BREAKING NEWS: Judge nullifies Tom Brady's four-game suspension

Tom Brady will be under center for the Patriots' season opener next Thursday.

The ruling, handed down by U.S. District Judge Richard Berman on Thursday morning, nullified the four-game suspension levied against the Patriots quarterback back on May 11 when Ted Wells, an independent investigator hired by the NFL, asserted Brady's connection to deflated footballs used in the AFC Championship Game this past season.

The decision came after multiple attempts at settlement between Brady, his council, the NFL Players Association and the NFL. On Monday, Berman dismissed both sides after just a few minutes after realizing they were too far apart to reach a settlement.

There is no word yet on whether the NFL will file an appeal.

finskev wrote:I'm glad it is over...

In a statement, Goodell "respectfully" disagreed with Berman's ruling, saying, "We will appeal today’s ruling in order to uphold the collectively bargained responsibility to protect the integrity of the game. The commissioner’s responsibility to secure the competitive fairness of our game is a paramount principle, and the league and our 32 clubs will continue to pursue a path to that end. While the legal phase of this process continues, we look forward to focusing on football and the opening of the regular season."

finskev wrote: Nfl needs to get with the Players association and come up with suspensions for Offenses so that the Players Know the Punishment before an Act is committed.

mercury22nathan wrote:
in the end, both sides got what they wanted. Brady gets to play and gets an apparent vindication. The NFL gets their premiere star back on the field for opening weekend (believe me, they didn't want him suspended for what is arguably the biggest weekend of the regular season - money and ratings-wise). Goodell gets to appear tough ("Hey, I was willing to throw the book at him, but these silly courts got in my way again.") and still gets paid big money. The potential hit to Goodell's image is irrelevant as he's the well paid stooge of the owners anyway. The NFL had to make a point considering the Patriots' past and they drew a line in the sand that they didn't think would be challenged - but it was, and this gives them a way out with conceding. people can talk all they want about how this episode makes the league look foolish, but you know what - the owners will continue to have the last laugh...all the way to the bank. none of this will hurt the league, the popularity of the game and the money the rake in one iota.

DolFan 316 wrote:Does anybody really think the players will actually agree with Badell on what punishment should be for *anything*? As far as I can tell, the one thing the PA is united on is their "right" not to be punished at all!

I'm guessing though that if the NFL wasn't a "nonprofit organization" (seriously, that's their official status) then this wouldn't be an issue and like every other workplace they could suspend employees as they saw fit without consequence or recourse.

But ultimately all I see is the bad guys getting away with one yet again, which is why I lost interest in the NFL to begin with.

Here...are the three ways the judge ruled that the NFL fucked up:

   1. The NFL didn’t properly inform Brady of the punishment he faced, or even what he was accused of.
   2. The NFL didn’t let Brady’s camp question NFL executive and counsel Jeff Pash at his appeal.
   3. The NFL didn’t give Brady’s side the opportunity to examine the evidence against him.

Let’s take a moment to reflect on the recent failures of Goodell’s tenure as commissioner:

   --He suspended Ray Rice just two games after Rice knocked his fianceé out in an elevator, then suspended Rice indefinitely after video tape of the incident turned the original, paltry suspension into a PR nightmare for the league. A judge later overturned that second suspension because Rice was essentially being punished twice for the same crime, and because the NFL had no real evidence that Rice had lied during the league’s investigation into the incident.
   --He hit the New Orleans Saints with sweeping and severe penalties after determining that the team had instituted a bounty program. Those suspensions were later overturned by ex-commissioner Paul Tagliabue on the grounds that Goodell had overstepped his bounds and reached his decision based on faulty evidence.
   --He eagerly exploited the Adrian Peterson child abuse case as a way to restore his authority and brand as a stern, tough-minded disciplinarian. That suspension was later overturned by a federal judge because Goodell had retroactively and unfairly applied the league’s new domestic violence policy to Peterson’s case.

And now this. This particular defeat feels more meaningful than the previous ones, though, in part because of how truly benign the original “crime” was. Those other suspensions being vacated were big victories for the NFLPA, but Goodell’s flanks were still protected by the fact that he was facing off with a child abuser, a wife-beater, and a football team that purposely tried to hurt people. No matter how slapdash and wrongheaded Goodell’s ersatz judicial processes were revealed to be, he was always able to position himself as a good guy, just trying to get tough on bad people and do the right thing. He was able to point to his failures as evidence that all he needed to Get Things Right in the future was more power.

It’s much harder to imagine Goodell spinning this loss in his favor, though. There’s no monstrous crime with which to obscure his own failures this time. All Goodell has to protect himself with in this instance is that a few footballs that may or may not have been deflated by an amount that may or may not have made any real difference.

mercury22nathan wrote:

finskev wrote:I'm glad it is over...

is it?

In a statement, Goodell "respectfully" disagreed with Berman's ruling, saying, "We will appeal today’s ruling in order to uphold the collectively bargained responsibility to protect the integrity of the game. The commissioner’s responsibility to secure the competitive fairness of our game is a paramount principle, and the league and our 32 clubs will continue to pursue a path to that end. While the legal phase of this process continues, we look forward to focusing on football and the opening of the regular season."

in the end, both sides got what they wanted.  Brady gets to play and gets an apparent vindication.  The NFL gets their premiere star back on the field for opening weekend (believe me, they didn't want him suspended for what is arguably the biggest weekend of the regular season - money and ratings-wise).  Goodell gets to appear tough ("Hey, I was willing to throw the book at him, but these silly courts got in my way again.") and still gets paid big money.  The potential hit to Goodell's image is irrelevant as he's the well paid stooge of the owners anyway.  The NFL had to make a point considering the Patriots' past and they drew a line in the sand that they didn't think would be challenged - but it was, and this gives them a way out with conceding.  people can talk all they want about how this episode makes the league look foolish, but you know what - the owners will continue to have the last laugh...all the way to the bank.  none of this will hurt the league, the popularity of the game and the money the rake in one iota.

so now we can file Brady's deflated balls and the Well's report right next to what is left of the Spygate tapes.