Two years ago, someone at 345 Park Avenue leaked to Stephen A. Smith of ESPN the notion that Patriots quarterback Tom Brady had destroyed his cell phone in connection with the #Deflategate investigation. Within a day of the leak, Brady was suspended four games due in part to the allegation that he’d destroyed his cell phone.
Now, it seems like someone at 345 Park Avenue has leaked to Cris Carter of FS1 the notion that Cowboys running back Ezekiel Elliott is about to be suspended, with some eye-opening details.
Via Ryan Glasspiegel of TheBigLead.com, Carter said on FS1’s Undisputed that “in the next 48 hours I would be shocked if Zeke was not suspended.” Carter added that, “based on the information that’s going to come out, it’s going to be fairly easy to determine that something happened to this woman in her four days of being with Zeke.” (The specific allegation is that Elliott committed five acts of domestic violence in a six-day window.)
Carter described the situation as a case of “assault or domestic violence,” and Carter hinted that “when the information comes out there’s going to be some similarities” to Tom Brady’s suspension, including “information that he had been advised possibly to give up, that was destroyed.”
Carter ultimately suggested that Elliott’s banishment will be in the range of Brady’s four-game suspension. If this happens, it will contradict multiple proclamations from Cowboys owner Jerry Jones regarding the absence of any evidence of domestic violence.
That said, there’s no guarantee that Carter’s comments will be borne out by the eventual facts. He was careful to couch his terms in a way that would protect him from @OldTakesExposed, stopping short of reporting anything but merely sharing what he’s hearing. (Then again, Smith used similar tiptoe terms with Brady, prompting a negative reaction from him to our posts on the issue and generating some of our all-time favorite drops from his daily radio show, including “Mike Florio needs to grow the hell up” and “Would you please break a damn story?”)
If what Carter is hearing is accurate, it’s likely not a coincidence that someone from the league office saw fit to prime the pump by leaking startling information about Brady’s case in 2015 and now Elliott’s case to one of the weekday morning #EmbraceDebate shows. Getting inflammatory information into the public domain now makes it less stunning when the league issues its press release.
It’s nevertheless odd that the league office would see fit to hand such sensitive information regarding crime and punishment to a player who once urged rookies to arrange for a fall guy.