We're well beyond the one-year anniversary of the dumbest scandal in sports history, but DeflateGate will continue to hang over the New England Patriots until the final resolution.
Three court judges were appointed to hear the NFL's appeal of Judge Berman's ruling from back in September that forced the league to void the suspension of quarterback Tom Brady. The appeal will take place on Thursday, March 3rd at 2:00 PM EST. The result will either bury the NFL's case, or will extend the whole ordeal for an unknown length of time.
Outside of the legal proceedings, the Patriots are still without their 1st round pick in the 2016 draft, as well as their 4th round pick in the 2017 draft. That missing 1st round pick will be felt for the next five years as the Patriots have done a tremendous job in maximizing their selections in recent seasons.
The ongoing nature of DeflateGate means that the saga will continue, and that Patriots owner Robert Kraft will continue to update the WellsReportContext.com website that was established to debunk the NFL's obviously falsified and slanted approach towards the temperature affecting the Patriots footballs in the 2014 AFC Championship Game.
The site has five updates in 2016 from a range of sources: there's one from Forbes, one from Yahoo! Sports, one from Sports Illustrated, one from Monday Morning Quarterback (which falls under the auspices of SI, I guess), and one from friend of the site Steph Stradley.
If you want to read the best account of the past year, and probably end up infuriated at the whole ordeal, check out Stradley's leviathan of a documentation. It's worth your time and the feeling of displeasure that you'll experience for the subsequent hour upon completion.
The Patriots can't and won't combat the penalty because owner Robert Kraft both accepted the penalty last offseason and stated that he wanted to put the event in the past. Additionally, the NFL constitution effectively ties Kraft's hands and prevents him from suing the league or the other owners.
Kraft could go rogue a la Raiders icon Al Davis, but that would kick him as far outside of the circle of owners as conceivably possible. Davis' actions still impact the Raiders to this day, and possibly even played a role in the other owners blocking the franchise' move to Los Angeles.
"Oakland gets nothing,'' Texans owner Robert McNair told the New York Times about the relocation debate. "Al used to sue us all the time."
McNair wasn't even an owner at the time of Davis' legal actions.
There's zero chance that Kraft would put his franchise in that situation where he would turn a cash cow into a lame duck without league support.
So Kraft is going to continue updating his website as the public opinion firmly shifts against Goodell and the NFL's decision to exact a draconian penalty for a scenario that never actually happened. And the Patriots are going to move forward with one hand tied behind their back.