NFL probing Patriots' possible use of deflated balls during AFC Championship

Except Brady was straight up cheating. That actually affects the game. I think that deserves a big penalty.

 

The patriots are cheaters and they always will be. Goodell SHOULD strip the Patriots of the championship, but he won't.

I still don't get how Goodell and the NFL think they can separate what Tom Brady did and not hold the entire team accountable.

 

Yes, but as the post I was replying to stated, the suspension is now being given for not complying with the Wells investigation and NOT for being found guilty of participating in the deflating of football.

The NFL is changing it's stance on why Brady is being suspended.

The original suspension is questionable based on circumstantial evidence and a conclusion by Wells that Brady "more probable than not" participated in the deflating of footballs.

However, that claim and the subsequent report can be challenged in court based on no hard evidence linking Brady to the incident. So now the NFL has changed the reason of suspension, which will be challenged in court and thrown out.

I'm not here to defend Brady or his actions, but what Goodell and the league are pulling here is pretty shady. Legally-speaking none of this will stand.

This is grand posturing by Roger Goodell so he can act tough and save his neck by saying he came down hard on Brady, but was overruled by a court.

Again, football is a business bound by collective bargaining agreements and therefore employees have rights whether or not they deflated footballs.

 

You're doing all kinds of mental gymnastics. Goodell's authority to rule a hear the appeal was collectively bargained.

This is the text below explaining his original suspension. It wasn't until like a month after the investigation that the NFL found out Brady destroyed the cell phone that the NFL requested to see.

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NFL Executive Vice President of Football Operations Troy Vincent sent a letter to Brady explaining that the suspension was handed down in part because of Brady's "failure to cooperate" in the investigation.

"With respect to your particular involvement, the report established that there is substantial and credible evidence to conclude you were at least generally aware of the actions of the Patriots' employees involved in the deflation of the footballs and that it was unlikely that their actions were done without your knowledge," Vincent wrote. "Moreover, the report documents your failure to cooperate fully and candidly with the investigation, including by refusing to produce any relevant electronic evidence (emails, texts, etc.), despite being offered extraordinary safeguards by the investigators to protect unrelated personal information, and by providing testimony that the report concludes was not plausible and contradicted by other evidence."

 

FLPA likely to come up short in federal court challenge

http://espn.go.com/espn/otl/story/_...-short-court-challenge-roger-goodell-decision

Lester Munson, Legal Analyst

New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, the National Football League Players Association and their lawyers say they will ask a federal judge for an injunction that will prevent the NFL from enforcing the four-game suspension that commissioner Roger Goodell confirmed Tuesday in a detailed decision. Brady's threat of litigation and Goodell's decision raise questions about a court's role in a collectively-bargained arbitration process:

Question: Will Brady succeed in court and stop the NFL from suspending him for four games?

Answer: No, Brady will not succeed. Although he enjoys top-of-the-line legal representation and his lawyers will file a brilliantly written lawsuit, his effort to stop the suspension is doomed. There are two reasons why: First, federal judges are reluctant to reconsider the rulings of arbitrators; second, Goodell produced a decision on Brady that is brilliantly reasoned, meticulously detailed, and well-written. Goodell's recitation of the evidence of the tampering with game balls is powerful, and his description of Brady's attempt at a cover-up is persuasive.

Q: Why are federal judges reluctant to reconsider an arbitrator's decision?

A: If federal judges were to offer reviews of arbitrator decisions made throughout the nation, their dockets soon would be filled with arbitration cases. Throughout American business and industry, there are agreements to submit disputes to arbitration. It is viewed as a less-costly and more-efficient way to resolve issues. It avoids the expense and the endless delays of litigation. An essential element of any arbitration is that it is final and cannot be reviewed.

Federal judges understand the theory behind arbitration, and they are already inundated with criminal cases and thousands of civil lawsuits. They know that an arbitrator has considered the evidence, and the judges do not want a second look at the evidence. Even when the arbitrator is totally wrong, most federal judges will not reconsider the ruling. In a notorious case involving former Los Angeles Dodgers baseball player Steve Garvey at the U.S. Supreme Court in 2001, the high court ruled that even when the arbitrator's decision is "improvident or even silly," it does "not provide a basis for a court to refuse to enforce" the arbitrator's decision.

Q: But didn't a federal judge recently reverse an NFL arbitration ruling for Adrian Peterson?

