Myers: What's next for Goodell and Brady post-Deflategate?

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Updated: September 5, 2015

Maddie Meyer

Tom Brady is a big winner in Deflategate court battle and will take out his anger on rest of the NFL.

It was great theater and most of time pretty entertaining: Tom Brady, four-time Super Bowl champion, three-time Super Bowl MVP, vs. Roger Goodell, the $ 40 million a year commissioner, throwing haymakers at each other over the last 71/2 months.

In the end, they were fighting over whether Goodell abused his power, but what brought them together twice in U.S. District Court were deflated footballs. Since this didn’t involve any of the league’s many serious ongoing issues — domestic violence, concussions, PEDs, DUIs, guns, drugs — it was hard to get too worked up about PSIs, other than it being the battleground for Brady trying to preserve his legacy and Goodell trying to retain his power.

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So, with Judge Richard Berman, who came off as a pretty cool guy in the hearings, throwing out Brady’s four-game suspension — signs at Gillette Stadium on Thursday night endorsed him for president, which seems an infinitely better idea than Donald Trump — where do all your favorite DeflateGate characters that you’ve come to know and love go from here?

– Goodell: Relax, he’s not getting fired, although with all the money he’s made in this job since taking over for Paul Tagliabue, does he really need the headache? No member of the media knows Goodell longer than me — nearly 35 years back to his PR intern days in the NFL office — and trust me when I say he’s a good man. But it is time for him to stop clinging to Article 46 of the CBA giving him final say as the hearings officer over integrity of the game and conduct detrimental issues. Sure, it was part of the first CBA back in 1968, but these are clearly more complicated times.

He’s done a masterful job helping grow the NFL into a $ 10 billion a year industry and it’s going to get even bigger with one and possibly two teams in Los Angeles next year. He was misguided on the Brady case and was too soft initially on Ray Rice, but I had no problem with his follow-up punishment of Rice and then coming down hard on fellow domestic violence abusers Adrian Peterson and Greg Hardy, even if the discipline was shortened or vacated. He was also overruled by Tagliabue in BountyGate.

Charles Rex Arbogast/AP

Despite losing the battle with Tom Brady, Roger Goodell still has the support of the NFL owners.

As a result, Goodell’s last five big decisions have been overruled by two arbitrators, two judges and a former judge.

It’s a mystery why he picked a silly fight with Brady, who he admires as a player and person. The bottom line is still has the support of the owners, even if some of them are advocating a chance in how discipline is handled.

– Brady: The last time the Patriots were this pissed off was 2007 when they were caught in the SpyGate espionage by the Jets during the first game of the season. They beat the Jets and then won their last 15 games for the first 16-0 regular season in NFL history.

Brady is going to take out his anger with Goodell on the rest of the league, especially the Colts, who started this nonsense. They play in Indy on Oct. 18, the nine-month anniversary of DeflateGate. The NFL record for points in a game is 72 set by Washington against the Giants in 1966. That record is officially in jeopardy.

Larry Neumeister/AP

Judge Richard M. Berman

– Patriots: Patriots owner Robert Kraft gave up his DeflateGate fight against the league in May, accepting a $ 1 million fine and the loss of first and fourth-round picks, hoping it would buy Brady’s freedom. Didn’t work. Jonathan Kraft, the Pats president, said after the Brady ruling that the team won’t try to get back the money and the picks. I think that could change.

– Wells: After the way Berman tore apart the Wells Report in court, the next time the league needs an “independent” investigator, they will probably spend their $ 3 million elsewhere.

– Berman: He is a cult hero in New England. If he moved to Boston, he would never have to pay for another meal. Clam chowder and lobsters on the house.

– NFLPA attorney Jeffrey Kessler: If you can’t beat him, hire him. That’s what the NFL should do. Kessler has used the NFL as a punching bag and his performance in Berman’s court was right out of the movies.

– John Jastremski and Jim McNally: The Abbott and Costello of the Patriots locker room were suspended by the Patriots. If Brady indeed did something wrong, somebody will be offering big money for their story. The Patriots plan to talk to the NFL about having them reinstated.

‘Brady vs Manning: The untold story of the rivalry that transformed the NFL’ by Gary Myers will be available Sept. 22 in bookstores and can be preordered on Amazon.com.

REXY BACK

Rex Ryan will open the season with Tyrod Taylor at quarterback. Taylor threw 35 passes in four years as Joe Flacco’s backup in Baltimore. The Bills are worried that LeSean McCoy, who has been out with a hamstring injury since Aug. 18, will not be ready for the opener against the Colts. And for some reason, Fred Jackson, one of the most popular players in Bills history, was cut last week, a move reportedly endorsed only by GM Doug Whaley. Ryan has the same mess he had with the Jets… I like Rex and always found him to be forthcoming and entertaining, a rare combination for an NFL head coach. But he’s got to stop talking as if he’s the topic of every conversation around the league. “There are always going to be people that judge you, but that’s okay,” Ryan said. “People should worry about themselves more than they should worry about me. They don’t have to agree with me, or whatever, but I got news for you: I’m not changing. I’m going to be myself. I don’t care if you like it, or you dislike it. This is who I am.” Ryan says the Bills will be his last job. If he fails in Buffalo, he may not have a choice.

RUN IN THE WASH

Congress doesn’t have anything over Washington’s football team in the dysfunctional department. Three years ago, Robert Griffin III was a cult hero, but now it’s clear if he’s ever going to have success in the NFL it has to be with another team. Where did it go wrong? When Mike Shanahan didn’t pull him out of the playoff game against the Seahawks his rookie year when he came up limping badly on his already injured knee. Shanahan let Griffin talk him into staying in the game, even though he was severely compromised. His leg collapsed in the fourth quarter and he needed ACL surgery and has never been the same. He has alienated Shanahan and now Jay Gruden. How much does Gruden dislike Griffin? He picked Kirk Cousins to start and called it Cousins’ team… Dan Snyder needs to fire the wife of GM Scot McCloughan for her inappropriate tweets last week. Even though she doesn’t work for the team, Snyder is so good at firing people this should not be a problem.

HALL THOUGHTS

I’m on the 46-member Hall of Fame voting committee but not on either of the much smaller subcommittees that pick the senior candidates and contributor candidates for us to vote on. A contributor’s category was established in 2015 and the first two nominated were Bill Polian and Ron Wolf. Both extremely deserving and were voted in, but the first contributor in should have been former Giants GM George Young. In fact, the category could have been named for him. As part of a rotation with senior candidates, only one contributor gets in next year and former 49ers owner Ed DeBartolo was selected as the candidate. Again, where is Young, who resurrected the Giants from the darkest period in their history and later was the No. 1 football man in the league office? This year’s senior candidates are Ken Stabler and Dick Stanfel, who both passed away this year. Stabler should have been voted in years ago as a modern-era candidate. Stanfel was a terrific offensive lineman but he’s been nominated as a senior candidate twice before — in 1993 and 2012 — and failed to pick up the 80% vote. With so many seniors deserving a chance to be discussed by all 46 members, I would have preferred Joe Klecko, who made the Pro Bowl as a DE, DT and NT and is one of the greatest Jets of all time, being nominated rather than Stanfel getting a third chance. Klecko’s resume is hurt by never playing in the Super Bowl, but it’s not his fault Don Shula didn’t cover a drenched field at the Orange Bowl and Richard Todd then threw five interceptions in the 1982 AFC Championship Game.

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