It looked, from nearly every angle, like the NFL scored something like a decisive victory against the NFLPA and New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady in court on Thursday. A three-judge panel, tasked with hearing the NFL's appeal of U.S. district judge Richard Berman's decision reversing Brady's four-game Deflategate suspension, spent much of the day on Thursday hammering Brady's lawyers with question after question regarding the destruction of the quarterback's cellphone and his 'ridiculous' explanation after the fact.
But in the end, it could very well amount to nothing more than a moral victory. Chief judge Robert A. Katzmann, judge Barrington D. Parker and judge Denny Chin may still rule in the NFLPA and Brady's favor sometime within the next few months. And while things seem uncertain now, it could look better for Brady's defense in the near future.
The NFL's lawyers continued to assert Thursday that Brady was dishonest when speaking with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and the league's lawyers last summer when the future Hall of Fame quarterback was initially questioned. It was something they said to judge Berman after Brady's appeal, and it seems it's something the league said again on Thursday.
"If he had been a more credible witness in the commissioner's eyes, that might also have reduced punishment," NFL lawyer Paul Clement said to the panel.
The alleged dishonesty here concerns Brady's contact with Patriots team employee John Jastremski, who along with Jim McNally was shoved into the spotlight when the Deflategate story broke. The NFL contends that Brady would only admit to speaking with Jastremski, the man tasked with conditioning game balls for Brady and the Pats offense, on an informal basis and only about the impending Super Bowl (Super Bowl XLIX).
Do the transcripts of those talks tell the same story?
"Q. Okay. Now, what did you mean or why were you sending a text to Mr. Jastremski saying, "You are good, Jonny boy?" And then he writes back to you, "Still nervous. So far, so good, though. I will be all right." What do you understand that to be referring to, if you could explain that to the Commissioner?
Brady: I wrote, "You good, Jonny boy," like, you doing okay? Because he was obviously nervous the fact that these allegations were coming out that they would fall back on him. And I was just, I guess, expressing my concern for him.
From that excerpt, it seems that, in a way, Brady is admitting that he did speak with Jastremski - a man he barely had contact with in the months ahead of the 2014 AFC Championship game, but who Brady then exchanged messages with a multitude of times in the days after the Deflategate story broke - about something other than breaking in the game balls for the Super Bowl. Specifically, he admits that he was speaking with him about the Deflategate allegations.
But does that constitute forthrightness on Brady's part or, in light of Thursday's assertions by the league, lies on the part of the NFL? That's up to the three-judge panel to decide.
