Tom Brady reportedly came off well during appeal testimony

The Appeal Hearing of the Century came and went and the one thing that seemed certain never came to pass: There was almost no information leaked out to the media in the aftermath.

Details of Tom Brady’s hearing on Tuesday, which had about 10 hours of testimony according to the NFL, were fairly scarce as of late Wednesday morning. We’re not sure really what was said by Brady, the New England Patriots quarterback who is fighting a four-game suspension, or the arguments his lawyers put forth to convince NFL commissioner Roger Goodell to reduce the suspension.

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But one source talked, and it’s apparently positive for Brady. Someone told ESPN’s Adam Schefter that Brady was “very genuine, earnest and persuasive,” and he addressed “every issue” from investigator Ted Wells’ report. Schefter’s source called it an “A-plus” performance. Without knowing if that source is on Brady’s side or what specifically Brady said, that bit of information means little. It shouldn’t be a surprise that Brady, a charismatic star even by NFL quarterback standards, can come off well in any setting. Maybe that satisfied Goodell’s strange desire to hear from Brady personally and listen to the same spiel Brady has put forth already, but is that enough to reduce a suspension? And even if it is, will Brady accept anything less than a full reversal of the suspension?

Even if Brady came off well, aside from any piece of information that he could provide that proves his had nothing to do with deflating footballs — which is practically impossible; it’s hard to imagine there’s a smoking gun that would prove his innocence in this case — it’s very hard to believe Goodell would completely reverse the suspension. That would spit in the face of Wells and Troy Vincent, the NFL’s executive vice president of football operations whose name was on the punishment for Brady and the Patriots, and it would lead plenty of owners to wonder why they spent millions paying Wells for his report (they probably should wonder that anyway). If the whole point of this fiasco was to just let Brady off the hook in the end because he smiled and came off well on the stand, then what was the point?

Brady doesn’t deserve a four-game suspension either, because it was unprecedented in the NFL for such an offense and the Wells Report never got around to providing any specific evidence of Brady’s wrongdoing. People who say they know what Brady did in the matter of the deflated footballs are just guessing. Maybe Goodell realizes that, maybe he doesn’t. Maybe Goodell made up his mind long before the marathon appeal on Tuesday. But by over-punishing Brady to start with he has put himself in a difficult position. If the suspension is reduced there should be a better reason put forth than “Tom seemed very genuine, earnest and persuasive.” If it’s not reduced, Goodell has let stand a clearly excessive punishment of perhaps the league’s most prominent player with no history of wrongdoing in the NFL. No matter what he does, outside of vacating the suspension entirely, he could have a situation where the NFL’s biggest star sues him and the league in federal court. And since it’s a hot-button issue that people can’t seem to think clearly about, Goodell will never win in the court of public opinion no matter what he does now. It’s a tough spot to be in, even though that’s of his own doing.

But even though we don’t know what went down in the hearing, it’s safe to assume there was compelling evidence from both sides. There better have been, after 10 hours of talking about deflated footballs.

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Frank Schwab is the editor of Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @YahooSchwab