Pneumonic

I'm sure they may wish for a more fair arbitration system or, at least one where the NFL employs fair arbitration tactics to apply what the CBA allows them to to arbitrate. My point is ... the NFLPA shouldn't concede, or relinquish, any valuable piece of negotiating power in order to do so; legally, they are clearly operating from a very strong position of strength (5-0 at the moment) on this matter.

The CBA doesn't expire for another 5 or 6 years. By that time, the NFLPA will probably have dominated in court enough times that they would welcome continued court processes. As such, I doubt they would want any change, certainly not change that comes at a steep (negotiated) cost. Heck, they might even ask for Goodell's continued employ as commish as one of their conditions.

As some of us predicted, after publicly noting that he was "troubled" with the lack of proof of a direct connection between Brady and the alleged activities, Berman lambasted the league, specifically Goodell, for not following the law of fundamental fairness while operating from his authoritative position as arbitrator. This, amongst other things, was enough for Berman to, correctly, vacate the award. Good job!

Don't expect much trade action or much of a return should a trade happen. Come last day of cutdowns, when teams cut from 75 to 53 players, 704 players will be released and available to teams for free. This will come at a time when teams will have had to cut many roster worthy players in order to arrive at their top 53. IOW, the market will be flush with quality caliber players which, teams currently realize.

Fair enough. For me it all boils down to this: I believe Berman has legal justification to either affirm or vacate the award. I see him vacating if he believes Brady is, or may be, innocent and/or he believes Brady wasn’t given a fair chance/due process, to defend his position. I believe he'll affirm if he believes Brady's credibility is in question and he lied. I highly doubt a settlement happens.

^^^ This +1. Several times now the judge has stated that even though Goodell's authority has been collectively bargained it doesn't mean he an use it to violate federal law. Dan Wetzel wrote-up a summary which highlight's the many issues the judge has with the NFL's case. http://sports.yahoo.com/news/deflate-gate-judge-hammers-nfl-s-case-against-tom-brady---your-honor-is-spot-on---defense-crows--192153861.html?soc_src=mediacontentsharebuttons&soc_trk=tw

Maybe I misread what you asked but I thought you were wondering if the judge was ruling on if Goodell has the authority to suspend Brady as per the CBA. The answer, I suspect is, yes he does .... provided the process followed, to arrive at suspension/arbitration, was done in a fair manner. If the judge doesn't believe it was done in a fair manner, than I suppose he can vacate the suspension.

It was an answer to your specific question however.

It seems to me that while the judge recognizes the authority that Goodell has (per the CBA), he is questioning the process Goodell used while operating from such an authoritative position. Specifically the judge has questioned whether due process was followed to ensure fairness.

I think, would hope, they are too smart to believe what you suggest.

At this stage I can't imagine the NFL truly believes anything that anyone, involved in their side of this fiasco, concluded. The basis for their argument seems to be that none of it matters because what Goodell says, goes.

Best quote was from: Kessler: "No one in the NFL knew anything about the ideal gas law, which is surprising because I think I studied that in 9th grade."

No doubt that Berman is holding the hammer of an up or down ruling over the heads of both sides in order to settle. However, I think the signaling is strongest towards the NFL that, while he might still rule purely on the strength of the CBA, he is not impressed with the leagues position and could well vacate the ruling. I base this mostly on Berman’s use of the word "troubled" when he spoke of his view of the lack of proof of a direct connection between Brady and the alleged activities. If I were to hazard a guess it is that Berman now knows that there is no settlement that entails Brady accepting direct responsibility for anything in such a suspect report and it is the NFL that needs to save face in some way to settle. I think Kessler’s point yesterday ….. to the effect of “if the league had simply offered up a fine and no suspension we all wouldn’t be wasting our time here” was on point as to how any settlement might fall. I say it’ll end up no suspension and a non co-operation fine for not handing over cell phone.

I think Berman was very clear on how he felt about this topic when he asked "What is the evidence of a scheme or conspiracy that covers the Jan. 15 game? I’m having trouble finding it..... the Wells report only relates to this one game .... that's the only game we are talking about here ..... whether it happened before not doesn't matter ..... there is no finding that there was anything done by Brady in this game" It makes the deflater texts moot in his eyes.

That is the issue it seems. According to the NFL's Nash, the league doesn't need direct proof because the CBA gives Goodell all encompassing power to discipline players as he sees fit. I think today, Berman openly questioned that power by implying that he may be unwilling to uphold an "arbitrary" arbitrator's decision that appears to be in denial of fundamental fairness (ie lacks direct evidence of wrongdoing).

