New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady was given a four-game suspension for his role in a scheme to deflate the footballs in the AFC championship game that put the Patriots in the Super Bowl. (Reuters)

Reuters/Washington

New England Patriots star Tom Brady yesterday denied he had destroyed his cell phone to avoid giving it to NFL investigators, saying the flap was “manufactured” to distract from “zero evidence” against him in the “Deflategate” football scandal.
Brady issued his statement a day after National Football League Commissioner Roger Goodell upheld a four-game suspension handed to the quarterback for his part in an alleged scheme to deflate footballs below league standards in the game that put the Patriots in the 2015 Super Bowl.
Many NFL quarterbacks, including Brady, prefer softer game balls because they are easier to grip in cold weather.
“I am very disappointed by the NFL’s decision to uphold the four-game suspension against me,” Brady said in a statement posted on his Facebook page. “I did nothing wrong, and no one in the Patriots organization did either.”
Patriots owner Robert Kraft yesterday threw his support behind Brady, telling reporters, “I was wrong to put my faith in the league,” while saying he regrets accepting the “harshest penalty in history of NFL” in hopes of exonerating the quarterback.
In affirming the suspension on Tuesday, Goodell said Brady, one of the league’s most popular and highest paid players, admitted during an appeal hearing last month that he directed an assistant to destroy his cell phone around March 6. That was the day he was due to meet with league investigators.
The commissioner said Brady’s conduct suggested he was attempting to conceal evidence in the case.
But Brady insisted yesterday there was nothing nefarious about the phone’s destruction. As a member of the players union, he said, he was under no obligation to hand the phone to investigators. And he was never told that failing to do so would result in any discipline, he said.
“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,” Brady wrote.
Brady, a four-time Super Bowl champion, denied his phone, which the NFL said contained some 10,000 text messages, contained any damning evidence.
“I have never written, texted, emailed to anybody at anytime, anything related to football air pressure before this issue was raised at the AFC Championship game in January,” Brady wrote, referring to the American Football Conference game won by the Patriots.
“To suggest that I destroyed a phone to avoid giving the NFL information it requested is completely wrong.”
Goodell initially leveled the penalty on Brady after a report from attorney Ted Wells, who was hired by the NFL to investigate the matter.
Wells said the scheme to deflate the footballs was carried out by two Patriots employees. Under NFL rules at the time, the home team took possession of game balls before kickoff.
The investigators said he determined that Brady probably knew about the alleged scheme largely on the basis of text messages between the employees that implied the quarterback was aware of the plan to deflate the footballs.
Brady on Wednesday said the finding was unfair because there was no direct evidence to support it.
“Despite submitting to hours of testimony over the past six months, it is disappointing that the commissioner upheld my suspension based upon a standard that it was ‘probable’ that I was ‘generally aware’ of misconduct,” Brady said.
The NFL players union said it would now take the case to federal court to have the suspension, which amounts to a fourth of the season, overturned.
“There is no ‘smoking gun,’ and this controversy is manufactured to distract from the fact they have zero evidence of wrongdoing,” Brady said in his post.
The allegations of tampering surfaced during New England’s 45-7 rout of the Indianapolis Colts in the AFC title game in January. Weather conditions on game day were raw, and a ball deflated below league standards might have been easier for a quarterback like Brady to grip.
The victory allowed the Patriots to advance to the Super Bowl, where the team defeated the Seattle Seahawks 28-24 to claim the NFL championship.
Goodell fined the Patriots $1 million for the team’s alleged role in the scandal, and ordered the club to surrender two draft choices, including the team’s coveted No. 1 pick in 2016.
In May, Kraft, one of Goodell’s biggest supporters, denied the team had any role in the scheme but decided not to appeal the penalty, saying the NFL had to move beyond the ordeal.



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