^^^ Well, we know who that rules out! =)) JK!
Ha . . . no, not Sherman. At any rate, I feel like I am a better person for having stood in the presence of greatness and breathed the same air. (only half joking)
I am so tired of Russell Wilson and his Recovery Water. If he didn’t have a concussion before he will after he takes all those hits that are coming to him from DEs who are annoyed as well. Nano-bubbles! Ha! At least he will have something new to say in his press conferences other that, “the separation is in the preparation.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/russell-wilson-recovery-water_55de2b5be4b0e7117ba8bc7e
Plain old tap water is good enough for athletes to stay properly hydrated. It is so hot in Florida now with RealFeel temps getting up to 120 degrees daytime…dangerous for anyone exerting themselves outside now. It is scary hot for kids playing and practicing football in sun in full pads with helmets this time of year. Practicing now means taking lots of water breaks and scheduling practices early in morning or late in day when it is cooler. Coaches today are pretty good about being careful in hot heat and about drinking enough water…there are it seems though a small handful of ‘old school’ coaches around who still think players asking for some water are ‘weenies’…that’s when bad incidents can occur with kids collapsing on fields.
Regarding the Brady decision by Judge Berman. I’ve read it and it’s as close to a total smackdown as I can imagine. I’m speaking as a lawyer.
It’s easy to find lists of the main points so I won’t waste time. What stood out is the Judge’s barely veiled depiction of the NFL’s actions:
a) broke obvious, long-standing labor law (the “law of the shop”) by trying a person on charges he wasn’t notified of and punished without any notice about the potential punishment. Given the expensive legal counsel, how does this happen? Imagine any business with a labor contract: management can’t try a person for crimes/infractions it doesn’t disclose and assign punishments that aren’t disclosed (and aren’t listed anywhere and don’t occur in any precedent for that company). That’s what collective bargaining is for! The NFL provides a notice to management and a separate notice for labor (players), yet they had the gall to say their suspensions of executives in Cleveland and Atlanta were precedent until the Judge said NFW, agreeing with the NFLPA that that punishment was under the notice to management. The Judge points out that both Ted Wells and Troy Vincent admitted directly under oath that Brady never received notice of the potential charge or discipline. Huh? (To be clear if you don’t know the issue, players receive a notice that includes a fine for equipment violations while management receives a notice about good of the game infractions. Wells bluntly testified he never told Brady what he was facing or what the punishment could be and other testimony said the same thing.)
b) they prevented the co-lead investigator, the NFL General Counsel, from testifying. Every single precedent involving the NFL requires such testimony, whether the Commissioner or a court orders it. That is, as the Judge said, fundamentally in violation of arbitration rules. Again, where was the expensive legal advice? The co-lead investigator was also the NFL’s general counsel so Brady was prevented from asking about the investigation, about it’s supposed independence, about the NFL’s actions all along. So see next point:
c) the independent law firm of Paul Weiss was converted by the NFL into its counsel for arbitration. The Judge barely could contain himself: this is an obvious conflict of interest. And it was acknowledged under oath that the NFL general counsel had read and commented on the independent report before it was issued and now he’s not allowed to testify and now the independent law firm is NFL counsel so every avenue to question the process and its findings is foreclosed. How again does expensive counsel do this? Answer I assume is because the NFL has a lot to hide so they made the GC off limits and used Paul Weiss so they couldn’t be questioned either (and they then isolated the work product papers that Brady wanted to see).
d) the Judge points out the NFL is inconsistent in unbelievable ways. Troy Vincent and others say under oath that Brady is being punished for the conclusions of the Wells Report and then the NFL and the Commissioner later on change that to say he’s being punished for actually being involved in a conspiracy to deflate footballs though that was never found in the Wells Report. How does expensive counsel - one that did the report on which everyone has testified the punishment was imposed - allow its now client to contradict statements given under oath? (Note the Judge in the beginning of the decision puts a bit of effort into indicating that he doesn’t believe there’s proof anything at all was done to the footballs (and later says he doesn’t need to get to those issues). The legal reality is he couldn’t get into substance because Brady wasn’t allowed to question the NFL’s GC and wasn’t allowed access to documents so he had nothing in the record to evaluate.)