A: Yes. U.S. District Court Judge David Doty in Minneapolis, who has presided over NFL litigation for 25 years, reversed the punishment imposed on Peterson. He based his ruling on what he thought was an egregious error by the NFL arbitrator -- the application of a new and harsher penalty to an incident that occurred before the adoption of the new penalty. The case is on appeal, and the NFL is likely to prevail in the appeal with the high court reminding Doty that federal judges should stay away from reviews of arbitrators' rulings.

Q: Bloomberg is reporting that the NFL filed a lawsuit in New York on Tuesday, beating the NFLPA and Brady to the punch. What's this about?

A: The NFL is clearly worried that Brady and his lawyers will file their lawsuit in Minneapolis, where NFL players have achieved historic triumphs over the NFL, including several decisions by Doty. The league attorneys filed their lawsuit first in New York, hoping that the league would have a greater chance of success. The league used a procedure known as a declaratory judgment lawsuit in its effort to win the race to choose the ultimate courthouse.

Q: What will Brady's lawyers argue in their attempt to reverse Goodell's ruling?

A: Led by the estimable Jeffrey Kessler, the Brady legal team will argue that Brady did nothing wrong, that the Wells report failed to establish that Brady had a role in the inflation of the game balls, that the penalty is too harsh, and that Goodell was not a neutral arbitrator. None of these arguments offers a compelling reason for a judge to reverse Goodell's decision. All of the arguments were raised in detail in the arbitration hearing, and Goodell answered each one of them in exquisite and persuasive detail in his 20-page opinion. It is difficult to imagine a judge reconsidering any of them. The players gave away the idea of a neutral arbitrator when they voluntarily agreed in collective bargaining that the commissioner would make the final decision in conduct detrimental cases.

Q: What evidence led Goodell to confirm the four-game suspension?

A: Goodell relied on evidence the Wells investigation, the 300 exhibits offered in the daylong hearing, and 450 pages of testimony. He also relied heavily on information that he did not learn during the hearing. Kessler and the NFLPA said there was no need for testimony from John Jastremski and James McNally, the Patriots employees who were involved in the machinations that led to the deflated game balls. The NFL attorneys argued, according to the Goodell opinion, that Goodell was entitled to make an "adverse inference" from Brady's failure to present key witnesses. Goodell went beyond the adverse inference and made a finding that both men lacked credibility in the statements they made to Wells. The Brady legal team also admitted that McNally had "more than enough time" during his famous 100-second visit into a locked bathroom to do what was necessary to deflate the balls.

Q: Was there other evidence that was important to Goodell?

A: Yes. Brady's refusal to cooperate with the Wells investigators and his destruction of his cell phone on the same day that he was to be interviewed by Wells were extremely important in Goodell's decision. Goodell said that the destruction of the cell phone was "very troubling." He added that it was clear that Brady made an "affirmative effort to conceal relevant evidence and to undermine the investigation." And Goodell took his reasoning one step further when he wrote that Brady's destruction of the phone "gives rise to an inference that information from his cellphone, if it were available, would further demonstrate [Brady's] direct knowledge of and involvement with the scheme to tamper with the game balls, just as he concealed for months the fact that he had destroyed the cellphone requested by the investigators."

Q: What was Brady's biggest mistake?

A: There was more than one. There is little doubt that Brady blundered when he refused to cooperate with the Wells investigators by turning over his phone and his text messages. He made it even worse when he destroyed the phone. And then, incredibly, after he had destroyed the phone, he and his lawyers suggested to Goodell that Brady routinely destroyed his old phones when he purchased a new one. The problem was that the Wells investigators had already found an old phone that Brady had not destroyed. But the worst mistake was a series of phone calls and text messages on the day after the Indianapolis game with Jastremski and a visit with him in the "QB Room." Goodell, in a brilliant passage in his masterly opinion, explained that the frantic calls in the three days after the game showed that Brady "was undermining efforts by game officials to ensure compliance with league rules."

 

All this over four games? Four games is a slap on the wrist. He should be banned from Canton. He is not greater than the game like he thinks. It pisses me off more and more as this thing drags out. He's lucky he didn't get at least ten games.

I keep saying this over and over again.


This whole thing is like that one time in elementary school when the two biggest, toughest kids in the school finally are going to fight each other. Everyone is anxiously awaiting something big to happen, and all that happens is they circle around each other, swinging at the air, until the principal shows up and resolves nothing.

