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Brady no doubt will become the highest-profile player ever suspended by the NFL in league history. Columnist Gary Myers is reporting that the commissioner will announce his decision next week and that he consider's Brady's role in DeflateGate a "serious violation."
The NFL is convinced, according to sources, that connecting all the dots of the evidence supplied by Ted Wells leads to one conclusion:
Brady cheated.
The feeling is that the Wells Report supplied Goodell with enough ammunition to suspend Brady both for breaking the rules by ordering the deflation of footballs and by not cooperating with the investigation when he refused to turn over his cell phone to Wells' investigators.
The only question now is how many games with which Goodell will hit the league's star player.
Estimates have been all over the map. My feeling is he will wind up with two games, whether that is the initial discipline handed out or whether he is hit with four and ends up with two after an appeal.
Brady will not likely be the only one disciplined in DeflateGate. The Patriots could be fined, just as they were for SpyGate in 2007, when Goodell fined them $250,000 and took away a first-round draft pick. Bill Belichick, who was hit with a $500,000 fine for running his spying operation, is not likely to face sanctions because the Wells Report did not link him to the deflating of the footballs.
DeflateGate is the latest in a long line of rules violations the Patriots have either been found guilty of committing or have been implicated in since SpyGate surfaced following the franchise's last run of Super Bowl glory.
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Brady allegedly had locker-room equipment assistant John Jastremski and locker room attendant Jim McNally alter the pressure of game balls by deflating them below league-mandated thresholds set forth in the official NFL rule book.
Furthermore, it is alleged that Tom Brady failed to comply completely with the investigation by refusing to make emails and text messages available to investigators.
Both the Patriot organization and Tom Brady himself vehemently denied having done anything wrong in the lead up to the Super Bowl with owner Bob Kraft going so far as to proclaim that the NFL should apologize to Belichick, Brady, and the Patriot organization if "The Wells investigation is not able to definitively determine that our organization tampered with the air pressure on the footballs."
If you are unaware of the findings in the Wells report, here's "10 hidden highlights"
If you would like to read the report in it's entirety, here ya go! "The Wells Report"
The impact this incident will have on Brady's legacy and the legacy of the Patriot organization at large will be up for debate for a long time. Make no mistake, whenever Brady or the Patriots' accomplishments are discussed, so will "SpyGate" and "DeflateGate." Is it fair? In my opinion, absolutely. The path a team takes to achieve it's success reveals the character and integrity of the players and coaches involved. Tom Brady and the Patriot organization have forged a path to success through shady practices and clear cut violations of NFL rules.