Tears of a Tyrant

Really, I think this tweet sent out by the New England Patriots this morning says it all.

pic.twitter.com/KEpFUMr5bi

— New England Patriots (@Patriots) September 3, 2015

I've been pretty silent on the whole DeflateGate mess since it first came out. Unfortunately, I fell victim to the NFL's media campaign to sully Brady's name with the whole "11 of 12 footballs" report that was found to be a lie by the NFL's own investigation, yet idiots continue to trot that number out as if it were gospel because why would the NFL lie? Simple: Roger Goodell is a tyrant with a huge ego who didn't want to excuse a perceived disgrace of The Shield by Brady's alleged "general awareness". He couldn't let perceived injustice go unpunished. He's the man in charge, he had to remind the league.

Problem is, everyone that doubted it in the wake of the Ray Rice fiasco now knows that Goodell has no qualms about overreaching. He thinks he's all powerful, hence the four game suspension in the first place. ESPN's Mike Greenberg had a good point about this though.

So, unlimited power does NOT mean you can just do anything you want. Justice is served.

— Mike Greenberg (@Espngreeny) September 3, 2015

If you haven't already, you should read Judge Berman's full ruling. While there's a fair amount of legalese, it's only 40 pages long and covers pretty much everything, while hitting on all the important points of the whole saga. It's important to note that the suspension was overturned because Goodell violated the CBA and refused more than one of Brady's requests for due process, not because the NFL had no evidence that Brady did anything (even though this point is absolutely true).

This is a big win for the game in general, but at this point, we still have a problem: Roger Goodell remains in office. It's clear that after this latest court loss that he has no business continuing to be the commissioner of the NFL. He continues to impose arbitrary punishments depending on how he views a player's actions for the image of the league, even if there's no evidence of anything actually happening. At the time it happened, I was all for the suspensions in New Orleans, but that situation was much like this one: the media fueled the NFL's propaganda, even if it wasn't true, and players were railroaded. The problem is, the Saints actually had a season impacted by that fiasco. The Patriots, unless Robert Kraft decides he wants to appeal the fine and loss of draft picks now, won't see an impact, at least not this season.

My final though is something of a hot take, so bear with me. The next collective bargaining agreement expires in 2020. This is a long ways away. Until that time, we're going to see more and more players going to court to overturn suspensions set by Goodell and the NFL. There are already rumors that Greg Hardy will fight his suspension, and other players will probably do the same in the future. I'm not sure I agree with that, unless it's clear, like in the Rice case, that Goodell is abusing his power again. When the CBA expires, the player's association needs to fight the disciplinary process and get independent arbitrators hearing appeals, as well as more standardized policies for discipline. If the league refuses to budge, the players should strike. While I'd hate to miss football, I think it would be worth it to get the NFL back into a system of checks and balances.

This gets me to my hot take: if, God forbid, Goodell is still in office by then and this sort of nonsense continues to take place, I think the players should demand he resign or refuse to play. It's the only way the owners would consider firing him unless sometime soon they decide the PR nightmare is too much. I have doubts that they will, so until then, we're going to keep hearing about these scandals because he is a lying tyrant.