply to players, created a new standard of guilt ("generally aware") that never existed before in the NFL (and that I've never heard of before in any legal context), consistently throughout the process failed to inform Tom Brady exactly what he was being accused of under the CBA or the possible penalties for his actions (despite this being a CBA requirement which has been consistently upheld by both previous arbitrators and the courts), relied on science which proves nothing without a number of independent assumptions which are impossible to prove (because no records were kept of key data concerning the measurements, the environment and elapsed time) and more (but I'll stop here).
- finally, the NFL chose to smear Tom Brady as it had its final say before court review by making a headline using provocative language of a totally irrelevant act (Brady destroyed cell phone). In actuality, this move to a new phone was irrelevant because the NFL had full knowledge when this announcement was made of the time and recipient of every text message Tom Brady had sent since September, 2014 and the NFL also knew that they already had every relevant text and voice communication that had been requested. This despicable behavior by the NFL is, in my opinion, absolutely grounds for a defamation suit since they knew the only purpose of this headline was to smear (defame) Tom Brady in the public opinion with what is at best a half-truth.
Given these actions and this attitude on the part of the NFL, it is a pipe dream to think that there is any desire for true justice in the matter. The NFL under Roger Goodell's leadership has proven time and again (despite Jerry Jones claims) to be arbitrary, petty, power-hungry and vindictive. (I know, I left out many other choice adjectives that also apply.)
