Saints quarterback Drew Brees said the court ruling that re-instated Tom Brady's four-game suspension shows why there needs to be a change in NFL commissioner Roger Goodell's authority to punish players.

Drew Brees

Without getting into the particulars of the Deflategate case, Brees said the current process is flawed because it lacks transparency.

"The bigger issue is just the commissioner's unilateral ability to make these decisions, the league's ability to basically conduct investigations behind closed doors, leave everyone else in the dark and just make decisions supposedly based upon their findings and facts, which unfortunately when you dig a little deeper ... it's found there was a lot of inconsistencies," Brees told ThePostGame on Tuesday.

"Maybe there was an agenda at play where information or testimony or certain elements of the case were being pushed a direction that wasn't necessarily the truthful thing. Just kind of the direction, that the conclusion at the end that the league was trying to get to, to make a basis for their punishment."

The NFL failed to prove Brady was guilty of deflating footballs, and its investigation mishandled scientific data.

But neither of those facts trumps Goodell's authority on player discipline, because the collective-bargaining agreement gives him that power.

"In our last CBA agreement in 2011, it was something that I don't think we recognized as being as important as it is now or never felt like it would reach the level that it is now," Brees said in Chicago during a promotional appearance for Tempur-Pedic beds.

The current CBA runs through the 2020 season.

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