The New England Patriots are pressing play on their post-Deflategate lives.
On Tuesday, while at the NFL owners' meetings in San Francisco, Patriots owner Robert Kraft told ESPN that his team will "accept reluctantly what [commissioner Roger Goodell] has given us" and that there will be no appeal of their penalties from the league over the Deflategate investigation.
This comes after ESPN reported that the Goodell and Kraft patched up their friendship on Saturday night — having talked "for quite a long time" during a birthday party for CBS Sports chairman Sean McManus in New York.
Of course, the league dropped the hammer on Patriots star quarterback Tom Brady last week — suspending him for four games of the 2015 season, fining the organization $1 million and making them forfeit their 2016 first-round draft pick and 2017 fourth-round draft pick.
What does it say about Brady's role in Deflategate — that Goodell and Kraft seemingly mended their strained friendship, but that the Patriots are still not going to appeal the league's decision? Can you say guilty as charged? One would think that Brady would have said something on the record in his defense by now, had he been 100 percent innocent of any wrongdoing here.
The fact that he hasn't – and that the Patriots are just washing their hands of this – says there's no point to keep fighting. The Pats' 20,000-word rebuttal on a website they created last week was a good attempt, though. On second thought, they were grasping at straws... thus the no-appeal decision.
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