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Who advised Tom Brady to destroy his cell phone? NFLPA says it wasn't them

Even those watching deflate-gate play out and supporting Tom Brady had to raise an eyebrow at the news that the cell phone he was using at the time of the purported incident was destroyed.

And even after Brady offered up his reasoning for why the phone was put out of its misery, the question remains: Who in the heck thought this was a good idea?

Was it the NFLPA? Was is Brady's agent? Brady himself?

NFLPA executive George Atallah spoke with 120 Sports on its "Football Fix" show on Wednesday and discussed the future Brady litigation. He was asked whether the union advised Brady what to do — or not do — with his cell phone, as it related to the investigation of Ted Wells or the follow-up meeting with league commissioner Roger Goodell.

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Atallah's response said a lot without actually saying a lot.

"That’s a great question," Atallah said. "The best way I can answer it, and the most transparent way I can answer it is that the union involvement began when the initial four-game suspension was levied. So from that point forward, the union was involved and took the lead in the appeal process.

"It’s hard for us to recreate the events that took place because we were not directly involved, and I don’t think it would be fair to Tom or his representatives who were supporting him through that process."

The punishment was handed down May 11. Goodell's response in upholding the suspension noted that Brady's cell was destroyed on or very close to March 6. So the union clearly had no role in the cell phone destruction, and privately it might tell you it's not happy to have to fend off talk about that now.

So who decided this was a good idea? Brady said he had a minion carry out the deed, but did the quarterback many thought had a future in politics (that's likely gone now) really decide this on his own?

We talk a lot, vaguely, about Brady's camp. And, who knows, the guy might have an actual camp; Brady is a private guy, so it's certainly possible.

But might it have been Don Yee, his agent? League sources seem to believe that Yee, his trusted adviser who has been with Brady since the start of his NFL career, has Brady's ear on important matters. Yee chimed in Tuesday after Goodell upheld the four games and took dead aim at the commissioner in a strong statement blasting Goodell.

We don't know if it was Yee who suggested Brady destroy his cell. But guilty or not, it looks fishy and it gives the union another big hurdle to overcome as it tries to clean up the mess and win a federal court case.

Atallah blasted Goodell's ruling for being out of line with the CBA, but as upset as he was at the suggestion that part of Brady's suspension was because of the cell, he also said it was a convenient distraction to the real issues in the case.

"Yeah, [the cell phone] is a big — big both as a red flag and a red herring," Atallah said. "It’s a red flag because we cannot accept a situation where a player is suspended or disciplined for an unprecedented amount for such a thing. And it’s a red herring because, as Tom Brady himself pointed out in the statement he released this morning, it really doesn’t have any material impact on the facts of the case.

"Ted Wells declared publicly in that infamous presser that he gave that he didn’t even want the phone. If you remember, those words actually came out of his mouth. So I don’t think there is any new information there. This is one of those classic, look at the shiny object and see if it distracts from the real facts of the case."

The way the union will attack this case, Atallah said, is by attacking the process by which the investigation and the follow-up hearing were handled — a process the union believes is unfair and out of line with precedent as the CBA is written.

"Our basis for the federal court case, frankly, is going to be based on all of the missteps that the league office has made with respect to their discipline," he said. "Things like not having a policy or a procedure in place for checking deflated footballs. If they had one in place, they wouldn’t have announced one just this past Sunday. Those things are kind of the procedural issues that we’ll be looking at when we go to court here in the next couple of days.

"We stand on process because the Collective Bargaining Agreement outlines a process to provide players and the commissioner’s office certain rights. If the commissioner’s office oversteps or setps away from the rights of the CBA, we have an obligation to pursue those claims. If a player’s right are violated in any way, those are measures that we need to really aggressively pursue no matter who the player is."

Atallah's response to Patriots owner Robert Kraft taking shots at Goodell and the NFL stunned him because it was so out of character for a league owner to break ranks in this way, even if it was Kraft's quarterback he was trying to protect.

"My initial reaction was that he sounded more like us and the things that we have been saying in the past," Atallah said. "It's really interesting how much is made of the relationship between the union and the league, and this union — and honestly particularly DeMaurice Smith, our executive director — takes a bunch of criticism being critical of the league office.

"And when you hear an owner do it, you're kind of like, 'Wow.' It's like I tweeted — you're almost speechless. The only reaction you can have is one that makes you feels is a sense of validation about the way that they have approached disciplinary matters, at least since I have been a part of the union."

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Eric Edholm is a writer for Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at edholm@yahoo-inc.com or follow him on Twitter!