I found it interesting that Berman spent so much time on the technical facts rather than the implications of the CBA. Thankfully so, for I think he left no question that he sees the conclusions of the Wells report as nothing but a joke. And, correctly so, if one looks at that report objectively. My gut feeling is that Berman will ultimately rule that, while the CBA offers powers and abilities, those in the NFL that apply it, can’t do so with presumptions, mistruths and dishonesty. The NFL’s case seems chalk full of all three to me and, I suspect, Judge Berman.

You can't trust anything that the NFL, nor anything in the Wells report, to be accurate and true. Both have been shown (not presumed) to have lied throughout this entire process. Here's the latest proof:

Is there definitive proof (ie not just assumptions) that the box of baseballs were a) stolen and b) doctored? I would also be interested in knowing if, the entity professing that theft and doctoring of said balls transpired, is trustworthy or not.

I am more convinced that the science disproves any transgressions happened than I am that any of the circumstantial evidence points to Brady instructing the guys to lower the PSI's below legal limit. With the current info available, If I were a juror I would not convict. Winner!

Can’t keep up with all the replies so I’ll just summarize my thoughts with this. I am onto the labour/CBA law component from here on out becasue that;s all that really matters as this movies forward. The fatal fault in all of this is there were no policies and procedures in place to allow for properly conducting any semblance of a valid test; not by the NFL, at the time of testing, nor by any “expert” at any time afterwards. Is not having documented PSI’s concerning? Indeed, unless you think reliance on memory recollection of said “likely” #’s is a satisfactory condition to apply the gas law. But, really, why worry since we don’t even have the known temperature ranges involved. But, we have guessing as an option to give us a needed "likely" outcome! Oh, and just for the halibut, let’s also assume the “likeliest” indoor/outdoor conditions along with the “likeliest” timelines involved after the 2nd quarter. PV=nRT …. here we come. So, what is an expert like Exponent expected to do with such a situation? That’s easy …. After applying their re-adjustment criteria, they assert that the Patriots footballs at halftime should “likely” have measured between 11.32 and 11.52 PSI. Good thing they went to hundredths accuracy levels. So how “likely” is it that the gauges used in all of this were working properly? Par for the course, we don’t know because …… no testing was done to ensure this as so. We do know that the NFL used 2 gauges at halftime to measure the Pats’ footballs though. We also know that Exponent never compared the 2 gauges’ respective readings against the readjusted acceptable range. They did convert both gauge readings to a single “master” gauge reading in order to provide a direct comparison with the results predicted by the calculations. Now this is a valid and good idea provided …… you have logged and converted dataset readings of the PSI’s pre-game. Ooooppps! Such a dilemma! All we have are the refs best recollection of PSI’s and which gauges were used to measure them. OK, not nearly ideal but perhaps salvageable? Maybe, if we do a bunch of calculations for the combinations of gauges and for all possible error bounds on these “likely” #’s then a propagation of errors study could be used to output some semblance of valid outcome results. I checked all the footnotes but didn’t see such data. My guess is it probably didn’t fit the narrative.

I would say it's more like you going out to play poker with your buddies and come home smelling of booze and smoke. The missus then assumes you were at the strip club and accuses you so because you smell of booze and smokes. Or some similar storyline

I recall Exponent concluding that natural deflation could occur in the Pats balls were tested immediately upon arrival in the lockerroom and if completed within 4 minutes. I believe Exponenet also surmised, from info culled fr the league's executives , that testing "likely" did begin no sooner than a couple minutes after the balls arrived in the lockerrom and "likely" to have taken approximately 4 to 5 minutes to complete. From this, they concluded guilty. As far as wetness, all they did was a cursory spray test.

Exponent, correctly, found that wetness of a football was a significant factor in both the drop in PSI as well as making it much slower for the pressure to restore once the football is moved to a warmer location. IOW, dryer footballs, such as the Colts that were measured, regain their PSI fairly quickly once in a warmer condition. The Pats balls were measured first and the Colts measured much later, so late that they wee unable to measure but 4 of them.

This is simple. The balls measured at halftime weren't subjected to the exact same conditions during the first half. Especially not when it came to wetness just before halftime ...... Pats balls were soaked and being used in cold and rainy conditions whereas the Colts balls were being kept in garbage bags. And, while on this thought, why were the Colts balls used as the control group?

Cmon, wells got caught in an obvious lie during the 1/2 time measurement episode. He says that they didn't add air to 11 of the Pats under-inflated balls until AFTER they tested the Colts balls. We find out that they ran out of time and only managed to test 4 Colts balls at halftime ..... but all 11 of the Pats found a way to get re-inflated? This is one of those toilet or urinal type points. Given the glaring procedural flaws presented them, yes, they did alright. But they made a monumental mistake by not accounting for any propagation errors so that they could do more relevant statistical analysis for all possible combinations of gauges and the error bounds. This was critical since they didn't have any logged pregame pressure readings that had been converted, ball by ball, gauge by gauge, as reference.