BRADY MAKES HIS CASE

After a while, you wish that Judge Judy and not Roger Goodell were in charge of the NFL. She’d shush and hush and cluck and scold and, within a 30-minute time period, make a ruling and have the disputatious parties hustled out of her sight.

The NFL? Noooooo. Nothing is ever settled. Until it is. Sort of. Suspensions get handed out, appealed the person (Goodell, usually) who handed them out, grieved by the individual and his union, overturned in part, upheld in part and at the end? No one is happy. Except sometimes.

New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady’s appeal of a four-game suspension was heard on Tuesday in New York by Goodell. Unlike Judge Judy’s courtroom, NFL procedures are not available for public viewing. So we go on reports that say Brady had a good day in front of the commissioner.

This entire brouhaha dates to the AFC championship game in January, when the Patriots were found to be using footballs that didn’t have the mandated amount of air in them. After a lengthy investigation that found Brady somewhat culpable in DeflateGate, he was suspended for four games. The Patriots were also punished heavily.

If Brady didn’t cooperate fully with investigator Ted Wells as Wells compiled his report, he is said to have been forthright on Tuesday. Most NFL pundits expect some reduction in the suspension, but that is up to Goodell. He would surely prefer not to see this wind up in a real court and drag on for the foreseeable future.
 
 
Post By: Larry Weisman, a longtime sportswriter for USA TODAY, blogs for Twistity.com. Follow him on Twitter @MrLarryWeisman.