MattM

Maybe because we're dealing with "ethically challenged" people here? Oh, don't worry, we'll be here again debating the Pats* next cheating scandal in a matter of months. The over/under is January.

....this article on his training methods is interesting. Personally, I find positive motivation works much better than fear and invective, so think it would be nice for this to catch on: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/07/sports/football/no-foul-mouths-on-pete-carrolls-field-football-with-a-new-age-twist.html?ref=sports Ralph Wilson would have approved of the no swearing part! PS. Still find PC to be an arse after that fake punt up by 30 with 6 minutes left and leaving USC one step ahead of the sheriff.....

Game worn jerseys like the Deflator got? Really? Don't you think if this was indeed a common occurrence Brady and the Pats* would have trotted out other low level flunkies who got such swag? I've been asking where those folks are for a while now and have yet to receive an answer. In fact, a poster on the main Deflategate thread way back claimed to have worked in PR or some such for a pro sports team and actually said the opposite--that it's all considered team property and very carefully collected and tracked by the team to be sold or donated to charity. Finally, how do you also explain McNally's request for straight up cash from Brady in one of the texts? Does Tommy go around handing out hundreds in the locker room?

I've read the whole opinion? Have you? You conveniently left out that Manning plays at least 9 games a year in a dome, which was explained by the study's original author.

I guess we'll see--many esteemed attorneys looking at the original case viewed the League as the most likely victor in the original case. What I meant be he must appeal is that Judge Berman's decision effectively guts any discipline not spelled out in detail in the CBA. For that reason alone, they have no choice but to appeal. As a corporate attorney, the decision is a bit scary. The judge basically rewrote the deal between the parties despite the language in the CBA on a number of points.

I've never been a Meh believer--the Pats* absolutely fleeced the Chefs when they traded him. He can't hit the broad side of anything over 15 yds in the air.

Hell to the no.

. We'll see, but I suspect they won't be able to stop anybody this year after losing Revis, Browner, Arrington, Dennard in the back end and Wilfork on the front end. I've been wrong about that before, but we'll see this year.

As in some sense an appellate court, he needs to take the facts as the arbitrator found them, as would any rational person reading those texts, seeing that Tweedledumber got tens of thousands of dollars worth of swag from Brady and seeing that the Pats* refused to let Wells talk again to Tweedledumber and Brady destroying his phone. This opinion was not about saying Brady was innocent--any rational person looking at just the evidence above would find he was not--it was simply about Goodell not having the power to nail the cheater because the CBA did not spell out that someone who orchestrates stealing balls and deflating them could be suspended and that since no one had previously been suspended for obstructing an investigation shady Brady* could not be suspended here (begging the question as to how anyone could ever be so suspended). Pretty simple, actually. The Pash stuff was just so much fluff added at the end, as was the last argument of "even though you both agreed that there would be limited discovery in arbitration, I'm going to overturn that". Absolutely ridiculous decision from a go forward policy standpoint, throwing into doubt almost any punishment the league wants to hand down going forward unless it's explicitly in the CBA. The league has no choice but to appeal. I expect this to be overturned, but far too late to effectively punish Brady*, who got to play in a SB right after cheating in an AFCCG. A low point for the sport.

In addition to the points raised above, two others: (a) the equipment violation sections always refer to "his" equipment, which to me means a player's uniform--is a ball considered "his" equipment, even for a QB, or is it more likely outside of that?; and (b) even the equipment violation provisions say "including, without limitation" a $25k fine. That clearly allows for other punishment, even in such a case.

Do you understand what "including but not limited to" means (along with the spelling of "rhetoric")? That's what the policy you're referring to literally says and, since I suspect you may not know what that means, it means that you'll get hit with $25k as a fine OR ANY OTHER PUNISHMENT WE WANT. Nice try, though.....

The League effectively did that in the Conduct Detrimental paragraph and the judge said something like that that is not specific is too vague to be enforced. Nice try, though, as that is what a rational, logical person might think to do.

