NFL denies NFLPA request for Goodell recusal in Brady appeal

The NFL Players Association isn't happy with Roger Goodell, and the NFL's refusal of the union's request that Goodell recuse himself from hearing Tom Brady's appeal won't help.

ESPN's Adam Schefter reported Friday that the NFL unsurprisingly denied the NFLPA's request that Goodell be recused from hearing Brady's appeal for his four-game suspension stemming from deflate-gate. Other reports, such as from Ben Volin of the Boston Globe, say that the NFL said late Friday it had not made an official decision on the matter.

Relations between the union and the league were clearly strained before that announcement. It was easy to see that during NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith's interview with ESPN’s Outside the Lines, in which the union chief criticized Ted Wells' report and Goodell, and laid out his reasons why Goodell should not oversee the appeal. That interview came before the NFL's official rejection of the request.

The NFLPA said in its request that Goodell “must designate a neutral party to serve as an arbitrator in this matter” and that the entire process “contained procedural violations” of the collective bargaining agreement. Smith reiterated this stance while taking issue with the Wells report, the NFL-sanctioned investigation into the New England Patriots’ alleged efforts to deflate footballs for a competitive advantage.

"The first thing that jumps at you from that report is how negotiated the language is,” Smith told ESPN. “When it comes to the rights of our players, every player deserves a process that is fair, every player deserves a finding that is clear, every player deserves an investigation that is thorough.

"In the Wells report alone – and this is the only instance where I’ll actually get into it – you have one part of the Wells report crediting the recollection or the memory of the referee, and then you have the other part of the Wells report criticizing or questioning the memory of the same referee. You can’t really have credibility just because you slap the word ‘independent’ on a piece of paper."

Smith said the commissioner’s recent history of overturned cases (Bountygate, Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson) and “looking the other way” concerning three separate incidents with NFL owners “creates a credibility gap” with his ability to oversee disciplinary issues. Smith referred to legal cases concerning Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay, Cleveland Browns owner Jimmy Haslam and Minnesota Vikings owners Zygi and Mark Wilf.

"On one hand you have a commissioner who has been overturned three times. On the other hand you have a commissioner who has looked the other way three times,” Smith said. “Somewhere in the middle of that is a huge yawning gap. That’s where our players and our union believe we lack the credibility we most desperately need."

Smith added that he does not know if the commissioner and Patriots owner Robert Kraft came to some sort of agreement before Kraft agreed to concede to the penalties (fine, loss of draft picks) levied to the franchise by the NFL.

Meanwhile. Brady’s appeal is still pending and no date has been set for the hearing.