Say what you want about bombastic ESPN personality Stephen A. Smith, the man is certainly connected when it comes to the four major U.S. sports leagues. As such, it's eye-opening that Smith took time out of his busy yelling-at-Skip-Bayless schedule to tweet about the appeal process of New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady. Brady, of course, is attempting to get his four-game suspension, handed down in the wake of the Deflategate scandal, reduced or rescinded altogether. From the sounds of Smith's report, neither of those is likely to happen.
Smith tweeted Tuesday morning that he was "hearing" that Brady's suspension will "likely be upheld." That's bad news for Patriots fans and bad news for Brady. Complicating matters and potentially pushing NFL commissioner Roger Goodell to uphold Brady's ban is a further report from Smith, via Michael David Smith, that Brady's cellphone may or may not have been destroyed. For what it's worth, Stephen A. added quite a qualifier to this aspect of the report, adding, "I don't know."
This is a potentially major piece of the puzzle considering one of the biggest points of contention for the league and the reason they came down so hard on Brady was the fact that he refused to provide his cellphone to investigator Tedd Wells for electronic imaging, something the NFL deemed a lack of cooperation. If Brady's cellphone has indeed been destroyed in the interim, that's a very suspicious and potentially damning revelation. Then again, the destruction of the cellphone wouldn't make the call logs or text messages simply disappear, so it's not certain what bearing this could have on Brady's case.
While many options abound for the future Hall of Famer, in terms of injunctions and federal court battles, should he wish to pursue the matter further, it's also been reported of late that the league believes the notoriously hard-nosed preparer is concerned with the issue becoming a distraction as he and the Pats get ready for the season.
At this point we still have no clear answer as to what Goodell's final decision will be or what Brady will do with the information once it's given to him. But if Smith's reports are accurate, the Deflategate saga may not have the clear, clean ending we were all hoping for.
