The Deflategate judge seems to take the air out of the NFL argument

Lorenzo Reyes | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Tom Brady's Deflategate settlement hearing continues USA TODAY Sports' Lorenzo Reyes recaps the latest in Tom Brady's ongoing talks about a Deflategate settlement.

NEW YORK – NFLPA lead counsel Jeffrey Kessler, commanding the attention of the surrounding lawyers, leaned in and whispered a joke.

Laughs filled the room.

If their body language didn't deliver the message, the smiles stretched across their faces finished the job.

The group stood in the eighth-floor cafeteria at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, just moments after completing what was a masterful day in court. They needed a breather.

They exhaled. They exuded confidence. They knew that – at least on Wednesday – they won.

Attorneys for both the NFL and the players union participated in an oral argument conference before Judge Richard M. Berman in a hearing that is part of an expedited timeline that seeks to resolve the Deflategate legal process, and Patriots quarterback Tom Brady's four-game suspension, before Sept. 4.

Wednesday's hearing allowed both sides to present their most compelling case — and for Judge Berman to point out the flaws in each, always with the goal of getting both sides to settle.

But after Judge Berman grilled NFL lead counsel Daniel Nash for the second consecutive week, we may have gotten our first glimpse as to which way Berman is leaning if he were to rule in this case. For the 60 minutes that Nash stood at a lectern on the 17th floor of the courthouse before approximately 60 spectators, Berman peppered him with questions.

"Why wouldn't you produce Mr. Jeff Pash, who is the league's general counsel, and make him available for testimony in Mr. Brady's June 23 appeal?"

"The union created this issue," Nash replied. "What Commissioner Roger Goodell issued was a judgment that he was not a relevant witness."

"But he edited the Wells Report," Berman interrupted. "He's a lawyer. He's an executive on the NFL's staff. Why not make him available?"

Nash didn't have an answer.

"How could Mr. Goodell, in his decision to uphold the (four-game suspension), equate the act of intentionally deflating footballs to a player taking performance-enhancing drugs?"

"Mr. Goodell found that the deflation of the balls was to gain a competitive advantage, which he deemed an example of conduct detrimental to the league," Nash said. "The judgment involves the integrity of the game."

"I have a little trouble with that," Berman responded. "Everything involves the integrity of the game."

Nash, again, didn't have an answer.

There were more examples just like those, too.

You know that time in a fight when you can pinpoint one side starting to take advantage? The exact moment when one side begins to build momentum?

Wednesday was that moment in Deflategate.

Though Berman continues to push for a resolution before the start of the NFL season, after today's clear victory for the NFLPA, it's hard to envision a settlement happening. The union knows it has steam and may be past the point of settling.

The NFLPA thinks it can win. And if it does, Brady wouldn't have to accept a reduced suspension. Or any suspension.

The problem is that the NFL also appears to think its argument can't be trumped. Citing the power of the CBA, Nash dismissed Kessler's arguments as "misstating the record."

The next step is another court date, set for Aug. 31, for which Berman requested Brady and Goodell be present.

If there was one instance, however, that captured the essence of the day, it was when Kessler was about to outline the fourth and final ground on which the union is basing its argument.

Berman stopped and posed an innocent question.

Of those four grounds, he asked, was there one that carried more significance?

"Well, you can put this one first," Kessler shot back, "because we would win with any one of them."

If Wednesday's hearing was any indication, he may just be right.

Follow Lorenzo Reyes on Twitter @LorenzoGReyes