Technology Magazine: Tom Brady Smashing His Phone Meant Nothing

The NFL didn’t have enough concrete evidence on Tom Brady to implicate the 4-time Super winner in DeflateGate, so the League was left with one final option: Tell everyone that Brady smashed his cell phone on the day he was supposed to meet with investigators! Guilt by association of the smashed Samsung!

It worked, obviously. The entire country collectively dug out their jump-to-conclusions mat from the closet and assumed Tom Brady was guilty. (Of what? Hey, why ask questions? He’s guilty!)

For those who like to ask questions and not follow the social media crowd, Brady’s Facebook post was telling: He’d done everything to provide the NFL with information – a fact the NFL confirmed. He wasn’t giving up his phone, so it was irrelevant. Why not? Bad precedent. The NFL PA wouldn’t let Brady to give up his phone.

But if you’re still obsessed with the phone, the technology folks at Wired break it down, and that roar you just heard in New England came from Patriots fans:

" Ultimately, Brady would have had to be significantly more thorough than simply destroying a cellphone to suppress potential evidence implicating him in the deflategate scandal. The league could have demanded Brady surrender his Hangout history or past backups. And investigators could have gone after Brady’s contacts, asking to review their phone history with the Patriots’ star player. Of course, Brady already offered to help the league procure his messages directly from his contact’s phone—a fact the NFL admitted in a footnote in their latest decision. As much fun as we all had imagining Brady crushing his phone, turning the chassis into dust, it not only wasn’t true, it wouldn’t have worked. Sorry NFL, but if you thought that was enough to nail him, you might want to rethink your investigation tactics. "

The NFL won the PR battle this week, and if the goal was to ding the Golden Boy because the Patriots have a history of cheating/bending the rules and needed to be humbled, mission accomplished. Keeping Brady off the field for four games?

Good luck with that.