Drew Brees Comments on Roger Goodell's Power, Deflategate and More

New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees has been critical of NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell in the past, and he once again questioned the power given to Goodell in light of the newest development in the Deflategate saga. 

Brees was reacting to a United States Court of Appeals ruling that New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady must serve the four-game suspension issued by the commissioner. The Saints QB told SI Now's Maggie Gray (via SI.com) he thought the whole Deflategate scandal was a "dead issue."

Brees then explained why he believes the means by which players are punished is flawed:

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I think we would all agree that [Goodell] definitely has too much power. He is judge, jury and executioner when it comes to all the discipline. I'm not going to trust any league-led investigation, when it comes to anything. It's not transparent. At times, I feel like there is a desired conclusion or agenda that they have in mind and that may prevent the absolute truth from being told or the absolute facts from being presented. At the end of the day, we as the public. We as players don't ever get to really see that. We don't get to see those facts, those truths and those things. That's the unfortunate part of this whole thing.

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Brees was on the Saints team that earned a reprimand from the league following an investigation into a bounty system led by members of the defense and then-defensive coordinator Gregg Williams.

Critics argued Goodell and the league went well beyond a reasonable standard when it issued its punishments to members of the Saints and the team as a whole.

"Too many times, I'd say especially over the last few years, a punishment's been handed down and nobody has really seen the evidence except for those in the league office—supposedly," Brees said in September 2014, per ESPN.com's Mike Triplett. "So decisions were made in kind of a, 'Hey, trust us.' But did the public see any of the facts? Did the accused see any of the facts? In most cases, no."

Even the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, which most recently reinstated Brady's suspension, seemingly highlighted the need for a more neutral arbiter when it comes to player discipline, per Pro Football Talk's Mike Florio. The court argued Goodell has extra incentive to be more harsh in his decisions since he's representing the league. 

The Second Circuit laid the blame at the feet of the NFL Players Association for agreeing to terms that allowed Goodell such broad power.

"It would be hard to imagine any new [collective bargaining agreement] if there's not a change," said NFLPA President Eric Winston last August regarding the commissioner's authority, per the Washington Post's Mark Maske. "I can't imagine taking a new deal back to the players and say personal conduct isn't going to change."