GO PATRIOTS!!!!!!!!

PPC1052 said:
So today is supposed to be decision day. Any predictions?
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I think the judge will blast the NFL in his ruling. But I also think some sort of punishment will still be allowed, be it lesser games suspended or a large fine. I would say fine because that's the first time penalty for this rule infraction in the labor agreement.
 
JB1842 said:
I think the judge will blast the NFL in his ruling. But I also think some sort of punishment will still be allowed, be it lesser games suspended or a large fine. I would say fine because that's the first time penalty for this rule infraction in the labor agreement.
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The judge doesn't have the discretion to split the baby. The process that the league has been through is a private arbitration. The standard to overturn an arbitration award is if the judge finds the arbitrator committed fraud, was corrupt, committed misconduct, or exceeded his powers (of the CBA in this case). Its a high bar to clear. Its not enough that the plaintiff argue that the arbitrator was simply wrong. Parties contract to arbitrate disputes to avoid courts. If the judge can re-litigate the arbitrator's ruling, then the wining party in arbitration doesn't get what they bargained for -- they have to go to court anyway -- and it simply turns the trial court into a de facto appeals court above the arbitrator.

The remedy if Brady clears the bar is that the arbitration ruling is set aside. In practice, federal judges and/or magistrates can apply considerable pressure to the parties to settle on any terms to simply make the case go away, and also to settle somewhere near where s/he might like them to be if s/he had a free hand on the bench. But if the parties don't/won't oblige, s/he has to pick a side, winner take all.
 
DJTorrente said:
The remedy if Brady clears the bar is that the arbitration ruling is set aside. In practice, federal judges and/or magistrates can apply considerable pressure to the parties to settle on any terms to simply make the case go away, and also to settle somewhere near where s/he might like them to be if s/he had a free hand on the bench. But if the parties don't/won't oblige, s/he has to pick a side, winner take all.
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Ahhh! My eyes! I can't read this with all of those mixed pronouns. Get with the program: http://diversity.utk.edu/2015/08/pronouns/

Other than that, I 100% agree.
 
The suspension holds.
edit to state that this is my opinion. I haven't heard anything official.
 
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PaulS said:
And justice prevails.
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I'm looking forward to reading the judge's opinion. I am curious about the logic behind the opinion, and the standard of review he applied. I can't find it online yet, and I don't want to bother with Pacer.
 
My opinion has never changed, Brady can go suck it.
 
Look, I can understand the Brady hating, especially with some of the suck ass teams in the areas some of you are from. But there was no evidence of Brady conspiring to deflate balls AND the balls were well within where they should have been considering the Ideal gas law. Brady got railroaded by the NFL, this is going to be an interesting season. Back to back baby.
 
PPC1052 said:
I'm looking forward to reading the judge's opinion. I am curious about the logic behind the opinion, and the standard of review he applied. I can't find it online yet, and I don't want to bother with Pacer.
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Found it.
 

Attachments

  • 2015-09-03-nfl-brady-decision.pdf
    537.3 KB · Views: 4
PaulS said:
Look, I can understand the Brady hating, especially with some of the suck ass teams in the areas some of you are from. But there was no evidence of Brady conspiring to deflate balls AND the balls were well within where they should have been considering the Ideal gas law. Brady got railroaded by the NFL, this is going to be an interesting season. Back to back baby.
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Substitute Hillary for Brady
and Republicans for NFL
and a few other specifics,
and this statement would have the same merit.
 
PaulS said:
Look, I can understand the Brady hating, especially with some of the suck ass teams in the areas some of you are from. But there was no evidence of Brady conspiring to deflate balls AND the balls were well within where they should have been considering the Ideal gas law. Brady got railroaded by the NFL, this is going to be an interesting season. Back to back baby.
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Gonna have to still disagree. I am aware of the ideal gas law, but there are many assumptions in it that aren't true in this real world application. One, the ball as a system, is not closed. Energy is introduced by virtue of friction from handling, squeezing, knocking in to each other in the bag, being near heaters, etc. Also, being in the bag, depending on the material, may help insulate temperature loss. And the temperature doesn't drop immediately, either. Two, the size of the vessel isn't constant. The rubber bladder and the leather expands and retracts. When you inflate, the vessel gets bigger, meaning greater volume when inflated, thereby reducing pressure from what it would be if the vessel volume remains constant, all other things being held equal. When the process reverses, the vessel gets smaller, decreasing the size, and increasing the pressure more than it would if the vessel volume had remained constant. Consequently, you can't just do a simple solving of PV=nRT. That model does not fully apply.

