Federal court ruling: Roger Goodell is the God of Tom Brady

On Monday the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit didn't just reinstate a four-game suspension of New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, it reasserted, or even increased, the astonishing disciplinary powers of NFL commissioner Roger Goodell – powers the players' union naively handed him, of course.

Deflate-gate has been debated and written about ad nauseam, including (or even especially) here. About the only undeniable fact from the case is that the footballs in that AFC championship a couple seasons ago weren't unnaturally deflated. Science proves that. Unfortunately, science isn't a big thing in the NFL.

Ideal Gas Law and faulty measuring explain away the "crime," or point to numbers so miniscule no reasonable person could see them as the act of a grand conspiracy. The footballs just weren't deflated. As such, there was no deflation to punish. Everything else should be moot and considered nothing more than case study of confirmation bias and the power of inaccurate, yet highly prejudicial, media leaks.

Or in a case of every non-NFL paid scientist (and even, for the most part the NFL-paid ones too) v. Roger Goodell, you choose to believe Roger Goodell. If so, well, good luck with that.

In this case though, as the majority opinion of Judges Denny Chin and Barrington D. Parker make clear, Goodell can conclude, infer, imply, invent and pretty much do whatever he wants. Goodell is God and the players have to accept that. They helped make him that way after all via that last collective-bargaining agreement.

Let's focus one on small argument in what has become a massive and complicated case: how and why Goodell decided to suspend Brady four games rather than follow the written procedures, if not at least the spirit, of the "Other Uniform/Equipment Violations" section of league procedures.

Rather than follow the rulebook, Goodell determined Brady guilty of something that equates to the use of performance-enhancing drugs. Brady's side argued the applicable "violation" – if there was one – was akin to the use of stickum on the gloves. The benefit of Stickum, like an underinflated football, is improved grip for some players.

Chief Judge Robert A. Katzmann, writing the dissenting opinion in favor of Brady, agreed, citing the official "League Policy For Players." He notes:

"The League's justification for prohibiting stickum – that it 'affects the integrity of the competition and can give a team an unfair advantage,' – is nearly identical to the Commissioner's explanation for what he found problematic about the deflation – that it 'reflects an improper effort to secure a competitive advantage in, and threatens the integrity of, the game.' "

Moreover, the procedure for guarding against the use of Stickum – referee inspection of equipment (gloves) – is the same as guarding against deflation – referee inspection of equipment (footballs).

The penalty for getting caught with Stickum on your gloves, something a player would be acutely (not merely generally) aware? Try a fine of $8,268.

Getting caught a second time? It jumps to $16,537.

How, and why, did Goodell decide to go from low-level fine for what is football's version of a minor misdemeanor to a serious felony and a quarter-season suspension, including the loss of four game checks that tally way more than $8K? (The original ruling would have cost Brady about $1.8 million in game checks, according to the website Spotrac. Per Brady's 2016 deal however, it may be as little as $235,294. Consider that a small victory for the quarterback.)

Almost any common sense look at this case says even if you ignore the scientific explanation for the air pressure of the footballs and you apply all sorts of tortured logic, confirmation bias, invented testimony and even the phrase the majority judges kept saying Goodell used – "adverse inference" – that considered every Brady act as proof of guilt … apply all of that and still the four-game suspension remains extreme.

Like, really, that much for this little?

So what's Goodell's rationale? There really isn't any. He just decided that's how it should be.

"Steroid use reflects an improper effort to secure a competitive advantage in, and threatens the integrity of, the game," Goodell wrote in his July 2015 decision.

That's it. That's his entire explanation.

You could argue jumping offsides or pass interference reflects an improper effort to secure a competitive advantage also, but that's kind of the point. In essence, everything can be equated to steroids if Goodell wants it too. Anything can become a four-game suspension.

"The lack of any meaningful explanation in the Commissioner's final written decision convinces me that the Commissioner was doling out his own brand of industrial justice," Katzmann wrote.

Employing "industrial justice" is grounds for overturning the ruling.

Even the majority that ruled for Goodell struggled with the Stickum/steroids issue. They conveyed a measure of skepticism on the correlation and specifically deemed it "somewhat imperfect." While Katzmann found it so egregious it was illegal, the other two justices said the collective-bargaining agreement is so lopsided and the law is so clear, it doesn't matter. Goodell doesn't even have to explain himself, no matter how ridiculous independent observers view it.

"Nothing in the CBA or our case law demands that the arbitrator discuss comparable conduct merely because we find that [the Stickum] analogy more persuasive than others, or because we think the analogy the arbitrator chose to draw [steroids] was 'flawed' or 'inapt,' " Judges Chin and Parker wrote.

So the judges can roll their eyes, but it doesn't matter. Nothing matters. Anything and everything is nebulous and sits at the whims of the commissioner.

The league's biggest star is on the shelf for four games because Goodell said so.

That's a heck of a lot of power a federal court just reaffirmed to the commissioner. And a heck of a lot of power the union foolishly gave him in the first place.