Lawyers for the National Football League were back in court Thursday attempting to reinstate Tom Brady’s four-game suspension. Now, on the same day the case heads to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on the question of whether quarterback Tom Brady’s four-game suspension will be upheld, ESPN public editor Jim Brady has published a #longform assessment of the network’s mishandling of the situation.
Advertisement
Judges Robert Katzmann, Barrington Parker, Jr. and Denny Chin comprised the three-person panel overseeing the league’s appeal. He said Brady “had no notice that his discipline would be the equivalent of the discipline imposed upon a player who used performance enhancing drugs”.
The players’ union, on behalf of Brady, then sued the league in federal court, where a judge sided with Brady and threw out the four-game ban.
Parker at one point described Brady’s excuse for destroying the phone as “incredible”, saying it “made no sense whatsoever”. If that ultimately is the decision, Brady can appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court but the high court does not have to take the case.
The three judges are now expected to meet for a voting conference during which they will discuss the hearing, weigh the arguments of both sides and come to a tentative decision.
Despite this appeals hearing feeling like an afterthought, it sounds like the judges were remarkably sympathetic to the NFL.
But NFLPA attorney Jeffrey Kessler faced a much more intense line of questioning than his counterpart, NFL attorney Paul Clement, and judges Parker and Chin expressed significant doubts with Kessler’s argument. It’s about how the National Football League handled the investigatory and disciplinary processes.
Parker definitely seemed pro-NFL.
Chin on Brady deflating footballs: “Evidence of ball tampering is compelling if not overwhelming”.
From that perspective, in theory, the three-judge panel could believe that Brady and the Patriots were involved in no wrongdoing whatsoever but still rule that Goodell acted properly in his role, all while basically rubber-stamping the four-game suspension he essentially approved, although, ostensibly it was handed down by Troy Vincent.
Anyways, Brady and the NFLPA took the league to court and won.
Advertisement
Commissioner Roger Goodell concluded that Brady – although he had not deflated the balls himself – was at least aware of the ball-tampering, and had interfered with the subsequent investigation. “When asked if he felt Goodell was out to get Brady, Kessler said, ‘He was out to protect the record of [his reported $3-million investment in the Wells Report]'”. “Why couldn’t the commissioner suspend Brady for that conduct alone?” After all, Berman’s decision favoring Brady as well as the briefs filed for the appeal hearing and hundreds of pages of legal documents also have to be put into consideration before a definitive ruling can be made.
