It has nothing to do with liking or disliking the policy. It has to do with the NFL's failure to follow their own policies correctly. There is a reason most of the better legal analysts thought the NFLPA had a good chance (which is important since most arbitration award confirmations are slam dunks), the NFL really badly botched the process, and failed to follow arbitration procedures correctly. I can't see any way they win on appeal, since the standard of review will be clear error. On the whole this is much more a win for the Union than just Brady, it is likely to really limit the free-wheeling use of the "integrity of the game" clause by Goodell.
OK, you got me. I read the decision but should quote it for you to be accurate. Next time I won't summarize it and will quote all 30+ pages. GTFO. Berman ruled that Brady can't be punished because the CBA doesn't put players on notice that they can be punished for cheating. That, and an inability to examine documentation and c/x investigators is the gist of Judge Berman's decision. Brady has not been declared innocent. He has not been vindicated. He just can't be punished. That's it. You compare his situation to that of a coach (Tomlin) tripping a player on a punt return. That is a completely different fact situation and deflects the conversation away from the legal reasoning of Judge Berman's decision - this is a typical deflection response from a Pats homer. Yes, Tomlin was caught cheating, but he is not a player who falls under the CBA. The CBA forms the basis for Berman's decision, so it is you who is being consciously inaccurate.
The Patriot Way is a calculated strategy to bend, twist, and blatantly subvert NFL rules in an all out quest to win and humiliate. It deviates from all common notions of sportsmanship, fair play, and decency, and taints everything the franchise has ever accomplished. Enjoy those asterisks Pats fans!
tomlin apologized right after the game, and then some. But the pats trolls need to point to those one off incidents to make themselves feel better. Tomlin was a dope for doing that, and he still is a dope for some of the coaching he's doing.
So the way I read the report was that; 1. A player who is maybe generally aware of or taking part in ball deflation =/= Taking performance enhancing drugs. 2. The Independent Wells report might not of been that independent. 3. The NFL was as obstructive as TB was. In short, the NFL is still piss poor at dishing out punishments and Goodell was seriously overeaching/incompetent. My consolation is that the Pats get Brady for the full regular season so have no excuses for whatever record they end up with.
Let's all be very clear here.. http://nypost.com/2015/01/30/the-belichick-crony-who-secretly-runs-black-ops-for-patriots/ Meet the ‘black ops’ man behind the Patriots’ success By Brian Costello January 30, 2015 | 5:38pm Modal Trigger Patriots director of player research Ernie Adams, left, and head coach Bill Belichick watch the team do drills before a game in 2009. Photo: AP MORE ON: new england patriots Brady, Goodell and beyond: Winners and losers of Deflategate ruling Brady's Deflategate suspension tossed; judge mocks Goodell Tom Brady uses Deflategate sarcasm at Patriots party All the twists that could follow a Deflategate decision CHANDLER, Ariz. – You have to turn all the way to page 50 of the New England Patriots media guide before you come across the mysterious man many people believe is the secret to the team’s success. The man has big, horn-rimmed glasses, a graying mustache and a tuft of slightly mussed hair on his head. “Ernie Adams, Football Research Director,” it reads. Adams has been with Patriots coach Bill Belichick since he took the Patriots job in 2000 after previously working with him with the Giants and Browns. The two went to prep school together, and those around the Patriots describe a never-ending dialogue between the two. He is believed to be the primary voice in Belichick’s headset on game day and is a constant presence at Patriots practice. But even members of the Patriots are not quite sure what Adams actually does. Nor they are not willing to say. “Nothing,” offensive line coach Dave DeGuglielmo says when asked what he could say about Adams’ role. “He does a lot, but I can’t tell you anything.” Here’s how important the 61-year-old former Wall Street trader is to the Patriots: In the team’s Arizona hotel, two members of the Patriots’ staff have offices with doors on them. One is Belichick. The other is Adams. “I really don’t know what he does,” wide receiver Danny Amendola said. “I’ve gotten to talk to him just a little bit. I feel like deep down he might be the mad scientist behind all of this. I’d like to know.” In the media guide, Adams’ job description is: “researching special assignments for both the coaching staff and the personnel department.” Modal Trigger Photo: The Boston Globe via Getty Images People who have worked with Adams describe him as a master of the NFL rulebook and a football historian. “I don’t know everything he does,” offensive lineman Dan Connolly said. “I know that whenever I’ve had a question come up about rules, I’ll go to him. He always seems to know the answer.” Patriots special teams coach Scott O’Brien said Adams helps him with any rules changes and they sometimes discuss strategy. Asked why Adams shies away from any recognition or attention, he said, “You’d have to ask Ernie.” Good luck with that. The Patriots did hundreds of interviews this week, from owner Robert Kraft down to the last man on the roster and all of the position coaches. Not Adams. He rarely does interviews, preferring to keep out of the spotlight. Since he is not technically a coach, he is not required to do any interviews, even during Super Bowl week. “He is the black ops of pro football analysis,” DeGuglielmo said. “He is undercover and out of sight.” One of the few interviews Adams has done was in 2008 with the alumni magazine of Northwestern University, where he went. “The truth is, I’ve always preferred to fly under the radar,” he said in the article. “I just don’t need a lot of notice. I love what I do, and that’s enough. And there’s a lot of stuff about being in the spotlight that I just don’t want. Let someone else worry about the media and the second-guessing and all the pressure.” Adams grew up in Massachusetts and became obsessed with football, reading Vince Lombardi’s “Run to Daylight” multiple times and “Football Scouting Methods,” by a Navy assistant coach named Steve Belichick. During