Brady 4 Game Suspension Upheld

[Pugger]

The judge desperately wants there to be a settlement. However after that last hearing, Brady has the upper hand now with the judge seemingly more on his side. Brady is going to feel emboldened at this point to not admit any guilt and go for the judge to rule in his favor and get his suspension either eliminated or reduced without having to admit a thing.

I think the NFL is screwed and yet another black eye for Goodell.

I'm not going to put much weight on any of these leaks until we get a formal ruling by this judge.

[pbmax]

Why would the judge care about the similarity of an unrelated infraction? Did I miss some comparison the league made?

The Commish made the case (not sure if in original punishment, appeal declaration or submitted doc to Court) that like a PED suspension, playing with football inflation is an integrity of the sport issue.

The commenter is agreeing.

The Judge was unmoved, noting that ANY suspension, PED or Personal Conduct issue, could affect the integrity of the game. Seemed to suggest that you can't move equipment tampering to integrity of game simply by comparing it to a PED issue.

[pbmax]

Here is the section of the transcript, though I do not know where Roger made the PED comparison.

Chris B. Brown
@smartfootball
Brady/NFL case transcript - Judge Berman clearly getting annoyed. NFL's lawyer followed this with "That's not fair"

[pbmax]

I'm not going to put much weight on any of these leaks until we get a formal ruling by this judge.

There only leaks have been about supposed offers (Brady willing to do a 1 game suspension, NFL refusing to discuss lessening suspension unless Brady accepts Wells Report and culpability in scheme). The rest of the proceedings have all been made public. The Judge REALLY wants a settlement. This goes to Smuggler's point that Federal Courts are supposed to give wide latitude to CBA and arbitrators rulings.

[smuggler]

The courts are sort of screwed if they have to make a ruling. On the one hand, if they side with the league, they look heartless and perhaps in with the billion dollar baby that is the corporate NFL machine. On the other, if they side with Brady it's kind of wrong from a technical standpoint and creates mounds of headaches for courts at every level in the future.

Thing is, neither Brady nor Goodell have any incentive to really settle at this point. Any relenting from the league (allowing Brady to keep his charade about being ignorant to the whole plot) means all the shit they had to eat in the media was for naught. As for Brady, it's more about his legacy than the four games, so he can't admit to anything in any deal.

When you look at it, and knowing that mostly only Patriots fans will really be pissed if the courts side with the league, you kind of get a sense where this is headed. And again, Brady still wins by losing, because he gets to point to the vehemence of his defense (and not taking the deal) as proof that he's innocent. Even though everyone knows he was totally in on the whole thing, there's no hard proof.

[pbmax]

I dunno. Press coverage is very anti-deflation science, though now mad at Brady's disappearing phone. Fans outside of Pates fans obviously would love to see then slapped down, but I am not sure its universal. I was on that side, but have shifted over to "its a load of crap".

The NFL has somehow found a way to repeat the "success" of MLB. Always put yourself in a lose-lose scenario publicly. Never has a League made as many improvements as MLB did over the last 15 years and get exactly ZERO pubic credit.

I still maintain the NFL can get its suspension and advance stiffer penalties in one fell swoop even if it concedes some ground to Brady here. But they clearly are taking the maximal negotiation strategy, where they don't care if they lose (it will be ignored as precedent) and any win in court is an advantage perhaps not granted specifically in the CBA.

[smuggler]

I'm on the other side. I think the league is damning the process because Brady is crooked and Brady is full of shit. But I definitely agree with your last paragraph.

[pbmax]

Kraft the Younger has spoken about adjusting the Commish's power over certain types of player discipline.

Jed York then retweeted something that has convinced Peter King and Florio that he might also be behind that idea.

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2015/08/24/jed-york-seems-to-endorse-jonathan-krafts-message-on-player-discipline/

[sharpe1027]

Kraft the Younger has spoken about adjusting the Commish's power over certain types of player discipline.

Jed York then retweeted something that has convinced Peter King and Florio that he might also be behind that idea.

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com...er-discipline/

I don't know how universal the support would be. It has served the teams well in the past to have the commish be the one doling out the punishment. It lets the teams save face with both the public and the players. I suspect they might make minor adjustments.

[pbmax]

I don't know how universal the support would be. It has served the teams well in the past to have the commish be the one doling out the punishment. It lets the teams save face with both the public and the players. I suspect they might make minor adjustments.

There is no doubt that teams want the focus off them. And they want punishments to be uniform. But there is no doubt Roger isn't much into uniform and his plan seems to be to emphasize attention, not minimize it.

I wonder if some of Roger's pushback to hold the line on the Patriots is from Jones and Snyder, who took a big hit on cap penalties.

