Brady Wins, again.

Lol, no didn't draft him Heather, but not because of the threat of suspension, figured he spend 2 games max, and not surprised by this outcome. You can put a slash next to the headline and add
Goodell Loses Again. Instead of staying where he strengths lie which was maximizing all revenue streams Goodell stupidly thought he could be judge, jury, executioner. All he had to do was fine them and take a draft pick and boom it would of been over. Now Goodell is wallowing in the mire going all the way back to the Saints thru Ray Rice thru this. Does the NFL appeal?

 

All through out this appeal process the judge kept giving the NFL the hint to settle. They never got it. If Goodell gets his way they will appeal. But my feeling is that some of the owners will tell him to cut his losses and this may be the end of it.

 

And don't forget, it was only ONE ball, not eleven of twelve like Chris MORONson of ESPN reported and was never corrected by either him or the NFL for months.

 

I will say Goodell isn't an idiot and the league's lawyers firmly believe in the Commissioner's power that was collectively bargained, but I have to think some of Goodell's bosses aka the other 31 owners have told him behind the scenes to go to the mattresses. A simple 'while I don't agree, it's time to move on' statement seems like the obvious and best course of action (especially since they did get a pound of flesh in the form of $ & Draft picks). So what owner(s) are advising Goodell? The league is more profitable than ever before so not sure if he's job is in jeopardy yet, but he needs to see the forest through the trees pronto or his gig will become untenable.

 

Goodell over reached, yet again, and got burned. At some point you have to think the owners will change the process instead of letting this guy repeatedly flush their money down the toilet playing sheriff. Really hope there isn't an appeal, this has dragged on far too long, but that's not looking likely. If there is an appeal, it would be funny if it went back to the same judge...give Goodell a taste of his own medicine.

What I don't get is first, Don's point about officials handling the balls...like college does. But second, they have a penalty on the books for tampering with equipment and it's a chickenshit fine. This should have never gone further than that.

 

I had not seen it, thanks. I do think that they were trying to get back at the Pat's for Spygate. Which if you remember was also kind of BS. Yes the Pat's broke the rules by videotaping, but they were videotaping what everyone could see. Nothing precluded a team from stealing signals, they could have had people all around writing down all pertinent information to figure out play calls etc and then going back and using the broadcast or league supplied video to put the pieces together. It was just you could not videotape it to make it easier for yourself. To me one of those "you will let us do it, it's just how we go about it rules."

As you said the NFL (league and some owners) now feels they went to light on the Pats in regards to Spygate and have to get back at them. I also think, after the last couple of league fiascos they had with Bountygate and player conduct outside football, they were going to make a harsh example of what or who ever came next. It just happened to be the Patriots and they could kill two birds, getting back after Spygate and the next to come along, with one stone.

The league handled this poorly from the get go. From not clarifying Chris MORONson's erroneous report that 11 of 12 balls were underdeflated right away when it was only one ball was, to having their league lawyer basically edit the Wells report, to Goodell being the Judge, Jury, and Executioner, and then punishing Brady for things he was not aware he could be punished for. Now of course the league wanted the false report of 11 of 12 balls to help their narrative so they let it stay out there as long as possible and who did MORONson say told him about it??? An unnamed league official. If the Wells report was truly independent no one from the NFL should have touched the report before it was presented and to top it off the NFL does not make the lawyer who edited it available during the appeal! Granted the CBA allowed Goodell the right to be the Judge, Jury and Executioner, but I believe anybody who did not have an agenda would have recused themselves from that position. The NFL had to know that Brady would go to court if he lost the appeal so why would they punish him for those things he was unaware of? That's almost like going to court to argue a speeding ticket and the Judge telling you he's basing his findings on the fact that you had a taillight burned out! Roget Goodell was not impartial if he was using a past indiscretion in which punishment had already been meted out to base his ruling.

The NFL could have nipped this at the bud right after the AFC game but they choose not too. Why is the question.

