When someone from the league office leaked to Cris Carter details about Ezekiel Elliott’s looming suspension, Carter was told about “information that he had been advised possibly to give up, that was destroyed.”
That’s not quite how it came out in the final decision.
The letter from the NFL to Elliott addresses the issue with one sentence: “Finally, while there are some questions with respect to the completeness of your cooperation with the investigation, the Commissioner has not found a violation of the Policy based on your lack of cooperation and no discipline will be imposed on that basis.”
If the league believed Elliott had destroyed evidence -- and if the league could prove it -- Elliott surely would have been punished separately for that. As it stands, he received a six-game suspension only for the injuries he allegedly inflicted on Tiffany Thompson over a period of five days in July 2016.