e) the Judge points out there is no precedent at all for anything the NFL has done here. There is no precedent for doing anything other than fining someone for an equipment violation (and not even much of that). There is no precedent for suspending a person for non-compliance. He notes the argument that steroid punishment is applicable is nonsense because that was specifically bargained with the NFLPA. (And that took years!) Through the entire opinion, he can barely contain his legal opinion that the NFL has cheated and lied and arranged things to prevent Brady from defending himself and that the entire thing was rigged.
That’s the Law for you. Many things that are handled by Attorney’s are rigged… (sorry, I don’t mean to offend Attorney’s, however there are some real scoundrels out there). I know-been there, done that. 
And good luck with the appeal too. Hope this is the beginning of the end of Gooddell. Bye, bye!
Hope Brady gets the last laugh and is able to hold on to his marriage. Ridiculous. Our system is really set up for “Guilty until proven innocent”. And even after that, reputations, careers, marriages can easily get ruined by the “scandal”. Ridiculous. I hope the NFL pays through the nose for this unnecessary harassment.
They’ve paid $10M so far. Consensus is that, without sponsorship or other offset, goal line cameras in every stadium would cost between $20-30M, so from ⅓ to ½ of something actually beneficial to the game.
What I don’t really understand is why the NFL wants the responsibility of being everything to the player’s association, the teams, the players, the beer vendors. Why not set up the system where the NFL does the fines, suspensions, etc., initially, but have the appeal go to an independent arbitrator. The NFL doesn’t really care if Brady cheats or Rice beats his wife, the NFL only cares that it LOOKS like the NFL cares to the public, that it looks like it is doing something about the cheating and beating and spying. There are hundreds of independent arbitrators who could have heard this appeal in February. The investigation could also be done under the rules of arbitration. Hire it out! That’s what most businesses do.
Huge bummer on the Brady ruling. I do not like Brady at all. On a good note thought it looks like Tebow may actually make the team!
I am elated. Go Pats!
NOW WE’RE READY FOR SOME FOOTBALL!
I can’t remember, are we dumping college football here, too?
If we are, I just want to say that I * love * the fact that I now attend the University of Michigan- Ann Arbaugh.
(I am SO freaking sick of hearing about him. If I never hear a word about Hairball or khakis again, I’ll be a happy camper.)
I guess the good news is that you’re losing?
^ LOL
Eek… this is not looking very good. They don’t look good.
I just can’t stand the hero-worship that he gets in this city.
Meanwhile, go, Cowboys!!! I have some real faves from the preseason who I hope survive the roster cut.
Judge Berman had trouble hiding his contempt for how the nfl acted–starting on page 2, he refers to the “independent” investigation (his quotation marks). His motivation to produce a settlement is obvious–gave the nfl numerous opportunities to save face and keep an appeal out of the courts. Both arrogance and ignorance led nfl to this bludgeoning.
As much as I don’t like Tom Brady, I think the decision was a good one, Goodell basically acted as a one man judge, jury and executioner and much of what he did defied logic,not to mention law. For example, equipment tampering is a minor offense, it is supposed to be a 50k fine, and it is usually levied on the team. More importantly, they have no proof Brady was involved. Goodell also wanted to punish Brady for 'defying him", but how do you give him a suspension for not turning over his phone, but yet when Brett Favre was accused of texting pictures of the family jewels and refused to turn over his phone,he was given a light fine?
