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I would agree with your latter two statements, which is why I think there was a "reasonable chance" that an independent third party would have taken the suspension to zero.I am referring to the part of your post that says "Goodell has known all along that there was a good probability that an independent arbiter would have reduced the suspension to one or two games".
My point is that I don't see any evidence of a neutral person finding any reason to suspend Brady at all.
There is no evidence he did anything worthy of being suspended for.
However, you or I saying (and agreeing) that the two of us "don't see" any evidence of a "reason to suspend Brady at all" is a completely different statement from asserting that an independent third party would indeed have found in that manner.
As a result, since we can know neither the identity of that hypothetical third party or how the process would have played out, there is also a "good probability" that the outcome might have been different, along the lines of a one or two game suspension. There's also a smaller, but not un-measurable, probability that an independent arbiter would have let all four games stand, no matter how you and I might see the evidence to the contrary.
In other words, what I happen to think "should" have happened and what actually "would" have happened are two completely different things. I think Brady "should" not serve a suspension of a single game or minute. But there is a wide range of possibilities when it comes to what an arbiter "would" have done.
I think Brady has a much better chance in a Federal Court, where the rules of evidence will apply and where people can be deposed under oath and penalty of perjury. That is what I think Goodell wants to avoid.