Also, there is plenty of evidence from which people can reasonably infer his guilt. Maybe you don't, but others can and do. The ball boy clearly engaged in misconduct in secreting the footballs away from the officials locker room, and taking a pit stop in an out of the way bathroom. The text messages clearly indicate nefarious conduct. And given what I know of NFL franchises, and franchise quarterbacks, there is no way that this happened without the blessing of the franchise quarterback. I am not an idiot. There may be no smoking gun, but reasonably minds can reach the conclusion that Tom was in on it. Of course, that says nothing about whether the NFL failed to follow requirements of due process necessary to support its decision. That seems to be what the judge is saying in my brief perusal of the order, but that doesn't make Brady innocent, either.
 
I just read the opinion. I'm not good at deciphering legalese so this is a really coarse summary. The judge said the arbitration ruling is canceled. I think it can be appealed, or it can be re-arbitrated.

He gave two reasons:
1) Brady was not given notice that a suspension was a possibility
2) Brady was not given access to some of the investigation info
 
Wow, reading the decision.. the NFL really looks bad.

Basically the judge vacated the suspension because:

No player has ever been suspended for obstruction of an NFL investigation, and Brady was never informed that failing to produce e-mails, texts would result in suspension.

As part of his Appeal, Brady requested discovery related to the wells report (notes, etc. the report was based on, wanted proof it was independent). He requested precedents and records related to prior punishments handed out by the NFL for equipment violations and to interview Wells and co-author. All of this was denied by the NFL except for interviewing Wells at the appeal.

The Court had a hard time with the NFL's assertion that the Wells report was "independent"

The 4 game suspension was given to Brady for obstruction of the investigation and being "more likely than not, generally aware" of the equipment managers underinflating balls. The Commissioner justified the 4 game number by repeatedly comparing it to the 4 game suspension handed out for first time performance enhancing drug offenders. The court rejected this comparison.

The Court finds that no player alleged or found to have had a general awareness of the inappropriate ball deflation activities of others or who allegedly schemed with others to let air out of footballs in a championship game and also had not cooperated in an ensuing investigation, reasonably could be on notice that their discipline would (or should) be the same as applied to a player who violated the NFL Policy on Anabolic Steroids and Related Substances.
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The Court concludes that, as a matter of law, no NFL policy or precedent notifies players that they may be disciplined (much less suspended) for general awareness of misconduct by others. And, it does not appear that the NFL has ever, prior to this case, sought to punish players for such an alleged violation.
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The Court finds that Commissioner Goodell's denial of Brady's motion to compel the
testimony of Mr. Pash was fundamentally unfair and in violation of9 U.S.C. § !O(a)(3). Given
Mr. Pash's very senior position in the NFL, his role as Executive Vice President and General
Counsel, and his designation as co-lead investigator with Ted Wells, it is logical that he would
have valuable insight into the course and outcome of the Investigation and into the drafting and
content of the Wells Report.

Denied the opportunity to examine Pash at the arbitral hearing, Brady was prejudiced. He
was foreclosed from exploring, among other things, whether the Pash Wells Investigation was
truly "independent," and how and why the NFL' s General Counsel came to edit a supposedly
independent investigation report.
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More Juicy Quotes

Compounding Brady's prejudice is the fact that, as noted, Paul, Weiss acted as both alleged "independent" counsel during the Investigation and also (perhaps inconsistently) as retained counsel to the NFL during the arbitration. 21 Paul, Weiss uniquely was able to retain access to investigative files and interview notes which it had developed; was able to use them in direct and
cross-examinations of Brady and other arbitration witnesses; share them with NFL officials
during the arbitral proceedings; and, at the same time, withhold them from Brady.

Commissioner Goodell had the "the affirmative duty ... to insure that relevant documentary
evidence in the hands of one party is fully and timely made available to the other party."
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If there had not been previous cases of New England being caught cheating, this would have never been an issue. Once people are debating whether or not to put stars next to your win/loss record and your accomplishments, you've really already lost the battle.
 
