Life felt pretty empty without any deflate-gate news the last couple months. But thankfully, the NFL has brought everyone's favorite controversy back to life.
The NFL officially filed its appeal of Judge Richard M. Berman's decision in federal court on Sept. 3 that vacated New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady's four-game suspension. In giving the decision, Berman cited inadequate notice to Brady on his discipline and alleged misconduct, the denial of the opportunity for Brady's lawyers to examine NFL general counsel Jeff Pash and denial of equal access to investigative files.
The NFL argued that the process was fair. Here is the introduction of the league's filing on Monday:
"Stripped of its celebrity, this case involves a straightforward exercise of authority expressly granted under a collective bargaining agreement ("CBA") and shielded from collateral attack by decades of precedent concerning labor arbitrations. The National Football League's collective bargaining agreement with the NFL Players Association affords the NFL Commissioner broad authority to impose discipline for conduct "detrimental to the integrity of, or public confidence in, the game of professional football." Exercising that authority, which mirrors the broad discretion given to commissioners in other sports to ensure the integrity of the game, the Commissioner suspended Tom Brady, quarterback on the New England Patriots, for four games after finding that Brady had participated in a scheme to deflate game balls to be used in a conference championship game. The scheme was aimed at gaining and unfair competitive advantage on the field, and it was devised to avoid detection by game officials. It struck at the heart of the game's integrity and the public's confidence in the NFL's on-field product. The Commissioner's conduct detrimental authority exists for incidents just like this."
While there's one laughable line — "after finding that Brady had participated in a scheme to deflate game balls to be used in a conference championship game" when the NFL never came anywhere close to finding that Brady participated in "a scheme" — it's obvious why the NFL would appeal even though it's not good for the sport and they've already suffered plenty of embarrassment. It would appear the NFL doesn't want commissioner Roger Goodell's authority questioned, and not fighting the vacation of Brady's suspension would invite others to pick holes in an unfair process. Here's another key portion of the introduction that makes the intention of the appeal clear:
"Not every evidentiary or procedural ruling went in Brady’s favor, but the CBA gives the Commissioner the authority to make those determinations and he reasonably resolved every contested issue. The Commissioner’s ultimate determination was elaborately reasoned and thoroughly grounded in the CBA."
The appeal concludes that Goodell acted "well within the bounds of discretion expressly granted by the CBA" and that Berman's decision "cannot stand."
Whether you believe Brady is innocent or guilty, that's not what this appeal is about. No, this is about Goodell's power going forward. Essentially what the NFL is saying is, "We have a process, and too bad if the players think it's unfair because they agreed to it."
In September, while saying the NFL planned to appeal, the league had this statement:
"We will appeal today’s ruling in order to uphold the collectively bargained responsibility to protect the integrity of the game. The commissioner’s responsibility to secure the competitive fairness of our game is a paramount principle, and the league and our 32 clubs will continue to pursue a path to that end. While the legal phase of this process continues, we look forward to focusing on football and the opening of the regular season."
At this point it seems counter-productive for the NFL to keep going down this path, but their actions in the whole controversy never made much sense. So here we go again. There will definitely be yet more deflate-gate news in the future.
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