Not at all. I read the brief and am wholly unconvinced by Judge Berman's decision. He really seemed to have it in for the NFL. Look at section IV(A) on notice (the first, which usually means the author's view of their best, argument). The judge keeps harping on how Brady did not know he could be suspended for "being generally aware" (which is a crock, I think that anyone who read the texts and considered all of the other circumstantial factors, such as the swag given to Tweedledumber, the calls to Tweedledumb right after the story broke, and Brady's destroyed cell phone knows full well that Tommy Boy was more than "generally aware" here, but that's the language Wells used) of the balls being deflated by his flunkies after being stolen from the refs. The same applies for obstructing a League investigation--in fact, he says that since no one before has ever been suspended for obstruction, you can't do that here (begging the question of how one ever gets to suspend such an obstructionist dirtbag in the first place). The judge goes on to say that the "conduct detrimental" catch all is too general to apply here to allow suspension in a case like this. Combined, that means that the rules should somehow be clear that when stealing balls and deflating them, you can be suspended. WTF? Is that really necessary? The NFL somehow needs to spell all that out in its CBA in order to punish a cheater? What a mess of an opinion from a policy standpoint. I was also wholly unconvinced by the arguments about Pash--he had Ted Wells on the stand basically saying "I don't even know what Pash did to the report which must mean that his changes were so minor" (which as someone who's worked in that environment and field can tell you that in reality this means that some junior associate took a few lightweight comments from Pash (who felt he had to contribute something) that were so lightweight he didn't even need to run them by the boss--they may have honestly been typos) and that was not good enough for Berman to set aside the NFL's view that Pash's testimony was worthless to the Pats*. It's almost like he was looking for reasons to crater the League's decision. In his final argument, he seems to be saying that despite arbitration by its terms having different discovery rules, no, you need to allow full discovery as you would in litigation. Ridiculous (in my opinion at least). Once again, I'm not a litigator, but I am unconvinced by his arguments, which are a real world, operational nightmare for the League going forward. This literally eviscerates the League's ability to impose discipline unless said discipline is explicitly described in the CBA. As noted above, creative cheaters (of which we have the best in our division) will have a field day with this. I also find it somewhat funny that a number of posters here who in other contexts I've seen spout pro-business/conservative principles so readily support what can really only be described here as liberal judicial activism of a judge helping out an employee against his employer.

After reading most of the opinion on the way home, I agree with the poster's above that the decision ridiculously seems to say, basically, that since the CBA didn't explicitly say the Brady could be suspended for having ball boys steal game balls and deflate them, you can't suspend him for that. So, in other words, unless your CBA is the size of the NYC phone book, you really aren't likely yo be able to punish creative cheaters. Belichick* is going to run wild with this.....

. Because it's not obvious enough that you shouldn't steal the balls from the refs post-weigh in and deflate them? Smdh....

Best I can tell from what I've read so far, looks like all you need to do is cheat on new, novel ways not explicitly covered in the CBA and you're scot free. As just last year alone showed, Belicheat could do that differently each game for years....

I wonder if this guy would have written the same article about Lance Armstrong at the beginning of Oops, misfire--his scandal, before everything was known/confirmed about him? I doubt it, since the guy's seems to obviously be a Pats* fan seeking solely to minimize the scandal plaguing his hero, but who knows? Some may have blown this out of proportion (it's only sports after all), but most folks believe that the rules should be followed, while others root for the Cheats*.....

Personally, I'm still waiting for the Pats* to trot out all those other low level staffers that Brady showered with tens of thousands of dollars worth of memorabilia like he did McNally (whose name he later claimed he didn't even know). After all, they must be out there, right? Tommy does this for all the fellas, right? Especially those who are asked in texts to do things that benefit Tommy and who in said texts also demand such items from Tommy. As Barnum said, there's one born every minute....

NYT ran an article this morning quoting a professor of Sports Law saying that the NFL will win this case. From his quote it sounded like he didn't even think it was close, FWIW. http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/08/31/sports/football/looking-for-clues-on-how-decision-will-swing-for-tom-brady.html

Very simple explanation--the judge badly wants the case to settle and so is chiding/cajoling the party with the stronger case to try to get them to settle. Game theory would support this view (although he may appear to some a bit foolish for questioning one way and deciding another). On your question above on why Pash would not testify, that also may be as simple as attorney-client privilege, as he's an attorney working for the League. I'm not a litigator (thank God), but attorneys are rarely called as witnesses in most cases.

Nice end to a good offensive half

. If he were on a low cost rookie deal maybe. Not at $4.5m/yr.

Best part if they cut Cassel is that we get $4 or $5m back for our cap that we can carry over into next year when we'll need it.

Every. Single. Year. You can set your seasonal clock to Goodwin getting hurt.

I'm an in-house attorney (similar to Pash's role here). His "editing" could have been as simple as changing names and titles of the addressees (since the internal who's who of the League is something Wells is not likely to know). I would wager that it's certainly not much more than that--I'd also wager that whatever it was he did it was not substantive.