The US Second Court of Appeals reinstated Tom Brady’s Deflategate suspension today and this could be the end of the line for Brady and the NFLPA’s chances at appealing it, meaning the Pats could have Jimmy Garoppolo under center to start the 2016 season.
Essentially this court ruled 2-1 that Roger Goodell has the power to do whatever he wants because of the powers the NFLPA gave him in the latest CBA. We’re so far past this being actually about what actually happened with the balls during the 2014 AFC Championship Game, and here we sit, a year-and-a-half later with judges going back and forth ruling just what exactly the NFL can do to its players.
The NFLPA is weighing their options, which include trying to take this to the Supreme Court, but that could be a long shot. Now, it might just be in the best interest of everyone to drop it. This kills me to say it. The NFL played this whole investigation to win by any means necessary from the get-go. It was never about the truth and yes, it’s infuriating that they can stack the deck at every turn, leak lies to the media to support their version of the events and shape the narrative they want, then finally levy an unprecedented punishment at their whim.
Winnable Games in September
As I’ve said all along the real damage is the first round pick the Patriots won’t have this Thursday. Clearly that ship has sailed regardless, and with four picks in the first two rounds, I still think the Pats can overcome that loss of draft capital.
What are the real potential ramifications if Brady does sit the first four games: @ Cardinals, vs. Dolphins, vs. Texans, and vs. Bills?
Obviously Jimmy Garoppolo is now entering year three and has shown enough potential and should have a grasp of the offense that the Patriots should not be in a death spiral, especially getting the two most favorable divisional games on the schedule, though neither are certain victories. If those games were on the road in Miami and Buffalo, things might be a little different.
With Garoppolo, the Pats would have to scratch and claw in all four of those games, but I’d expect 2-2 at worst.
The entire Patriots starting defense except for Chandler Jones returns and they also still have the most talented offensive weapon on the field for those first four games – Rob Gronkowski, not to mention Julian Edelman, Martellus Bennett, Danny Amendola and maybe even Dion Lewis working back into the mix. Even without Brady pulling the trigger, there’s a ton of talent all over this roster, and let’s remember that even with Brady, the Pats have seen their share of 2-2 starts.
The point is, the first four games of the season are not going to make or break the Pats’ 2016 campaign.
Part of me almost welcomes the challenge. Maybe that’s just due to being so sick of Deflategate and lawyers and judges that I just want to stop having to think and blog about them. But it’s also like when I used to play season after season of Madden on franchise mode and it got to the point where it was no longer challenging so I’d always trade my best players away to league rivals to at least make things interesting.
So Jimmy G is very likely going to get a shot to show what he can do and I can’t imagine Brady feels great about that on top of having the suspension reinstated.
We can only hope that someday the NFL gets what’s coming to them and that some more truths from behind the scenes come out. But at this point I’m so ready to put Deflategate finally behind us, even if it means giving Tom a September break.
Now back to draft analysis to cleanse the pallet…