Deflategate: Patriots owner Bob Kraft takes swings at NFL, Tom Brady tries to explain destroyed cell phone

The New England Patriots and quarterback Tom Brady came out swinging this morning against the NFL after Commissioner Roger Goodell upheld Brady’s four-game suspension for his alleged role in deflating footballs before the January AFC Championship game. Patriots owner Robert Kraft even apologized to fans for putting faith in the league.

On Tuesday, Goodell announced that Brady would still be suspended for the first four games of the season. In his statement, Goodell wrote that Brady had destroyed a cell phone the same day he was supposed to be interviewed by investigator Ted Wells in March.

“During the four months that the cell phone was in use, Brady had exchanged nearly 10,000 text messages, none of which can now be retrieved from that device,” Goodell wrote. “The destruction of the cell phone was not disclosed until June 18, almost four months after the investigators had first sought electronic information from Brady.”

That revelation alone made Brady look awfully guilty, But Brady had a full explanation for it in his Facebook post Wednesday morning.

“I also disagree with yesterday’s narrative surrounding my cellphone,” Brady wrote. “I replaced my broken Samsung phone with a new iPhone 6 AFTER my attorneys made it clear to the NFL that my actual phone device would not be subjected to investigation under ANY circumstances. As a member of a union, I was under no obligation to set a new precedent going forward, nor was I made aware at any time during Mr. Wells investigation, that failing to subject my cell phone to investigation would result in ANY discipline.”

Brady wrote that his team made sure to turn over pages of cell phone records to Wells and “exhausted every possibility to give the NFL everything we could and offered to go thru the identity for every text and phone call during the relevant time.”

At the beginning of his statement, Brady wrote that he is “very disappointed” by the decision, insisting, “I did nothing wrong, and no one in the Patriots organization did either.”

In addition, Kraft held a press conference at Gillette Stadium this morning and continued to stand by the face of his franchise. As WEEI notes, Kraft also called the ruling “unfathomable” and said he hoped that his May decision to accept the league’s punishment on his franchise would help exonerate Brady. But that didn’t happen.

“I first and foremost need to apologize to our fans because I truly believe what I did in May given the actual evidence of this situation and the league’s history on discipline matters would make it much easier for the league to exonerate Tom Brady. Unfortunately I was wrong,” Kraft said. “I was wrong to put my faith in the league.”

Prior to Kraft’s statement, the franchise did release another statement, which read in part, “We cannot comprehend the league’s position in this matter. Most would agree that the penalties levied originally were excessive and unprecedented, especially in light of the fact that the league has no hard evidence of wrongdoing.”

Brady is going to keep fighting the decision in court, so this is far from over, over seven months after the AFC Championship game.

image courtesy of Jennifer Graylock/INFphoto.com

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