Tom Brady's Four-Game Suspension Reinstated by Appeals Court
Wheee! Hey, welcome back! Welcome to round three of the brawl between the NFL (Roger Goodell) and Tom Brady involving deflated footballs and who knew what and when did they know it and how much did that know and blah blah blah.
You remember how this started, right? Many months ago the Indianapolis Colts accused the New England Patriots of deflating footballs in order to gain a competitive advantage. From there it devolved into a he said, he said accusatory mess. Anyone from Peyton Manning to Tom Brady's father to Donald Trump have been brought into this media tornado.
All of this started after a game played on January 18, 2015 between the Patriots and the Colts. As this is being written the date is April 25th, 2016. That's over 15 months and it still isn't over. Here's a video helping with the timeline of this 15 month legal fight.
Earlier today it was announced that a federal appeals court ruled in the NFL's favor of a four-game suspension for Brady. There were three judges that ruled on the matter: Denny Chin, Barrington D. Parker and Chief Judge Robert A. Katzman. Chin and Parker ruled in favor of the NFL while Katzman ruled in favor of Brady.
Both Chin and Parker never said that Brady was guilty, necessarily. What Chin and Parker argued was that Goodell was within his rights, according to the collective bargaining agreement, to do what he did to Brady and the Patriots. According to Parker, "We may not disturb an award so long as he acted within the bounds of his bargained-for authority."
On the other end of the ruling, Katzman didn't like how Goodell used his power. Katzman said "troubled" by Goodell's ruling and that it was "unprecedented." Katzman even criticized Goodell for "adopting a shifting rationale for Brady's discipline."
The NFL, excited that the court ruled in their favor, released a statement.
"We are pleased the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled today that the Commissioner properly exercised his authority under the collective bargaining agreement to act in cases involving the integrity of the game," the NFL said in a statement. "That authority has been recognized by many courts and has been expressly incorporated into every collective bargaining agreement between the NFL and (the NFL Players Association) for the past 40 years."
The NFL PA, decidedly less happy about the decision, released a statement of their own.
"We fought Roger Goodell's suspension of Tom Brady because we know he did not serve as a fair arbitrator and that players' rights were violated under our collective bargaining agreement," the NFLPA said. "Our Union will carefully review the decision, consider all of our options and continue to fight for players' rights and for the integrity of the game."
So we're done, right? This is over. We can all go home now and accept that Brady, maybe, did something wrong and that the NFL may or may not have acted unethically as well? Well, not exactly.
The courts ruled that this won't go back to Judge Richard Berman (the judge that originally overturned the ruling on September 3, 2015) but there could be other avenues for Brady.
If Brady doesn't plan to accept the punishment and may seek anything from an appeal to the US Supreme Court to a defamation lawsuit against the NFL, according to SI Legal Analyst Michael McCann.
The odds of him winning those cases are rare but not impossible. The Supreme Court only accepts around 1% of the cases that are brought to them and it doesn't usually involve something this insignificant in the macro perspective. Also, a defamation lawsuit is harder to win when you're a public figure.
Still, Brady has a few options if he wants to continue this fight against the NFL so expect this story to go on for a little while longer.