For months following the 2014 AFC Championship game between the New England Patriots and the Indianapolis Colts, a game the Pats won handily, headlines were dominated by talk of the inflation levels of footballs. In the following months, the saga took turn after turn, some sordid, some unexpected, all followed closely by a rapt audience of football fans all too ready to see the once unstoppable Patriots knocked from their perch atop the NFL world - the Pats did what they could to put the issue aside and did eventually emerge with a Super Bowl XLIX victory.
But then a funny thing happened. Things began to swing back in the Patriots and quarterback Tom Brady's favor. The science alluded to in the NFL-funded Wells Report was debunked by several outlets and hand-wringing over Brady's destroyed cellphone and the messages to team employees John Jastremski and Jim McNally potentially contained therein were explained away with a fair amount of ease. There wasn't much surprise then, when U.S. Judge Richard Berman tossed out Brady's four-game suspension, ruling that the NFL's grounds on which to ban Brady were extremely shaky due to a number of factors.
That didn't mean Deflategate was dead though. The NFL immediately appealed Berman's ruling and now the two sides are set to head back to court on Thursday so that a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit can hear the league's appeal.
In essence, the NFL will attempt to convince the panel that they should undo Berman's reversal of NFL commissioner Roger Goodell's initial ruling, which he then upheld on Brady's initial appeal.
The league's argument likely hinges on the guidelines outlined in the collective bargaining agreement, which states that Goodell is able to both mete out punishment and then hear and resolve appeals thereafter.
Berman vacated Goodell's ruling on Brady's suspension on three grounds - the lack of prior notice of what the punishment could be for such actions, and the NFL's refusal to make both their investigative files and chief counsel Jeffrey Pash available.
A ruling based on Thursday's court appearance, which likely won't include Goodell or Brady, isn't expected for months.
To date, the league has spent somewhere close to $20 million in their efforts to pillory Brady and the Pats. At this point, it's more about saving face and proving their power than it is about seeing Brady suspended.
Though the question then becomes - why is the NFL so intent on seeing one of its most successful and high-profile players banned for the first quarter of next season?
