Quote Originally Posted by Guiness View Post
Really? Let's look at Brady - IMO he went well beyond 'minimal cooperation'. By all accounts, he turned over records from the telecom company with all the texts from the time in question from his personal phone. He submitted to interviews. Roger still went after him tooth and nail, and focused on one item, text messages from a destroyed phone, and hung him for that.

If I was in the shoes of these players, I would be awful nervous that co-operating could end badly because Goodell, for instance, wants them to give him the GPS tracking information from their car...
I think the cases and situations are different from the leagues perspective.

Deflategate was viewed by the league as calling into question the legitimacy and fairness of how the game is played. It involved a team that had stretched the rules in the past, if not blatantly violated them. They smelled another act of unfairness. In their mind, it demanded a resolution.

The Al Jazeera situation was another in the line of ongoing drug annoyances, but the source was more distasteful than the alleged violation. They couldn't ignore it, but they would rather that it just go away quietly. To convey the appearance of due diligence in their investigation, it would be necessary to talk to the players.