[RickFLM4]

An intelligent innocent person, celebrity or otherwise, would hold onto any form of potential evidence they had until after the proceedings were completely over (including penalty phase) if it could potentially exonerate them or provide evidence the NFL was "out to get them". He could have put it in a safe until everything was final. So rationalize all you'd like, but he was either covering up something or being idiotic when he destroyed the phone at the time he did. There was a CBA that gave the NFL the authority to act as it did and Brady destroyed the one thing that could possibly have helped him prove the NFL acted in bad faith. Case closed.