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.
You need to learn about the basic laws of physics. A decrease in temperature causes a decrease in air pressure.
There was no tampering with the footballs. Even the fraudulent Wells Report admitted there was no evidence that the footballs were tampered with. They said it was more likely than not that someone deflated the footballs.
Many scientists have analyzed the data. They have all concluded that the decrease in pressure was consistent with the change in temperature and the laws of physics. The footballs were never tampered with.
Brady was not told to keep his old phone when he got a new one. The phone issue was brought up after the fact.
The result of the dishonest charges against Brady is the fact that NFL players no longer trust Goodell. Many have said so publicly.
So you have no idea how texting works...but have a fervent opinion on what it means.
Nor was any hearing ever held on whether he was to be punished for destroying his phone.
Nor did the NFL ask for his phone - Wells adamantly testified that he did not, and that further he never told Brady there would be any consequences for not turning it over.
Nor was he ever accused of destroying the texts - which the NFL requested, but when asked by Brady’s lawyer under what authority they had any right to private communications on a personal phone, they did neither respond nor protest in any way prior to announcing the punishment.
Further, when Brady did learn of the fit the NFL was throwing, the metadata of the texts was presented which showed the NFL had every single relevant text. It apparently is a surprise to you that texts not only go from someone, but to somebody else...and the texts are in not only both of those places, but various applications retain copies in cloud storage as well.