The real problem is the NFL simply has not bothered to come up with a penalty system that is structured. If they really want to bolster their image, they need to get the NFLPA involved, and come up with true standards, not the crap they have today. For one thing, it needs to be two different tracks, one of which is for football violations (for example, tampering with gear, dirty hits and so forth), another for off field behavior (ie domestic violence, drugs, assault, etc) that are detrimental to the league. They need a true disciplinary panel, maybe composed of league officials and officials from the players association, or an independent panel that truly is independent (maybe paid 50-50 by the league and players asssociation), and more importantly, have defined penalties.The two tracks stop the comparisons between beating up a spouse and hitting a QB too late, which is not helpful, and more importantly, stops the arbitrariness which seems to drive penalties, Ray Rice initially got off with nothing, Greg Hardy walks away, yet a guy can be suspended 4 games for deflating a football? Getting caught having smoked pot is more rigorously enforced then trying to cripple a receiver? What the NFL looks like these days at best is unprofessional, and reacting to situations that routinely hit it like a deer in the headlights.
About the only thing more hypocritical than the NFL is the NCAA and the whole “College Athlete” joke with college football and basketball. There was a great article on deadspin that talked about how hypocritical the whole situation was,in the late 40’s football scholarships were considered ‘pay for play’ and were evil, 10 years later they were okay; at one point, having stipends to pay for a players off campus apartment and food was okay, then it became evil, then it became ‘sort of okay’. Not to mention, of course, the claim that college sports is ‘non profit’, when programs are reaping 10’s of millions of dollars in revenue from tv rights and such, and college coaches are often making a lot more than pro ones, but this is ‘amateur athletics’, not a ‘business’. Then, of course, we have the double standard, for the big football programs like Alabama and so forth, the NCAA has basically allowed conferences to self certify, while the other schools are subject to strict NCAA scrutiny.
The red herring in this saga is the destroyed cell phone. That info was released for the sole purpose of making Brady look bad. Destruction of the phone is irrelevant to the facts of the case—Ted Wells was asked by the NFLPA attorney numerous times if Wells would be asking for the phone, and Wells replied repeatedly he had what he wanted, didn’t want or need the phone–yet when upholding the suspension, Goodell used the phone as a reason.
^^Anyone that doesn’t like Brady, well that’s okay. You are entitled to your opinions…but c’mon. This has been a distracting crucifixion… someone on the News compared it to getting a life sentence for stealing a candy bar. Is it jealousy? Setting an example? What? Really, that it’s been allowed to go on this long is a travesty. Kraft should get his 1 million back. I really hope Brady does just as well this season without the deflated footballs.
It’s cheating. Brady just got away with it. Goodell should be able to punish players for cheating. Usually, not being aware of the possible penalty for a crime is not a valid defense; well, this judge just made it one.
I do think four games was probably harsh – the deflated balls did not (mainly) cause that lopsided victory – but this is a franchise that now has a reputation for cheating. The court of public opinion (outside of New England) has spoken and it’s not a pretty verdict.
In criminal law, that is true.
In collectively bargained agreements such as between the league and the players’ union, this is false. Players must be given notice of potential penalties. And in any case the penalty in this case didn’t exist until Goodell made it up. The only penalty Goodell could give under the CBA was a $5500 fine for a first offense of equipment tampering. The precedent for not cooperating was a $50K fine.
In any case, “not being aware of the possible penalty for a crime is not a valid defense” is not the case here and totally misses the point. The court appeal had nothing to do with innocence or guilt, but whether the league followed established laws and precedents in handing out the penalty and how the arbitration was handled. And the NFL got smacked hard for violating a number of labor laws.
What is really ironic is that the original suspension was justified in part because Brady didn’t fully cooperate and and failed to produce evidence (the destroyed phone), and one of the things the judge hammered the NFL on was that in the arbitration they didn’t cooperate (wouldn’t let Pash, the co-lead of the investigation, testify) and failed to produce evidence (they refused to produce notes and raw interviews that the league obviously had).
The league is now 0/5 when they are dragged into court. They clearly are not very good at this. Even the Minnesota judge (Judge Doty) that the players wanted but didn’t get, was snarking about the league, and he wasn’t even involved.
How many millions has Goodell spend on these ill-advised cases? It’s embarrassing. The only reason he keeps his job IMO is because he is taking the heat for the owners, although doing it by being a buffoon doesn’t seem like a great way to do your job.