his senior year at Phillips Andover Academy, he met Bill Belichick, who had just entered the school. He found out Belichick was Steve’s son and a friendship was born. After attending Northwestern, Adams got a job with the Patriots in 1975. He went to the Giants in 1979 where he was reunited with Belichick. He spent the first three years as an assistant coach, mentoring a young Phil Simms, and the last three in the scouting department. He left to work on Wall Street before the Giants went to the Super Bowl in 1986. Adams returned to football in 1991, when Belichick became the head coach of the Browns, left again after Belichick was fired then rejoined Belichick in New England in 2000. The two have been together ever since. In the book “The Education of a Coach,” author David Halberstam describes Adams as “Belichick’s Belichick.” When Belichick shows a new strategy like playing with eligible and ineligible receivers to confuse the defense during the playoffs, many believe Adams is behind it. He also gets the finger pointed at him when the Patriots stray from the rules. All those taped signals from the “Spygate” controversy? Belichick admitted they were going to Adams for analysis. But no one is quite sure exactly what Adams really does, it seems, outside of Adams and Belichick. In Cleveland, Browns owner Art Modell once said, “I’ll pay anyone here $10,000 if they can tell me what Ernie Adams does.” In Halberstam’s book he describes a team meeting where a photo of Adams was shown on the big screen and underneath was written, “What does this man do?” Adams told the Northwestern alumni magazine he lists his profession as “research” on his tax return. “He does anything and everything that Bill asks him to do,” tight ends coach Brian Daboll said. What exactly that is, no one will say. “His insight is vast,” DeGuglielmo said. “He goes back years and years in his research. Exactly what he does, I’m not at liberty to say.”
I couldn't help but think it's possible that this court ruling had the potential to be the best part of the 2015 season. Defense has been gutted. It's difficult to field a football team that does nothing but throw to the tight end every play. I'm hoping for the best but I expect the worst. Dragging TB through this off season was a penalty in an of itself.
Because the court has no jurisdiction over the NFL's punishment of their players other than whether they do so in accordance to their collected bargaining agreement. And that is what was ruled against them -- their punishment was out of the boundary of what had been agreed upon with the players. Whether he was actually guilty of the charge is completely separate from the claim that the NFL can't levy a suspension for that guilt.
Ah yes the scumbag Pats fan whose got to rub it into the Jets fans that have nothing to do with this.I want to play your QB, nothing will be more satisfiying that crushing that cheater on a blind sack. Bring it on asshole. You guys aren't really Pats fans, you're really anti-NY fans.
Steelers Impedgate (2013): Jacoby Jones took a kickoff back and had to alter his path because Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin had stepped onto the field. PUNISHMENT: Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin was fined $100,000 by NFL Steroidgate (1970-2007): Richard Rydze, a Pittsburgh Steelers team doctor from 1985 to 2007, was indicted in 2012 for his long history of purchasing and illegally prescribing anabolic steroids, human growth hormones and painkillers. Rydze was questioned then about buying $150,000 worth of testosterone and human growth hormone on his credit card in 2006 Former Saints coach Jim Haslett accused the '70s Steelers of being "the ones who kind of started" steroid use in the NFL. Fran Tarkenton, "We’re playing the Steelers in the Super Bowl in ’75 or ’76 … we’re on the field warming up, and I see these Steeler offensive linemen with their sleeves rolled up, and they've got these bulging muscles. Later, we found out it that … these guys were juiced … all of them." PUNISHED? No but ... it's more probable than not that this was cheating Salarycapgate (2000): The Pittsburgh Steelers lost their third-round pick in the 2001 draft and were fined $150,000 by the National Football League for violating salary cap rules Shouldergate (1978): In May of 1978, the Pittsburgh Steelers were caught running an illegal off-season practice and stripped of their third-round pick in the 1979 draft by commissioner Pete Rozelle. Crampgate (2012): In November of 2012 the NFL fined Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Emmanuel Sanders $15,000 and the Steelers organization another $35,000 for Sanders' faking of an injury against the Cincinnati Bengals on Oct. 21, 2012. Spygate (1992-2006): Former Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Bill Cowher admitted that his Steelers teams stole opponents' defensive signals. In an interview with a local radio station he said: "The only thing they [The Patriots] got caught (was) doing it with a camera. We had people that always tried to steal signals. Stealing someone's signals was a part of the game, and everyone attempted to do that."
how are any of those things against the integrity of the game on the field other than the tomlin thing and the practice thing? the steriods were not banned until 1989 and all teams roided up, it's before you were born so i don't expect you to have any recollection of the NFL. Nice cut and paste from the Pats nation webpage yourteam cheats......... eat some dicks boy
You're 100 times the troll I'll ever be. I'm not on here gloating or screaming about anything. The NFL is a fuckin' mess of an organization and the management and ownership should get a fucking code red for it. And that should be obvious to any fan, regardless of deflate gate. That group is a hot mess making their own rules as they go and they're banking on skirting that issue due to who likes which team. NFL Sunday ticket, tickets to games, all that shit - then putting their hands out for public money to build stadiums for shit teams. Screw that business. The game of football is bigger than these clowns.
Stop. Just stop. Stealing signals is not against any rules. Read the NFL gameday operations manual. Go away. Enjoy your weekend.
What asterisks? The only asterisks are from jealous, envious rival fans. Wake me up when you see asterisks in the official NFL record books.
They're there. They look the same as they do in the MLB record book next to Barry Bonds home run record.
