No, I’m not defending Goodell. I’m surprised the suspension was overturned because flimsy discipline is essentially part of the players’ CBA with the NFL. Roger Goodell does not operate as a court of law so if he feels he has a “preponderance of evidence” then he has the right to hand down punishment. Right, wrong or otherwise, that is what the players agreed to in the last CBA.
For the record, I think Roger Goodell is a complete idiot and have said so in other threads on this board.
The business is one of those things that truly can’t be screwed up. No one has enough power to do any more than embarrass it.
You’re right about Rozelle being the prime mover in making the NFL the giant it became, and until now his successors have had enough sense to at least not embarrass the league all that much, while having the right people do the negotiating to get the TV money rolling in ever faster.
Goodell is appealing the ruling, btw. :rolleyes: Understandably. As long as he can keep this ball in the air somehow, plausibly claiming to be representing the league’s interests, he can keep pushing out his own day of reckoning.
Sorry, I just used your post to make that point.
This was a case where the NFL was flat out wrong. This wasn’t about a technical violation or criminal activity. The NFL decisions would end up in court more often if there was a legitimate reason to challenge them. Players could have sued to be reinstated, but they wouldn’t have played anyway. Teams could sue over fines for technical violations but it would cost them more than the fine. In this case there was no preponderance of the evidence, just the opinion of some consultants paid to confirm what Goodell had already fabricated in his mind. The judge specifically cited Brady’s inability to examine the evidence that the NFL used in their decision.
Berman:
Might the ruling and appeal actually push the 4 game suspension back further in the season when the games conceivably are more important?
The popularity of the game itself seems to make it almost immune from any consequences for its fuck-ups.
Contributing to this is the fact that a plurality of the fans appear to be mouth-breathing assholes whose love for football allows them to excuse just about anything. If the NFL affiliated with NAMBLA, ran recruitment campaigns for ISIS, and promoted Ray Rice to Commissioner, some of those people might consider cutting back to watching just two games a week and only buying a new jersey every other year.
I see the delusions haven’t subsided in Elvis1Lives world. Here, in the real world, where words mean things, saying “you know it’s when - the deflation scandal will be shown in the NFL report to have been a childish frame-up attempt by the Colts” means exactly that. I don’t expect you, being you, to actually admit to it, though. That would require honesty and a grip on reality.
That is possible, but highly unlikely according to some legal types I have seen writing on this today. Their best guess would be that a decision on this could take 18 months - or after two more complete NFL seasons.
IOW, probably after Brady’s retirement. 
Keep pounding that table, Hamlet.
Keep lying about what you said, Elvis.
Goodell is now cowarding out of attending the season opener and banner raising in Foxboro next Thursday. Not a surprise.
Well, I don’t like the result, but it was pretty easy to see this coming. Judge Berman was obviously unimpressed and dismissive of the NFL’s case from Day One.
Who invited him anyway?
Why would the former commissioner attend a football game after being fired?
What do you mean by that?
For the championship banner ceremony at the opening game, it’s pretty much automatic. It’s a league PR function, a major one, with the league’s nominal head presiding. Goodell can’t put the league ahead of protecting his own ego, though.
Goodall got fired, he shouldn’t have pissed off Robert Kraft.
Crossed the wrong chimp, eh?
Um, wrong verb tense there. As of today, anyway.
There is some personal sniping going on in this thread. There won’t be any more or there’ll be warnings and possibly suspensions. And no court in the land’s gonna reverse them.
RickJay
Moderator
Jenkins is saying, with great eloquence, what I was wondering about.
The ability of a professional sports league to impose discipline on its players is a big part of its ability to manage its image in the eyes of the public. For the most part North American sports league enjoy near-deific plenipotentiary rights to impose discipline, and such disputes as arise are usually worked out in the CBA-prescribed appeals process. Normally the league wins, as it did when Alex Rodriguez was suspended from MLB for over a year, or it’s eventually morally vindicated, as with Ryan Braun, or there’s not even an attempt to fight back, as with, say, Todd Bertuzzi and the NHL suspending him “indefinitely.”
In this case now what it looks like is the NFL cannot discipline its own players. Forget the details of the footballs and the fact this was a labor ruling, not a decision on whether the Patriots were cheating, and all that shit; it looks terrible. The impression given to the fans is that the NFL can’t punish a player. The impression to the players is they’re going to court for any suspension that sems hinky - I mean, if the Ray Rice thing had happened six months from now instead of before Deflategate, he could have absolutely gone to court and cited this as precedent. “I didn’t know I could have a suspension lengthened ex post facto.” Perfectly valid argument. And yes, there’s a racial aspect to this, you’d better believe it. Golden boy QB gets away with cheating but Michael Vick gets a huge suspension for something the league didn’t have a rule against? Racist! Go to court! Is that fair? Maybe not, but it’s not about fairness, it’s about impression.
Maintaining the impression of discipline is of huuuuge importance to a sports league, and now the NFL has really pissed it away.
But will this cost Goodell his job? I’m not so sure. The NFL has more criminals running around than a season of “The Sopranos,” a comically obvious steroid problem they don’t acknowledge exists, and for years covered up the fact that the sport is killing its own players, and my God, how the money rolls in. All that matters to the 31 franchises not based in Foxborough is money, and really all that matters to the Patriots, once Brady’s back on the field, is money. Goodell’s ability to continue making money is how he is judged.
So really all that matters here is the money. If this results in the NFL not making as much money, they’ll get rid of him. If Goodell and his functionaries continue to haul in TV and merchandising money, he’s got a pretty good shot at keeping his job.