Different balls, but why a different set of punishments?
As the NFL’s players’ union released the transcriptions from Tom Brady’s Deflategate testimony on Tuesday night, one argument the Patriots star quarterback and his lawyers are lining up is an NFL inconsistency in regard to punishments. Why did Brett Favre not get suspended for texting illicit photos, they wonder.
Brady, in large part for destroying his phone and not cooperating with the league, was banned four games this season for his role in footballs being under-inflated in last season’s AFC Championship win over the Colts. However, in cases prior, such as Favre texting lewd pictures to a Jets employee, no suspension were given for being uncooperative.
“Brett Favre, in an incident you may remember involving sexting on his phone, he was found to have refused to cooperate in the investigation and he was fined $50,000,” Brady’s attorney, Jeffrey Kessler, said in the testimony.
But Favre, for not cooperating with the league in his 2010 scandal, was not hit with a suspension.
Kessler also points to Bountygate, the 2011 scandal that saw Saints players awarded by coaches for hurting opponents.
Originally, for not cooperating, New Orleans defensive end Anthony Hargrove was meted an eight-game suspension by Roger Goodell — which was then vacated by former commissioner Paul Tagliabue, who heard the appeal. Instead, because of the precedent the league had set with Favre, Tagliabue handed Hargrove a $50,000 fine.
“[Tagliabue] reversed Mr. Hargrove’s suspension and he said, ‘Although not entirely comparable to the present matter,’ talking about the Favre situation for Mr. Hargrove, this illustrates NFL’s practice of fining, not suspending, players for serious cooperation violations of this type,” Kessler said.
“That’s the history. It’s been a fine. So if [NFL lawyer Daniel] Nash had said, ‘I still think it’s cooperation, it should be a fine,’ that would be one thing. But there is no history in the light of bounty, I don’t see any way under fair and consistent a suspension would be imposed just on this cooperation issue.”