I can explain a lot of what happened here, but it is simply hard to rationalize the destruction of the phone.
I think this is exactly what the NFL wants all of us to question, though. None of it makes any sense.
1) It doesn't make sense that Wells seriously asked Brady and Yee to carefully sift through the messages and give him the relevant information
2) yet they still chose not to throw out a couple of softballs in a good faith attempt
3) It doesn't make sense that the NFL has stated that they never really wanted the phone, but are now
4) claiming that the phone they didn't want was "destroyed" just the same
5) It doesn't make sense that Brady would choose to get a new phone on the day that Wells was going to interview him (although we'll give him the benefit of the doubt, of course)
6) nor does it make sense that he'd
physically try and destroy the phone as Goodell has suggested
7) It doesn't make sense that anyone out there would really believe any of this, since text messages can usually be retrieved within a certain period of time..but not this time
8) It doesn't make sense that the league was able to carefully keep this news behind closed doors for so long, and then all of a sudden Stephen A. Smith cracked the secret code today
9) nor does it make sense that Brady, Yee, Kessler and company didn't try to get out ahead of it somehow by making it crystal clear multiple times that "they gave Goodell all of the relevant phone information" during the window that occurred between the appeals process and this afternoon
Some of these are obviously in jest, but you've got to admit that the whole damn thing has been whacky as hell.