 

https://www.facebook.com/TomBrady/posts/956989441008873

 

this is about legacy

 

Ugh. I've always liked Brady. I never felt like the ball deflation thing was that big of a deal, so it didn't bother me much that he got caught in it. But the fact that he is categorically UNWILLING to cop to what he did, even now after the report is out that he destroyed his phone...I just can't respect the guy anymore. It's all so unbelievably cowardly. Just man up, dude. Own what you did and move forward. How many players in the NFL have done WAY worse, apologized for it, and then moved on and had good careers largely unmired by previous controversy? His refusal to confess is making EVERYTHING worse for him.

 

I wonder if one day we'll look back on the Brady/Patriots/Belichick era the same way we look at the steroid era in baseball.

They've been caught twice already, who knows what else they've done to give them an unfair edge and gotten away with.

 

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Spoiler

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Robert Kraft: &quot;I was wrong to put my faith in the league.&quot;</p>&mdash; Mike Reiss (@MikeReiss) <a href="https://twitter.com/MikeReiss/status/626395155990487041">July 29, 2015</a></blockquote>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">&quot;I was willing to accept the harshest penalty in the history of the NFL for an alleged ball violation b/c I believed it would exonerate TB.&quot;</p>&mdash; Jeff Howe (@jeffphowe) <a href="https://twitter.com/jeffphowe/status/626395103960137728">July 29, 2015</a></blockquote>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Robert Kraft on his decisions not to fight the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Patriots?src=hash">#Patriots</a> penalties: “Back in May, I chose to make a difficult decision that I now regret.”</p>&mdash; Ben Volin (@BenVolin) <a href="https://twitter.com/BenVolin/status/626394980735688704">July 29, 2015</a></blockquote>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Kraft: &quot;There are those in the league office who are more determined to prove they were right rather than admit any culpability.&quot; Dayum.</p>&mdash; Mike Garafolo (@MikeGarafolo) <a href="https://twitter.com/MikeGarafolo/status/626394914092359680">July 29, 2015</a></blockquote>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Kraft: &quot;I have come to the conclusion this was never about doing what was fair and just.&quot; Kraft says he regrets his decision to drop appeal.</p>&mdash; Mike Reiss (@MikeReiss) <a href="https://twitter.com/MikeReiss/status/626394877631307776">July 29, 2015</a></blockquote>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Kraft: &quot;Tom Brady is a person of great integrity and is a great ambassador of the game on and off the field.&quot;</p>&mdash; Andrew Abramson (@AbramsonPBP) <a href="https://twitter.com/AbramsonPBP/status/626394633053077504">July 29, 2015</a></blockquote>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Robert Kraft apologizes to fans. Says his decision to accept penalties was made because he felt it would exonerate Brady. &quot;I was wrong.&quot;</p>&mdash; Mike Reiss (@MikeReiss) <a href="https://twitter.com/MikeReiss/status/626394358670065664">July 29, 2015</a></blockquote>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">As you would expect, <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Patriots?src=hash">#Patriots</a> owner Robert Kraft calls the punishment “unfathomable.” Says the league has no hard evidence. Supports Brady.</p>&mdash; Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) <a href="https://twitter.com/RapSheet/status/626394085507629056">July 29, 2015</a></blockquote>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Kraft: “6 months removed from AFC Championship game, league still has no hard evidence of anybody doing anything to tamper with PSI levels.&quot;</p>&mdash; Jeff Darlington (@JeffDarlington) <a href="https://twitter.com/JeffDarlington/status/626394074048823296">July 29, 2015</a></blockquote>
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Hmm...... now there are reports that Brady turned over every single text message to an NFL/Pats employee. That Brady turned over the time and name of every single phone number he called/texted.... Also that the NFL never asked Brady to turn over the cell phone.

What a mess.

 

talk your ish Bob

 

Where are those reports coming from?

 

ESPN radio is discussing it..... the two guys that took over for Cowherd.

 

NFL did the Patriots a MASSIVE favor for not suspending Brady for the Super Bowl game as they should have given all of the evidence. Pats won a super bowl ring because of the NFL's leniency. They owe the NFL

 

Glad Goodell was firm because the idea that all of this was negotiable was pissing me off.

Brady's actions have been consistent with a guilty man. The cover up is worse than the actual crime. And there is a lesson to be learned in that.

 

This is the most boring scandal ever, I honestly wish it would just go away. We've known for a really long time that the Pats were cheaters, why are they fighting this so hard? They got their chip.....can't they just go away now?