Charles Pierce's Take on Today's Framegate Ruling
Have the National Football League’s lawyers gotten their appeal filed yet, or were they too busy applying the league’s concussion protocol to Roger Goodell, who got his bell rung good and proper by Judge Richard Berman on Thursday morning? I’m serious about this. If somebody asks him how many fingers he sees, and he answers, “Article 46 of the collective bargaining agreement,” they should sideline him immediately. Thanks to Judge Richard Berman, Roger Goodell now has the cleanest clock in town.
It’s impossible to read Berman’s decision as anything other than a statement of complete disgust that this alleged petty gamesmanship ever wound up in his courtroom — and his disgust is focused almost exclusively on the NFL. If, as has been reported, the NFL wasn’t interested in discussing Tom Brady’s willingness to take a one-game suspension for failing to cooperate with the NFL’s in-house investigation, then it’s easy to see why Berman brought out the really big hammer. The New England Patriots already had accepted a $1 million fine and the loss of first- and fourth-round draft picks. That should have been enough. (Hell, way back in January, the team simply should have lost $25,000, the standard penalty for monkeying with game equipment.) But, instead, Goodell decided to stand on what he perceived as his unlimited authority as defined in the current CBA. As Judge Berman made clear to him today, his authority is not, well, unlimited.
The Award is premised upon several significant legal deficiencies, including (A) inadequate notice to Brady of both his potential discipline (four-game suspension) and his alleged misconduct; (B) denial of the opportunity for Brady to examine one of two lead investigators, namely NFL Executive Vice President and General Counsel Jeff Pash; and (C) denial of equal access to investigative files, including witness interview notes.
In other words, Roger, your kangaroo suit won’t get you into judicial heaven anymore.
http://grantland.com/the-triangle/brady-freed-shield-dented-the-nfl-gets-a-judicial-smackdown/?ex_cid=story-twitter