Kessler: Goodell's ruling on Brady appeal "a smear campaign...a propaganda piece"

For those of you out there thinking a settlement could be reached between Tom Brady and Roger Goodell, it might be time to finally put those thoughts to bed for good.

On Friday night, Brady's attorney, Jeffrey Kessler, filed a 15-page document to Judge Richard Berman lambasting Roger Goodell and his decision to uphold Brady's four-game suspension back on July 29.

Kessler ripped Goodell's written ruling, calling it "more smear campaign than reasoned decision." Kesler said the ruling was "a propaganda piece written for public consumption, at a time when the NFL believed the transcript would be sealed from public view..."

Kesler added that Goodell's ruling on the appeal represented “a clearly biased agenda—not an effort at fairness and consistency.”

The Boston Herald lays it out:

Kessler hammered the league for what he said was a different standard by which it judged Brady from when he was first suspended to when his appeal was upheld. First said to be “generally aware” of the deflating of footballs in the Wells Report, the league now says he was the mastermind of a scheme to deflate the footballs. Since that assertion was never in the original report, Kessler said, it can’t be used as the basis for upholding his four-game suspension. 

During the court hearing last Wednesday in New York, Berman stressed a desire to push the two sides to the middle and to a settlement. One of the NFL's sticking points that they have refused to back down on is that Brady must accept the findings of the Wells Report, something Brady in no way could ever do.

With last night's submission of this document directly calling into question Goodell's integrity, honesty, trustworthiness and morality, it seems we've reached the point of no return in Deflategate. The gloves are off, the bullets are flying, and there will be no settlement.

Photo credit: ABC News