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.

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.