Every team cheats/bends the rules. With billions of dollars at stake, teams need every advantage they can get. It's just that the Patroits don't seem as good as other teams at covering it up.
 
He's a cheating guy that plays for a cheating coach. RATIONALIZE AWAY.
 
bflynn said:
If there had not been previous cases of New England being caught cheating, this would have never been an issue. Once people are debating whether or not to put stars next to your win/loss record and your accomplishments, you've really already lost the battle.
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Remember Brady was not named in the spygate situation and likely had nothing to do with it.

This decision was about punishment being levied on Brady himself, not the patriots organization.
 
dell30rb said:
Remember Brady was not named in the spygate situation and likely had nothing to do with it.

This decision was about punishment being levied on Brady himself, not the patriots organization.
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Given that he is a leader - perhaps THE leader of the players, I don't think Brady can be separated from the culture of the organization he has worked in for the last 15 years. He has built that culture, he owns it.

The punishment to Brady had to do at least in part with a failure to cooperate in the investigation and a conclusion that there was no way this happened without his knowledge.
 
Brady did cooperate with the investigation and provided all that was asked of him. The phone request was after the fact and the texts could have been easily reconstructed from the relevant textee's. The whole thing is bogus and I'm hoping the patriots get to the superbowl again this year and win it all to shut you people up.
 
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PaulS said:
Brady did cooperate with the investigation and provided all that was asked of him. The phone request was after the fact and the texts could have been easily reconstructed from the relevant textee's. The whole thing is bogus and I'm hoping the patriots get to the superbowl again this year and win it all to shut you people up.
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Maybe the Patriots will finally earn a SuperBowl without an asterisk next to it. :dunno:
 
bflynn said:
The punishment to Brady had to do at least in part with a failure to cooperate in the investigation and a conclusion that there was no way this happened without his knowledge.
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Brady did not know he was obligated to participate in the investigation or face punishment.


Let me reiterate the main points.

The Judge did not buy the NFL's claim that the investigation was independent. It was edited by the NFL's chief legal counsel before it was released. And the law firm listed as 'independent' during the investigation actually represented the NFL in the hearings! Stinks doesn't it?

Tom Brady was never given an opportunity to question the validity of the Wells report at the appeal. The court's opinion was that the NFL wrongly withheld documents and witnesses requested by Brady. Legal precedent and the CBA requires that this information should have been provided to Brady in a timely manner before the appeal. In other words, Brady had a right to a fair appeal per the CBA and Goodell did not even try to give him one.

The relationship between players, the league and the CBA requires that players must have notice of consequences for breaking rules. The judge noted that there was no way that Brady could have known he was subject to suspension for not cooperating with the 'investigation' and for being 'generally aware' of misconduct by the patriot's staff.

The NFL was aware they needed to show Brady had notice of the possible consequences for his actions, and to accomplish this, they reasoned that not cooperating with an investigation and being generally aware of ball-deflation was akin to violating the substance abuse policy. The Judge did not buy this argument.
 
I'm not a Patriots fan I just think the NFL needs to learn their lesson about their kangaroo court and discipline. They have lost in court to Adrian Peterson and Ray Rice, now Tom Brady as a result of their ridiculous discipline system. They have a CBA with the players and can't go making up **** willy nilly every time twitter goes crazy.
 
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NFL Commissioner doesn't have the same powers as the MLB Commissioner. The first baseball commissioner, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, insisted and was granted the power to act "in the best interest of baseball". The NFL didn't give its commissioner that power.
 
Goodell appears to be a person that refuses to accept thathe is not a czar. He is a guy that has brought derision on the league before and acted in ways that were flatly in violation of the CBA, and acts like the court has an obligation to back him up because he's him.
I'm glad he got his wings clipped, again.
As for the Pats, the real punishment should have been against the club for cheating, not Tom Brady to avoid annoying the owner.
 
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Brady is one of the very best quarterbacks to ever play the game. This is not only my opinion but that of most of his peers. I don't think he could have been beaten that day regardless of who did what. We have flacco here in baltimore. He could not carry water for Brady or....of course.....John Unitas.
 
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