National Football League

Report: Pats, NFL having 'back-channel' talks to resolve Deflategate

Published May. 19, 2015 3:56 a.m. ET

foxsports

With all of the acrimony and seeming bad blood between the New England Patriots and NFL commissioner Roger Goodell's office, could the two sides actually be working toward a peaceful resolution to the Deflategate scandal?

According to a report by ESPN on Monday, that answer is yes. But, much like the wheelings-and-dealings from Capitol Hill to free-agent negotiations, it's all about plausible deniability.

According to Adam Schefter, sources say the two sides are engaged in "back-channel conversations" in an effort to come to an agreement over punishment without going through an appeal or perhaps litigation.

Patriots quarterback Tom Brady was suspended four games and the team fined $1 million and docked a pair of draft picks — including a 2016 first-round pick -— when the league announced its punishment last Monday, the result of an investigation into allegations the club deflated balls below the league minimum before January's AFC Championship Game against the Colts.

Brady has already filed an appeal (and Goodell has said he will preside over the appeal hearing himself), and Pats owner Robert Kraft has until Friday to file their appeal, according to Schefter.

The two parties are expected at this week's owners meetings in San Francisco beginning Tuesday.

Also on Monday, theMMQB.com's Peter King published an interview with Kraft, during which the owner said Brady told him he had no knowledge of the deflated balls, and that the NFL's punishment wasn't fair.

"I just get really worked up," Kraft told King. "To receive the harshest penalty in league history is just not fair. The anger and frustration with this process, to me, it wasn’t fair. If we’re giving all the power to the NFL and the office of the commissioner, this is something that can happen to all 32 teams. We need to have fair and balanced investigating and reporting. But in this report, every inference went against us … inferences from ambiguous, circumstantial evidence all went against us. That’s the thing that really bothers me.

"If they want to penalize us because there’s an aroma around this? That’s what this feels like. If you don’t have the so-called smoking gun, it really is frustrating. And they don’t have it. This thing never should have risen to this level."