Roger Goodell continues to stall in the Tom Brady Deflategate case at his own peril.

Profootballtalk.nbcsports.com is reporting that the NFL Players Association has become frustrated over the NFL Commissioner's inertia, backing up its claim that it is ready to fight on the New England Patriots quarterback's behalf if any of his four-game suspension is upheld.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell stalling in Deflategate appeal to get Tom Brady to come to settlement agreement?

"It's not even worth trying to guess what's going on because it doesn't seem like all the time that they know what's going on," NFLPA President Eric Winston said to Pro Football Talk. "I hope they do the right thing, I hope they exonerate Tom and overturn his suspension, but if they don't we're prepared to take the next step, whatever that next step might be. But we can't take that next step and we can't go forward until a decision is made. Why it takes over a month, and why it took six months to get to that point before that, and the constant feet-dragging on not just Tom's issue but all the issues is, to me, just seems a bit ridiculous and doesn't serve the players very well. But that's where we're at now and we're just going to have to continue to keep advocating for our players."

Another figure who has taken issue with Goodell's foot-dragging is former Washington Redskins quarterback Joe Theismann, who told Newsday on Wednesday that Brady should be exonerated, and never should have been suspended in the first place.

One way for NFL to wipe out Tom Brady's suspension and save face?

"Why in heaven's name has it taken this long to make a decision?'' he asked Newsday."Teams are reporting for training camp, and the appeal happened a month ago, and yet the commissioner's office continues to sit on whatever verdict [Goodell] wants to come out with.''

Once the decision is made public, "it's going to be a bad reflection on the office of the commissioner,'' Theismann said."If you uphold the four games, it's going to be looked at by a lot of people as too harsh. If it's reduced, the question will be, 'Why did you give him four in the first place?'"