#DFG: Canceling the Noise
- Thread starter nattysez
- Start date
Fuckin' good. Not a huge Patriots fan but this was the biggest, stinkiest load of horseshit in NFL history. Fuck Goodell.
Huge win for Pats/Brady. I still think losing the 1st round pick is a bigger punishment but Brady and the NFLPA just humiliated Goodell like I've never seen a commissioner made a fool of. Maybe Bowie Kuhn in 81? Paul Tagliabue vs. Al Davis?
This has to be end of Roger Goodell, right? With really smart guys like Manfred and Silver running the shows, Goodell looks even dumber than he would have 20 years ago.
This has to be end of Roger Goodell, right? With really smart guys like Manfred and Silver running the shows, Goodell looks even dumber than he would have 20 years ago.
ConigliarosPotential said:
And the facts were that the balls were slightly under pressurized. Due to whatever reasons.
Stephen Brown @PPVSRB 12m12 minutes ago
"Goodell may be said to have 'dispensed his own brand of industrial justice.'" ouch.
"Goodell may be said to have 'dispensed his own brand of industrial justice.'" ouch.
It doesn't matter how the NFL and the Pats bashers frame this decision. Justice was served, and VENGEANCE is coming.
Shelterdog said:
And Berman got his J.D. from NYU (and a Master of Social Work from Fordham) so he's probably developed a healthy disdain for silver-spooned Harvard lawyers throughout his career. My hot take....
Perhaps the basis of the NFL appeal with be that their high ranking executives suffer from a collective traumatic brain injury.
soxhop411 said:
who cares he's a crappy sports head who writes for the worst slimiest paper in the country. Leave him be and let's stop crapping up the celebration.
It seems like Judge Berman let Goodell walk into a bear trap when he testified to some sort of equivalence between the Brady suspension and a typical PED suspension. I think as soon as Goodell was finished with that testimony the trap snapped closed and Berman had the NFL on not following fair arbitration practices. That and not allowing access to Nash and lack of notice sealed the deal.
IANAL (obviously) but do these points make it more difficult to overturn this on appeal?
IANAL (obviously) but do these points make it more difficult to overturn this on appeal?
Is there a poison pill here for the NFL? Berman overruled on the notice argument (which precludes a new hearing) and on the NFL failure to allow Pash testimony and share investigative files with NFLPA (which could be remedied by sharing said files in advance of a new hearing).
On appeal, could court overrule Berman on notice and uphold him on process, thereby putting NFL in the position of having to disclose stuff it very much wants to keep hidden?
On appeal, could court overrule Berman on notice and uphold him on process, thereby putting NFL in the position of having to disclose stuff it very much wants to keep hidden?
The decision is great, but it dealt only a glancing blow to the question of whether there was really any hanky panky. On p. 7, Berman notes that Exponent advised Wells that it couldn't definitively say whether there was tampering because it was relying on assumptions and uncertain information. Berman put that text in boldface, but then didn't refer to it again.
Edit: typo
Edit: typo
ESPN running the montage of all Boston sports teams winning titles then cutting to Brady running on the field..... 6 to midnight
It seems like the lawyers who were advising Goodell didn't do a great job here -- or at least took calculated risks that really backfired. The Pash problem was a trap they fell into. Having Wells' partner appear at the hearing to cross-examine Brady, while the Covington lawyers made objections was unnecessary. And the gamesmanship of jumping to SDNY simultaneously while releasing the decision probably wasn't lost on Berman. I think when a party basically signals to a judge (or in this case a court) "we want you," they run the risk that the judge will bend over backwards to be fair. Although, as Boggs' chicken dinner notes, it might not have mattered.
Even though he couldn't base the ruling on it, I was hoping the decision would have an addendum about the horseshit science as well. Once the four or five Patriot haters that can read actually read the ruling and tell the loudmouth dumbfucks that it was all just due to the NFL not following process, the Cossacks of the world will land on "Brady did it but the NFL fucked up the process so he got off on a technicality."
Koufax said:
Yeah, that would seem to go hand-in-hand with the bit on p. 20 I cited about deferring to the arbitrator re: the facts of the case. It's a shame Berman didn't - or more likely, couldn't - come straight out and say that he simply doesn't believe the case against Brady anyway, even if that seems to be a strong subtext of his decision.
I agree, but the finding that denial of access to the Weiss files was "fundamentally unfair" and "Brady was prejudiced as a result" is probably as close as he realistically could come. I'll take that wording.DennyDoyle'sBoil said:
Although I don't agree that the forum-shopping had any effect, I would love to be a fly on the wall to see where the lawyers' recommendations and the clients' actions diverge. In-house lawyers for your client can be the litigator's biggest nemesis, given that they often have different goals.
Tom Brady:
Super bowl champion.
Conquerer of Super models
Cliff diver
Scratch Golfer
And now? Union man.
Super bowl champion.
Conquerer of Super models
Cliff diver
Scratch Golfer
And now? Union man.
leftfieldlegacy said:
I'm not sure that there was any trap laying there. From the opinion, and looking at the question in retrospect, I think Berman (who has to spend half his life, remember, sentencing kids to prison under mandatory terms for drug violations) was probably genuinely offended that the NFL would attempt to equate this kind of violation with steroids. From this opinion, you can see that he really wasn't playing games or messing around at oral argument or being a contrarian, he was simply honestly and earnestly calling it like he saw it for the whole day.
On the appeal question, nothing that Berman has really done here is going to get too much deference in the court of appeals. They are going to look at it anew and Kessler will have to convince another court all over again. As appellate lawyers like to say -- it doesn't matter who wins first, but who wins last. That's not entirely true here, because Brady gets to play and the NFL will be hard pressed to get a stay, but today is still a very good day. Maybe they will win on appeal, but the bottom line is that the first neutral person to look at this decided they are utterly and completely full of shit, notwithstanding the exceptionally high standard for overcoming awards.
If someone could help me track down a gif of Brady looking for hi-fives with a stupid grin on his face (you all know the one) that would be great. Because it perfectly encapsulates what it's like to be Pats fan outside of NE right now.
DennyDoyle'sBoil said:
We don't know this. It could very well be that Goodell took actions that were contrary to the legal advice he was given and caused the lawyers to defend the indefensible.
Or, it could be that the lawyers screwed up. Regardless, it's all good.
Hearing that Brady's only issue with the ruling is the suspension is vacated "effective immediately." He wanted it "effective Tuesday," so he'd have the long weekend to just chill.
I just came here to post this- Berman described Pash as "Harvard-trained" in the order. That is a direct FU to Wells.Shelterdog said:
Also, Wells is a total idiot. Smart Harvard graduates actually restrain their ego. Moderately intelligent Harvard graduates think they really are very smart compared to everyone else, but they never tell anyone because they know it makes them look bad. And Harvard graduates that are complete idiots brag about it not only to others, but in a proceeding that has a written transcript.
I don't know anything about Wells' legal record. But based on his lies about independence, participation in a coached press conference, and bragging about Harvard, I have concluded he is a moron.