Then, “the parties would confer with the Court to set a hearing for oral argument on a date convenient to the Court that would enable a decision to be rendered by September 4, when Mr. Brady’s team must prepare for its first regular-season game”.
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Speculation is that Brady will ask a federal court to issue an injunction barring the league from enforcing the suspension, though according to many legal experts, Brady will have an uphill battle in making his case. “It’s the first day of training camp, got with the guys and it felt good to get out here with all of them”, he said, via Michael David Smith of ProFootballTalk.com.
U.S. District Judge Richard Berman scheduled conferences for Aug. 12 and Aug. 19 in New York.
Reaction among NFL players was mixed when Brady initially was suspended four games, but it’s been hard to find those who support Goodell after the commissioner denied Brady’s appeal and upheld his full suspension.
Goodell wrote on his final decision that Brady directed his assistant to destroy the phone he was using from 2014 until the time of the American Football Conference (AFC) Championship game last January and the start of the initial investigation about the Deflategate scandal. At least one lawyer who has litigated against the NFL believes Brady’s four-game suspension will be overturned. He noted that Brady plays in Massachusetts as a member of the Patriots, the union is headquartered in Washington and the NFL in New York.
The union wanted the case to be heard in Minnesota, where U.S. District Judge David Doty has a history of ruling in favor of players in labor cases against the NFL. The NFL has countered with Goodell having jurisdiction over such matters in the CBA, something the players agreed to when the lockout ended in 2011.
The Minnesota court is considered friendly to unions, and in February voided an NFL suspension of Minnesota Vikings running back Adrian Peterson following his no-contest plea to hitting his son with a tree branch.
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On Friday, the Patriots conducted their second day of training camp, and afterwards Edelman was asked to expand on his thoughts about Brady. The next deadline in the case is August 13, when the NFLPA is due to file its response to the NFL’s request for the court to confirm Brady’s suspension. That, says the quarterback and his union, made Roger Goodell unfairly biased toward Tom Brady.