 

Some of the Pats fans on here are either confused about what “Spygate” was actually about or are suffering from a bit of memory loss. There are at least two glaring problems with the Pats taping of the Jets coaching staff. One they were taping from the sidelines during a game and two they were taping the Jets coaching staff sending signals during a game. This occurred in September 2007 after every team had been sent a memo in September 2006 stating that “videotaping of any type, including but not limited to taping of an opponent's offensive or defensive signals, is prohibited on the sidelines, in the coaches' booth, in the locker room, or at any other locations accessible to club staff members during the game." The actions performed by Pats personnel in the Jets stadium were clearly spelled out in the NFL memo as prohibited and the memo was only a reminder of what is clearly stated in the NFL rules in regard to the prohibited use of video shooting locations during game times for teams.

Were other teams doing the same thing before the memo went out? My guess would be yes since the memo went out to all 32 teams but that could also be political correctness. However, after receiving the warning memo from the NFL the Pats continued the practice of taping prohibited subject matter from prohibited areas and were fined for it. This is not a matter of speculation because the Pats turned the tapes from the Jets game over to the NFL for review.

As an aside to the other Pats issues, I will I say I thought the over inflation of the hype surrounding the alleged under inflation of the footballs was taken way too far by the NFL. True or not there was no real impact on the game in my opinion and there are rules for equipment tampering that should have governed any punishment handed out for the issue and anyone complaining about the headphones in Pittsburgh should be pointing to the NFL. However, let's not rewrite history on Belichick and the Pats on "Spygate". Belichick is a great coach and like a lot of great coaches he is an envelope pusher which I don't have a problem with. However, when your team does get legitimately caught breaking the rules when pushing the envelope you need to bite your tongue so the Pats fans should cease the whining about “Spygate”. Belichick most likely knew what he was doing and pushed the envelope to risk to gaining a competitive advantage. Even if he really thought it was OK it is his job or someone in the Pats front office to know better.

I will say don’t like the name “Spygate” because it is a media attention grab to get ratings and misconstrues what the Pats were actually fined for. It confuses the issue of what the real problem with the Pats was and what the fine was issued for. What the Pats were actually fined for was ignoring the NFL warning to discontinue a banned NFL practice that they and all other teams had been officially warned to cease. Choosing to ignore the warning and continue violating NFL policies is not a minor issue and was rightfully not handled as a minor violation. The Pats choose to thumb their nose at the warning and justifiably paid the price in this case. To my knowledge no other team has been accused of by another team or independently been found to be breaking the same rules since the memo was issued so Pats fans need to stop feeling like their team was unjustifiably punished in the case of “Spygate”.

 

I for one don't feel they were unfairly punished for Spygate (everything ends in -Gate now because of lazy journalism in that they can't come up with anything else and are too lazy to try.) The Pats broke the rule after being warned and got caught. You won't find an argument from me there. My personal opinion is it's a BS rule as all it is intended to do, from what I understand about it, is to make it more difficult for a team to figure out what the opposing team is doing. Put say 10 guys in the stands writing down all pertinent information and after the game go back and match up what they wrote down with game tapes. You still get to the same conclusion, it's how you go about it. The NFL is not making the act of stealing signals illegal, so if they are stealing them anyway let them video tape it. I'm also be willing to bet most, if not all, teams were doing it, I'm sure some stopped when the memo came out, but some were still doing it after. Does that make it right? Of course not. But there was a reason for all teams getting the memo. If it had only been a couple teams I believe they would have gotten verbal warnings. It was probably common practice and a case of the NFL had been lax on it and knew what was going on but wanted to end the practice.

My issue is if Goodell did come down harder with punishment on Deflategate because of it was perceived he should have gone heavier on Spygate that is wrong he was not impartial and therefor should have recused himself. It's not like the NFL has a 3 strikes law on the books. Each infraction needs to be taken on it's own merits for whatever team. Like the old cliché says the punishment must fit the crime.