No he did not “get caught cheating.”
Even the fraudulent Wells Report never said he got caught.
They said it was more probable than not that he was at least somewhat aware of the supposed tampering with footballs.
Anyone who knows anything about basic physics knows that air pressure decreases as temperature decreases. Every analysis by scientists has determined that there was no tampering with footballs and the decrease in air pressure was consistent with the laws of physics.
Anyone who knows anything about football knows the Patriots won the game on the field and that the footballs had no effect.
The decision had literally nothing to do with whether Brady cheated or not. The decision was based on the power of Commissioner Goodell to hand out punishments based on the Collective Bargaining Agreement.
Many experts said Goodell’s decision was dishonest.
Goodell and Wells are the cheaters. Not Tom Brady.
One of the results of the actions by Goodell is that the NFL players no longer trust Goodell. Many have said so publicly.
He destroyed his phone to avoid being caught.
The fact that the court refused to deal with the case is due to the fact that the courts have nothing to say about agreements between a business and unions, but the NFL union wanted the courts to ignore the agreement.
That's sufficient. Combine that with the text messages, the testimony of other players, and it's a pretty convincing case.
This is not some kind of criminal trial where proof beyond a reasonable doubt is required.
Similar to a civil case, the standard is "preponderance of evidence", and that standard was met in this case.
The fact that Brady, after all this time, finally threw in the towel, tells me he knew he was going to lose his final appeal.
So Brady will miss the first 4 games of the NFL season, including the Patriots game against the Dolphins. Good.
For the Brady apologists to claim that he's totally innocent simply because a criminal standard of proof was not met, is absolutely ludicrous.
The evidence clearly shows there was something going on. Enough is enough. He's been adjudicated guilty by the commissioner of the league that's perfectly entitled to do so. This is a victory for people who believe that a company has an inherent right to set policy with respect to employee discipline, as long as such policy doesn't violate any formal collective bargaining agreement. And a court has determined that the collective bargaining agreement was NOT violated.
The only reason Brady won initially was because a clearly activist, pro-labor judge tried to turn legal precedent on its head, and impose arbitrary law from the bench.
For that reason alone, it's good that the NFL won the case.
Whether the NFL was fair or not, I really don't care at this point. They have the right to discipline their employees, subject to the restrictions dictated by the CBA. They did so. End of story.