FOXBOROUGH, Mass. -- NFL Players Association attorney Jeffrey Kessler, the man who led the fight to overturn New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady's suspension, said Friday on ESPN Radio that he is confident Judge Richard M. Berman's decision to vacate Brady's suspension will hold up on appeal.
"There were a lot of commentators who said we couldn't win before Judge Berman, and we knew they were wrong. We feel exactly the same way on appeal," Kessler told hosts Freddie Coleman and Ian Fitzsimmons.
"This is that rare case where the arbitrator is not acting appropriately, where the CBA is not being adhered to. We think any fair-minded judge who looks at this, whether it's at the district court level or the appellate level, is going to reach the same conclusion."
Kessler estimates that oral arguments on the appeal will be "sometime in 2016", which is part of a "normal appellate process."
Specific to Brady, Kessler said on ESPN Radio, "[He] wants to play football. He wants to focus on his team. He wants to try to win another Super Bowl. I think you're going to see a very determined competitor next Thursday night."
In explaining why Berman ruled against Brady's suspension, Kessler said, "This was simply something that was made up by the league."
Kessler panned the NFL for making Brady's destruction of his phone such a big issue, noting that investigator Ted Wells testified that he never told Brady he would be subject to a suspension if he didn't turn it over.
"We all know there was nothing being hidden on the phone; what the league has tried to sort of bury is the fact they had all the text messages with the club attendants and ball boys, and they had the phone records that showed there were no other text messages to them," Kessler said on the program.
"So this has been a grand diversion from the fact that they really had no evidence to support this in the first place."
Kessler wouldn't detail settlement talks between the sides, saying they were confidential. He urged the NFL to consider adopting a similar system to Major League Baseball, which has a neutral arbitrator.
"I don't understand how this is good for the game, and I don't understand how this is good for the integrity of the game," he said. "You would think owners in the league would wake up and want to change this now."
Patriots president Jonathan Kraft has recently commented publicly on that possibility, supporting the idea that the league needs to rethink its structure. Jed York, CEO of the 49ers, and Falcons owner Arthur Blank have expressed support for Kraft's viewpoint as well.
