Hurley: DeflateGate Always And Forever About Roger Goodell, Not Tom Brady
By Michael Hurley, CBS Boston
BOSTON (CBS) -- What we have seen play out over the past day -- and the past 16 months, for that matter -- has been an intimate look at just how far Roger Goodell is willing to go to polish an image that does not exist.
This image -- the reputation, the character, the "integrity" -- was all ruined, decimated by the fallout of the Ray Rice situation, a case in which Goodell failed to follow even the most basic guidelines of human decency and stumbled repeatedly in the public eye while trying to cover up his missteps. Pretending to be suddenly enlightened that a man hitting a woman is a bad thing, and then hiring a former FBI director to run an "independent" investigation to clear his name was, in Goodell's eyes, a satisfactory conclusion. But to a country that stayed uniquely tuned in to the controversy, it most certainly was not.
The entire episode was embarrassing and it was non-human, and any man with any sense of humility would have stepped away from a position for which he clearly was not best suited.
But that's not in Roger Goodell's blood. Instead he decided to say, "I'm going home, and I'm taking my ball with me."
So now, we're seeing the depths to which Goodell is willing to travel to boost his name and inflate his ego. That's what this is, and that's what this has been for more than a year.
Make no mistake -- there's reason for many to believe that some sort of deflation of the footballs went on. At the same time, there's reason for many others to believe nothing at all happened.
The fact remains that nobody -- outside of the actually involved parties -- knows.
No. Body. Knows.
Nobody.
Nobody!
That's what nobody has been willing to admit throughout the whole sordid ordeal. You don't know what happened! You think you know what happened, and that's fine. But that's an opinion. Severe punishments aren't handed down based on opinions ... except for now, when the rules have changed.
It was a close-but-no-cigar investigation for Goodell, but that wasn't enough for him. Any reasonable commissioner would have issued a slap on the wrist and a warning, announcing that the team almost got caught red-handed and would therefore be on close watch going forward. But not Roger. After Ted Wells and Exponent both couldn't conclude definitively that there was definitely human tampering, Jeff Pash went to work to round the edges and fill in the blanks before going public with the "independent" investigation. Voila. The story was written as the NFL saw fit. The country ate it up.
From the very start, Roger Goodell controlled the public narrative. And it's that exact story -- the one we know to be filled with misinformation, deceptive science, glaring omissions, etc. etc. etc. -- that judges Denny Chin and Barrington Parker accepted at face value. Frankly, in those judges' eyes, the commissioner could have hired a kindergarten student to run the investigation, and the commissioner could have sentenced Brady to 10 years on Rikers Island, and it would all be A-OK, based on the collective-bargaining agreement.
For many people, that was that. Decades of labor disputes, thousands of pages of collective bargaining, immense history and precedence -- it all boiled down to the stock comment on Facebook and/or Twitter: The CBA gives Goodell this power, it's the union's fault for giving him that power, blame the union. That's certainly the tone of Dan Shaughnessy's victory lap column, it's been the tone of Michael Felger all over the Boston airwaves, and it's been the headline splashed on TV screens and news stories around the country. This was a landslide win for the NFL, and the union looks bad.
But, like everything else in this convoluted drama about pounds per square inch, it's not that simple. If it were that simple, then the case never would have even made it to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. It never would have even made it into Judge Richard Berman's courtroom for that matter. And certainly, Judge Berman and Judge Robert Katzmann wouldn't have ruled in complete opposition to judges Parker and Chin.
Between them, Berman and Katzmann have about 80 years practicing law. Berman has been a district judge since 1998. Katzmann has been on the Second Circuit since 1999. He was named chief judge in 2013.
These two judges ruled -- and ruled quite definitively -- that Roger Goodell abused his power as commissioner. Both judges found the language of Article 46 to favor the player and not the commissioner in this instance. Katzmann stated:
"The Article 46 appeals process is designed to provide a check against the Commissioner's otherwise unfettered authority to impose discipline for 'conduct detrimental.' But the Commissioner's murky explanation of Brady's discipline undercuts the protections for which the NFLPA bargained on Brady's, and others', behalf. It is ironic that a process designed to ensure fairness to all players has been used unfairly against one player."
Mind you, these are not the written words of a "Patriots bobo," or someone who is "in the tank for Kraft," or however one would want to dismiss such an opinion if one were inclined to do so. These were written by the chief judge of the Second Circuit, and when taken in conjunction with Berman's thorough September ruling, it should at the very least convince you that this is not a case that is as simple as "the CBA gives Goodell the authority; end of story."
In a fascinating twist, Goodell had this to say about the Second Circuit's decision:
"We think it's important that the commissioner protect the integrity of the game, that you can't entrust that to someone who has no understanding of our business, and the appellate court yesterday reaffirmed that."
Sir!
"Someone who has no understanding of our business?" You'll recall that Roger Goodell is not a lawyer. He has a bachelor's degree in economics from Washington and Jefferson College. He's not a lawyer. He's not a judge. One could say that he has no understanding of labor law. Yet he's been eager to pretend to be a prosecutor, investigator and judge throughout the process. (Open the appeal hearing transcript, search for the word "Goodell," see where he speaks, and ask yourself if that's someone who has any understanding of how to run a legal proceeding.)
Anyone who really took a minute to dive into that appeal hearing at NFL headquarters could plainly see how shoddy the entire process was, and even though judges Parker and Chin cared not to really involve themselves in the nitty-gritty of a labor dispute, other teams have certainly taken note.
Mike Freeman's story, which quotes 10 anonymous executives around the league, paints a picture once thought to be impossible: a world where other NFL teams side with the Patriots and against the NFL. As one anonymous general manager told Freeman:
"The Patriots aren't victims, but they are a cautionary tale for the rest of the league. They're a reminder the commissioner can do whatever he wants, and there isn't a damn thing any team can do about it."
That is, essentially, the takeaway from Monday's ruling. The mere existence of Article 46 -- which accounts for just three pages of the 300-plus CBA -- is enough to put players on notice that if they do anything deemed to be wrong by the commissioner, then that commissioner has the broad authority to impose whatever discipline he sees fit.
If that doesn't sound an alarm across the league, perhaps nothing will.
As to what happens next, it's difficult to predict. If Monday's ruling stands as the record, then Goodell was just handed virtually limitless power to act however he sees fit. Barring an owner revolt (unlikely) or a work stoppage (even less likely), that power would give Goodell carte blanche to overpunish anyone however he sees fit. The courts, which have long been the bane of Goodell's disciplinarian existence, could no longer help the players. By way of deceit, half-truths and out-and-out lies, Goodell will have won the day.
On the other hand, if Brady's appeal is reheard by the entire Second Circuit and a different ruling is found, or if the Eighth Circuit rules favorably for Adrian Peterson and against the NFL (which has seemed to be a likely outcome all along), then things obviously change. What happens then, even if Brady and the NFLPA don't take the case to the Supreme Court, is a continued murky situation, with the Eighth Circuit ruling one way and the Second Circuit ruling another. As we've seen over the past year, any wiggle room in any language can be expertly exploited by the highly skilled attorneys working both sides of these disputes, so it would be safe to forecast a state of continued ambiguity with regard to the rights of the players and the rights of the commissioner. Perhaps many more court dates would be on the docket for the NFL and its players going forward.
How fun.
Whatever the case may end up being, we already have seen enough from Roger Goodell to know how far he's willing to go to improve his own image and bolster his own reputation. If only he could see how long ago that ship sailed, perhaps this potential minor infraction-turned-national scandal would have never gotten here.
You can email Michael Hurley or find him on Twitter @michaelFhurley.