The Foxboro Witch Trials

At long last the day finally arrived. Tom Brady and Roger Goodell were set to have their fireside chat about the goings on of the night of the AFC Championship game. Or so we thought…

Tom arrived at 345 Park Avenue, dressed in his Sunday best for what was billed as a face to face conversation with Roger. What he found was that the hearing had been moved to the basement because Roger’s office (and presumably every other conference room on the main floors) was not large enough to hold the contingent of nearly forty lawyers, witness and stool pigeons that the NFL had summoned to hear this case “with an open mind”. Personally I was reminded of the scene in the fifth Harry Potter book where Harry was called to defend himself against trumped up charges of underage magic…

Like Harry, Tom no doubt found a group of men and women who were predisposed to assume the worst and who were no doubt looking for any excuse to throw Tom out of the league for good. Twenty four hours before the appeal was scheduled to be heard, Tom and his legal team were informed that they would have four hours in which to present their case, this news leaked to the media, then the public. The NFL was quick to issue their own statement informing us all that no such memo was sent and that Tom was not being held to a “strict” time limit; then the memo itself was released. Whoops. So with their tails between their legs, the NFL allowed the hearing to run for an exhaustive 11 hours (with a one hour break for lunch where we can all assume that all parties involved set aside their differences and shared a six foot Italian sub from Subway).

Exclusive images of Roger Goodell during the hearing can be seen here.

Once the trial wrapped up, news from the event trickled out Tom was his best ally, which is good because in a place of magic like the NFL offices where science weans nothing and all that matters is the whims of the all-powerful Dark Lord Roger Goodelmort. He was described as a shining beacon of truth that was far more genuine than the Evil-Mustachioed Ted Wells (who’s sacrifice of a damsel in distress on the Metro Tracks earlier that morning seems not to have summoned the dark forces in the quantities that he had hoped).

Now we must wait, Roger likes to take his time when making these sorts of decisions, preferring to see who can provide him with the largest quantity of human skulls and branches of everlasting fire before he sticks his finger in the air to see which way the winds are blowing.

At least the NFL Network will have something to talk about until training camps open up next month.