In a rare disclosure of internal NFL proceedings, the complete June arbitration hearing for Patriots QB Tom Brady was disclosed yesterday as part of dueling lawsuits in federal court over his suspension. In fact, it was just one exhibit among 210 that were attached to the NFLPA's complaint filed late yesterday, a response to the NFL seeking to enforce its four game suspension of the star quarterback. The case, unlike most previous league labor litigation, is being heard in Manhattan federal court, and the judge overseeing the case, Richard Berman, clearly has a far greater bar to sealing documents than his counterparts in Minnesota, where NFL-NFLPA proceedings since the early 1990s were often cloaked in secrecy. Everything from Brady getting free cell phones, which he would then destroy, to the team's once-practice of preparing game balls in saunas was disclosed in the arbitration transcript. Reams of cell phone records were also included (Daniel Kaplan, Staff Writer). Read the full transcript.
The BOSTON GLOBE offers five takeaways from Brady's testimony and WEEI-FM looks at seven things they learned from transcripts of the Deflategate appeal hearing. ESPN.com extracts "some nuggets that stand out."
