Tom Brady has proven his grace under pressure countless times during his 15-year NFL career, but this would take an unprecedented amount of guts on his part.
WEEI asked whether the New England Patriots quarterback would have a defamation case against the NFL if the league were to rescind his four-game suspension for his involvement in the Deflategate scandal.
Deflategate outcome a one-game suspension for Tom Brady?
Commissioner Roger Goodell has heard Brady's appeal, which was reported to have included the same sentiment that Brady has expressed from the beginning - that he had no knowledge that the balls were being deflated - and expected to decide in July whether to eliminate, reduce or uphold Brady's suspension.
Questions about Brady's legacy have arisen in the wake of the accusations against him. If Goodell or some other piece of new evidence were to exonerate him, WEEI wondered whether Brady would attack the NFL for its misguided investigation.
Tom Brady in trouble for sticking to his original defense in Deflategate?
WEEI talked to legal analyst Michael McCann, who said that the four-time Super Bowl champion quarterback would "face an uphill climb" in winning a defamation suit.
"Brady would need to show that not only were public statements made about him false and damaging to his reputation, but he'd have to show those statements were made with actual malice, which means knowingly or intentionally," McCann said to WEEI. "In other words, if the Wells Report contained reputationally-damaging inaccuracies or lies about Brady, that would not be enough for Brady to prevail in a defamation lawsuit. He'd have to show that Wells included statements that Wells knew were false. That would be hard to show, especially as it relates to a controversy where there remain different scientific opinions and theories about what may have happened.
"Debate about the science in Deflategate is itself a defense for defendants in any defamation lawsuit brought by Brady. Those defendants can argue that at the time they made those statements about Brady, there was debate about what happened in Deflategate and thus a lack of consensus about what constituted the truth and what constituted a lie."
Case in point: ESPN reported that NFL head of football operations Troy Vincent said he does not believe any other quarterbacks - or NFL teams - have attempted to deflate footballs in the past. So the Wells report would be based on unique circumstances, which would prevent a defamation prosecutor from using similar cases to reference the defamation.
Maybe Tom Brady would just want to attack those who attacked his reputation.
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