Robert Kraft says New England Patriots won’t appeal Deflategate punishment

Well that’s that then. Hard to feel good about it when all the Patriots haters will simply use this as an admission of guilt. What most are speculating is that this boils down to “fine, here’s $1 million, a first- and fourth-round pick even though you can’t prove we did anything wrong, just knock the Tom Brady suspension down”.

I get that Mr. Kraft is one of the most influential owners in the game, and no matter how Pats fans or haters feel about it, this decision was made for the good of the game. It’s leadership and I’m sure that the other owners appreciate Mr. Kraft falling on his sword to finally put a major piece of this to bed.

Now Brady’s appeal remains and really that is the heart of the entire case. Does Goodell simply reduce the suspension to 2-games or could he even wipe the entire thing out? Either way it’s going to look strange because the NFL will essentially be admitting the Wells Report wasn’t the slam dunk the original punishment made it out to be. And if that’s the case then Mr. Kraft really bit the bullet when he didn’t necessarily have to.

The fact is that the Patriots were implicit in blowing this up the way it has since the Wells Report was released. Had they not released a full website designed to counter each and every point, or talked to Peter King or leaked how furious Mr. Kraft was, then they might’ve pursued an appeal with a little more grace.

Once they started escalating there was no other way to put the fire out than either publicly relenting (like they did) or taking it to the highest court necessary to get a fair ruling which would unquestionably be terrible for the entire NFL.

Now all focus turns to Brady’s appeal and just how Roger Goodell plays it. If there is a secret agreement that the Pats would relent if Goodell reduces Brady’s sentence, the end might just be in sight. If not, the fight will get ugly and the Patriots could come out looking even worse for not pursuing an appeal when a higher court finds no evidence they did anything wrong.

This is just the latest unexpected turn in a saga that has dragged on far too long. As Mr. Kraft said, that is the only thing we can all agree on.