SANTA CLARA, Calif. – Roger Goodell sure did get upset when Tom Brady destroyed his cell phone last year during the deflate-gate saga, an implication the quarterback was hiding something.

The NFL commissioner returned the favor on Tuesday when he announced the league did not keep any of the data on air pressure of footballs that officials were required to log and submit to the league office during the 2015 season.

Evidence? What evidence?

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Now the New England Patriots are no longer able to point to specific, NFL-generated data that proves Ideal Gas Law, not human tampering, caused its footballs to lose air pressure in the 2014 AFC championship game.

That study was supposed to be the franchise's best chance to introduce new information that might allow the return of the 2016 first- and fourth-round draft picks, plus $1 million, the league docked it for deflate-gate.

"We do spot checks to prevent and make sure the clubs understand that we're watching these issues," Goodell said on "The Rich Eisen Show" on Tuesday. "It wasn't a research study. They simply were spot checks."

Spot checks?

Here's how it was written as an "update" to the NFL's operation manual back in August 2015:

"At designated games, selected at random, the game balls used in the first half will be collected by the KBC [kicking-ball coordinator] at halftime, and the League's Security Representative will escort the KBC with the footballs to the Officials' Locker room. During halftime, each game ball for both teams will be inspected in the locker room by designated members of the officiating and security crews, and the PSI results will be measured and recorded. Once measured, those game balls will then be secured and removed from play.

"For these randomly selected games only, the back-up footballs will be used for each team during the second half. Approximately three minutes prior to kickoff, the KBC along with a designated Game Official will bring the back-up set of game balls to the on-field replay station to be distributed to each club's Ball Crew.

"At the end of any randomly selected game, the KBC will return the footballs to the Officials' Locker Room where all game balls from each team will be inspected and the results will be recorded."

That's quite a lot of procedure for a simple "spot check."

Most notably, however, is this:

"All game ball information will be recorded on the Referee's Report, which must be submitted to the League office by noon on the day following the game," the operations update reads.

So all the data was recorded on an official referee's report, which was sent to New York in a timely fashion where the pertinent information – or presumably entire referee report actually – just … vanished?

August 2015: we specifically demand this data.

February 2016: no, no, we never wanted the data, why would we?

So the NFL got the info … but didn't? Or it still has the info ... but doesn't care to look?

Since the NFL established the ball-testing plan, scientists around the country have been waiting to see how the league tried to spin its way out of Ideal Gas Law, which has been accepted fact since 1834. It seemed like Goodell was walking the league into a trap.

Apparently the league won't even try to fight it and just hope no one is paying attention.

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