Report: Tom Brady and NFLPA Ready to Fight Any Remaining Suspension

And we all thought that Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao would be the marquee fight of the year.

We might be wrong.

It’s been 23 days and counting since Tom Brady’s suspension appeal hearing with Roger Goodell in New York, and aside from that, pretty much everyone’s lips have been zipped ever since. That led plenty of people to conclude that the appeal would result in a 1 or 2-game suspension for Brady (from an original suspension of 4 games), and both Brady and the commissioner would put what is by far the dumbest kerfuffle in sporting history to bed.

According to a report from ABC and ESPN legal analyst Ryan Smith this morning, though, we may just be seeing the end of The Fellowship of the Ring and the beginning of The Two Towers – Smith’s tweet on Wednesday morning says that “NFLPA sources tell us if Tom Brady’s appeal results in suspension for ANY games, they’ll challenge in federal court.”

And just to make it perfectly clear that “ANY” actually does, in fact, mean “ANY”, Smith also replied to one of his followers that asked if Brady and the NFLPA would go to war if the suspension were reduced to one game:

As most fans already know, Roger Goodell and the NFL have a track record in federal court that only the Philadelphia 76ers could love. Courts have previously overturned pretty much every suspension Goodell issued from the New Orleans Bountygate suspension, and, more recently, also ruled that he lied during the Ray Rice scandal, in addition to unfairly punishing Rice, and also overturned Vikings running back Adrian Peterson’s indefinite suspension during his appeal.

Robert Kraft might have laid down his guns and given up the fight to appeal the Patriots’ penalties from the Ballghazi investigation, but if this report is to be believed, Brady and the NFLPA are ready to fight until the NFL’s health bar has one tiny sliver left and the announcer says “FINISH HIM!”

UPDATE (3:50pm): In an appearance on WEEI this afternoon, NFL Insider Adam Schefter revealed two more pieces of speculation to how Brady’s suspension ultimately shakes out, and while they’re both no more than speculation, it’s still worth noting that Schefter thinks:

-Despite reports earlier this week that had people guessing that we might get a Brady verdict on Tuesday or Wednesday (today), Schefter is leaning more towards the end of the month as a realistic timeframe.

-Regarding professed legal expertise, or what essentially amounts to Adam Schefter saying “I ain’t passed the bar, but I know a little bit”, he says that ““Now we’re running into an area where lawyers are probably better qualified to answer than me, but I’ve said all along, my guess, and it’s purely a guess, is it will not surprise me if Tom Brady does not miss a single game. If he’s playing in the opener somehow, some way, whether that’s through a decision the NFL makes, whether that’s through a compromise the two sides reach, whether that’s through an injunction that a judge grants, whatever it may be, I don’t know. I’m not smart enough legally to know the direction and route that this story is going to take.”

“We’ve seen it go out in areas that nobody would have imagined, but I do believe, my guess, at this point there’s a chance that Tom Brady won’t miss a game, but we’ll see how that plays out.”