[sharpe1027]

There is no doubt that teams want the focus off them. And they want punishments to be uniform. But there is no doubt Roger isn't much into uniform and his plan seems to be to emphasize attention, not minimize it.

I wonder if some of Roger's pushback to hold the line on the Patriots is from Jones and Snyder, who took a big hit on cap penalties.

Could be. I imagine that there are plenty of behind the scenes discussions that we will never know about.

[pbmax]

Back in court today, no settlement happening. Decision coming before the Sept 4th cutoff.

Judy Battista @judybattista 56m56 minutes ago
from court: no decision today, no settlement reached, decision could be Tuesday or Wednesday, definitely by Sept. 4.


Meanwhile, a take similar to my own about Roger's approach to player discipline: http://abovethelaw.com/2015/08/a-def...hange-part-ii/

Stephanie Stradley
If I were Commissioner Goodell, my clothes wouldn't fit right, that's for sure.

I think my hypothetical Goodell-Me time machine would have to go back further than the AFC Championship game. To the beginning of the time that Goodell became commissioner. And walking back his desire to make sports leagues into Nancy Gracey justice hammers: very reactive to initial leaks, mob anger, giving lip service to but not really interested in fair process or claims of innocence.

And go back to focusing more on the NFL's core business, which is football.

If you don't think that happened in this situation, check out the tone of this Peter King MMQB article after the initial VERY WRONG leaks happened.

"I am told reliably that...." NOPE!

By then it was already labelled a -Gate.

(King has apologized about that story now, and many others ran with stories that were similar, but millions of dollars later, here we are in federal court over a disputed equipment tampering claim).

The NFL under Roger Goodell has created an expectation of reactive, expensive -Gate investigations of high profile situations. As I predicted, multiple times, this sort of arbitrary, disproportionate response is what all fanbases should fear. Sometimes equipment tampering violations are small team fines, and sometimes they are multimillion-dollar investigations, suspensions, draft pick devastation, I guess.

Me as Goodell would not hand out suspensions like they were Halloween candy. Player careers are relatively short and can be over in a violent second, even when working out or practicing. Goodell's cavalier and overly-combative attitude towards giving suspensions out shows a fundamental disrespect for how difficult it is to become and stay a NFL player. You know, those best players in the world that the fans pay money to see play.

When Goodell hands out massive vengeance punishments, he is begging the player to contest them because they have no real choice.

We know that the NFL punishments are vengeance-based and not deterrent because often the thing punished is something that the NFL never made a big deal about before, and the players, if they knew about it was a big deal, wouldn't do.

The way Roger Goodell handles league discipline is disrespectful to the players and does not them like adults.

Maybe this is too harsh of an assessment but Goodell has only given fans the option to judge him by his actions. The words that come out of his mouth are too often incompatible with what the NFL actually does.

[sharpe1027]

NFL player's careers are short so they should be allowed more leniency. Goodell doesn't hand out punishment in a consistent manner. It's just not fair.

Let me be clear, Goodell is a moron. However, Brady is full of shit. The evidence is pretty clear that he openly lied about not knowing anything about the incident. It is also pretty clear that he destroyed relevant information and then lied about why he destroyed it.

We have direct evidence of the ball handlers talking about Brady pressuring them and offering bribes to use a needle, etc.. Brady denied any knowledge. We have direct evidence of Brady destroying the only phone he owned during the most relevant time period, and then using an argument that mirrors the exact phrasing he needs to avoid a serious legal problem. This argument is directly contradicted by the presence of another phone that was not destroyed.

What would each of us expect if we did something similar to our bosses? I think many of us would be worried about losing our jobs.

Boo hoo for Tom Brady. It is just not fair!

[pbmax]

We have direct evidence of the ball handlers talking about Brady pressuring them and offering bribes to use a needle, etc.

There is no indication that the pressure was about lowering the balls to below 12.5. All the same messages can be read as an insistence on every ball being as close to 12.5 as possible. And the 16.0 comment is easily read as the consequence of getting the target wrong and the refs being blasé about fixing it.

You have to assume malfeasance to _know_ there was a conspiracy to evade the rule. That's not how evidence works.

[sharpe1027]

There is no indication that the pressure was about lowering the balls to below 12.5. All the same messages can be read as an insistence on every ball being as close to 12.5 as possible. And the 16.0 comment is easily read as the consequence of getting the target wrong and the refs being blasé about fixing it.

You have to assume malfeasance to _know_ there was a conspiracy to evade the rule. That's not how evidence works.

Not true. The conspiracy usually occurs before any acts are performed.

Also "no indication" is giving a pretty favorable reading of the text messages. If all they had to do was set the ball to the minimum - per the rules- they could have done that without all the hoopla - or veiled threats (I mean jokes) about going to ESPN. Why the hell would ESPN care about setting ball pressure on the low end of the scale? Please explain how that is "no indication."