The Tyrant Wins Again

So I'm using a Crying Jordan meme as my cover photo for this post. Sue me. A, I think it's funny, and B, it pretty perfectly captures just what's going on in sports today.

The NFL has once again made headlines for a terrible reason as the Deflategate Phoenix rises from the ashes again. The US Court of Appeals reversed last year's ruling nullifying Tom Brady's suspension, and reinstated it effective immediately. A copy of the court's ruling can be found here. The CliffNotes version of it, based on my admittedly limited knowledge of legal mumbo jumbo, is that the NFL's collective bargaining agreement with the NFL Players' Association allows Roger Goodell a wide latitude of judgment power, and that what happened with Brady's arbitration hearing was within the scope of that power.

Again, based on how I understand the CBA and the law, the court appears to have gotten this one right. A court of law just isn't going to overrule the finding of an arbitrator in a labor dispute unless some very shady stuff happened. I think some shady stuff definitely happened in how the hearing was handled, but clearly the bargaining agreement allows Goodell this power.

So now, Tom Brady is out for the first four games of the 2016 season, barring an appeal either to the full Appeals Court or an appeal all the way up to the Supreme Court, neither of whom is likely to waste their time on an issue about footballs losing air pressure due to cold, wet weather. On the legal front, it's no surprise, and I'm not going to argue about how the court system got it wrong, because they didn't. This case was never about the evidence itself, it was about the process, which is apparently all good.

That last point is what should scare NFL fans, and more so players. Roger Goodell now has, for all intents and purposes, carte blanche to do whatever the hell he wants on a whim. Many people are thrilled with this decision because of confirmation bias and the NFL's smear campaign that will never go away because the league is too powerful. What is to stop Goodell from destroying another team's season based on misinformation? Per the collective bargaining agreement, nothing.

I touched on this back in September when the original ruling came down, and I want to bring up a similar point today. The agreement currently in place does not expire until 2020, and there are no opt out clauses. We have a few more seasons of this garbage, and there is only one way that we can make sure that this railroading never happens again: the NFL Players' Association needs to go on strike. This is clearly an extreme reaction, but it's one that I'm only half-joking about. I would be bummed to not have football on Sundays. But honestly, I think it's something that needs to be done. The only reason this fiasco is still in the news is because Roger Goodell's ego needed to be stroked. He couldn't handle continued embarrassment at the hands of a player, so he had to make sure that The Shield remained impenetrable, even if it meant going after one of the league's marquee players. How much more would Goodell do if it were a run-of-the-mill offensive lineman? Or a backup linebacker? The only way to make sure that this process is more fair for all involved is to force a change to the CBA, and the only way to do that is with a labor stoppage.

Unfortunately, with money to be made, I doubt the union will take this step, and the fans would riot if it did. This means we are stuck with a buffoon in charge of America's most popular sport, and because money continues to pour in, he's not going anywhere. And it's a damn shame.