Tom Brady is too smart for this, or at least he's supposed to be.

It's why even if he were somehow proven innocent on the facts surrounding the inflation level of footballs in January's AFC championship game, he probably deserves a four-game suspension for being such an idiot during the investigation.

Brady knew the NFL was after him for being involved in what the league believed was the deflation of footballs in that playoff game. He knew commissioner Roger Goodell fancied himself as a law and order sheriff, here to punish players for all sorts of misconduct. He knew the NFL wanted his cell phone, or the information it held.

View photos The NFL upheld its four-game suspension of Tom Brady for his role in the deflate-gate scandal. (AP) More

Knowing all of this, he should have known one thing: don't destroy the phone.

Yet Brady did, according to the NFL, which announced it would uphold the quarterback's four-game suspension on Tuesday.

He gift-wrapped a present for Goodell, who was desperate for an angle to drop the hammer on the New England Patriots star.

"On or shortly before March 6, the day that Tom Brady met with independent investigator Ted Wells and his colleagues, Brady directed that the cell phone he had used for the prior four months be destroyed," the NFL said in a statement. "He did so even though he was aware that the investigators had requested access to text messages and other electronic information that had been stored on that phone. During the four months that the cell phone was in use, Brady had exchanged nearly 10,000 text messages, none of which can now be retrieved from that device. The destruction of the cell phone was not disclosed until June 18, almost four months after the investigators had first sought electronic information from Brady."

[Yahoo Sports Fantasy Football: Sign up and join a league today!]

Boom. Phone gone. Appeal done. Court of Public Opinion lost. Reputation in tatters.

Brady told Goodell that he, or an assistant acting on his command, regularly destroys cell phones and sim cards when he changes phones. This is, no doubt, in an effort to preserve privacy. It's completely understandable. Brady, a very famous person married to an even more famous person, attempts, as best he can, to live a normal family life. Celebrities are targets to hackers. It makes sense to annihilate old devices.

Except in this case.

Brady had to know better. He had to know that if he wanted to get a new phone and protect his privacy he should have just put the old one in the top drawer until this was all over, or in a safe down at the bank, or hand it over to his lawyer, or do just about anything other than what he did.

It's worse than that though. Brady chose to get a new phone and order the destruction of the old one either March 5 or 6, the 6th being the exact day he met with independent investigator Ted Wells about the case. The timing is beyond suspicious.

Oh, and while Brady may have destroyed that phone immediately, he hadn't done anything to the one he used prior. That phone went out of service on Nov. 6, 2014, yet it was apparently still kicking around and his defense was able to access it.

So does he immediately destroy phones or not?

Brady's legal team knew the trouble he was in and offered to have his cell phone provider give all records from the destroyed phone. It then encouraged the NFL to contact those individuals and request production of any relevant text messages that it retained.

Story continues