Patsfans Reaction to Brady Decision...priceless

The kind of bullshit they convince themselves of is staggering

This probably is the dumbest theory out there.

First of all, it's probably not an unfair labor practice to request the phone, particularly as it is part of the NFL's integrity policy to consider in punishment for rule violations the extent to which the involved parties cooperate with the investigation and the NFL has a past practice of punishing players for failing to cooperate (e.g. Farve).

Even if it is an unfair labor practice, the risk of destroying the phone far outweighs the benefit. Brady and the NFLPA could have asserted no punishment could be assigned to the failure to turn over the phone and still assert an unfair labor practice occurred. OTOH by destroying the phone there's a clear risk that Brady gets hit with spoilation sanctions. It's bad enough that the phone was destroyed in the first place but even worse that his supposed normal practice just happened to coincide with the day he talked to the investigators and curiously the phone prior to that one was never destroyed. The combination of the obvious effort to destroy evidence in probable litigation is good enough for sanctions. At a minimum it means the factfinder will infer that the phone contained conclusive evidence that Brady was involved in deflating the balls and sought to cover it up. He could also get hit with monetary sanctions and his potential unfair labor practice claim could be struck. If his attorneys told him to destroy the phone they could face disbarment.

This whole nonsense might make a little sense if Goodell made either the original decision or the appeal so narrowly focused on the refusal to cooperate or destruction of the phone but he didn't.

Just because some idiot in Boston happens to be a union member does not make him an expert on labor law.