Deflation-gate

Brady has not accepted any such offer, and as you've pointed out, nobody seems to believe that such an offer is a reasonable settlement offer.But yeah, if Brady admits guilt I'm going to consider that as confirmation that he cheated. What you seem to be saying is that there is no evidence, not even direct evidence that will ever make a difference in your opinion regarding bounty gate. According to Wikipedia anyway, there was videotaped evidence of Williams describing to his defense some specific player injuries to target and indicating that there would be some pay involved with the thumb rubbing forefinger 'money' gesture.Maybe that's all BS, but the evidence is significantly more substantial than any of the evidence involved in deflate gate. It is indeed nearly beyond belief that somebody would set up a scheme deliberately injure players, but there is credible evidence that Williams was involved in exactly that. I don't buy the, 'it's too stupid to believe' argument. People do stupid crap quite often.Also from the wikipedia article on bounty gate...

quote:

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During the 2010 investigation, Payton told Williams and Vitt to "make sure our ducks are in a row" when the league interviewed them. Before the start of the 2011 season, Payton received an email from Ornstein detailing the broader lines of the scheme. In that same email, Ornstein offered $5,000 to anyone who knocked Rodgers out of the 2011 season opener. Payton initially denied knowing that this email existed, but subsequently admitted that in fact he had read it.

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Maybe there was no such scheme, but to imply that reasons to believe bountygate was real are all manufactured at the league office is completely false. If there was this kind of evidence involved in deflategate, what would the judge have said to the NFL?Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : Add some more evidenceEdited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Exactly. And that chain would include circumstantial evidence. On the other hand the title says 'direct evidence'. That is inaccurate. Not exactly. The judge seemed interested in and put off by the destruction of the phone. The NFL did admit to having no smoking gun evidence. That's pretty much what I said. The headline does not 'say it all'. It is inaccurate, and not much in terms of wording would have been required to make it accurate.It is also inaccurate in that saying 'the headline says it all' implies that the judge had nothing significant and negative to say about Brady's position.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

It is the case that the participants in the discussion are aware of how gases behave under changes of temperature, pressure, and volume.One issue however is that there seems to be a difference in how the pressure in the sets of balls from the teams measured at half time despite being in the same location, and some dispute among some of us about whether there is an explanation for the difference other than malfeasance.But beyond that, there are maybe a dozen or more posts about the issue in this thread and some analysis in the NFL report.But yeah, everyone is aware that when the temperature of the air in a football decreases the pressure goes down.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Let me apply a different spin to the NFL's tactic.A question I have about the court case, and one which has not been discussed here is the question of 'what is the standard of review' in the court case. The assumption most people have is that it is a de novo review in which all of the evidence is going to be reconsidered by the judge.But that is not necessarily the case, particularly when the first step is mutually agreed arbitration. I don't know what the standard of review is actually supposed to be here, but if it something less than a completely new trial, then the NFL lawyers would be incompetent if they did not insist on the judge sticking to the whatever the review is supposed to be, particularly if that review is close to outcome decisive.The NFL's position may be that the judge is supposed to review the process for compliance with the players agreement. Brady's side would argue differently and would insist on a review of the facts on something close to a de novo basis. There is nothing nefarious about either position.

By new trial, I mean essential a de novo review of the facts where each side is allowed to introduce new evidence. An appeal is not the same as a trial. In an appeal, generally speaking only errors of law and process are guaranteed to be reviewable. During an appeal, the judge does not do fact finding except in the most egregious of circumstances, so generally speaking no new evidence can be introduced. (Some small exceptions in criminal cases) Those repeated appeals you list would be on smaller and smaller grounds each time.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

I think the latter. The judge, IMO, is doing his job at this point. He may have limitations on how he can rule, but he may have his own, separate opinion about what ought to happen. And there is no legal reason why the two sides cannot be asked to settle on something reasonable. If it works, then this crap does not get appealed to a circuit court, or end up back on this same judge's desk on yet another expedited basis.Frankly I find the idea of a federal judge spending time looking at football rules to be an inexcusable and probably even immoral waste of court resources. Surely there is real stuff of more vital importance to the respective parties than this crap. But instead the NFL gets that stuff put off for another time. I know it is sacrilegious to say it, but sports stuff, at least everything except Hawks basketball, just ain't all that vital. I would be perfectly fine with this case going on the federal docket with an injunction allowing Brady to play even if the case took years to resolve. Sure. And what I am suggesting is that such a plan is exactly what the NFL ought to be following. The plan does not prevent the NFL from arguing substantively if needed. But only if needed.

Your recollection is vague indeed. There are plenty of one sided, enforceable contracts. Unconscionable contacts cannot be enforced, yes, but unconscionable means way more than just uneven and unfair. You yourself have probably signed arbitration contracts that strip you of all meaningful recourse.

Wrong, one sided, stacked terms can be enforceable. Unconsionable is a term of art that covers things found to be so egregious as to make a contract unenforceable. Not getting the big end of the stick, or getting the poor end of a bargain is not sufficient alone, particularly when the parties are both strong and represented by counsel.The legal question you are asking is whether a contract where the commissioner decides the issues is enforceable. Yes, the particular arbitration scheme is one sided with respect to which side chooses the judge, but the scheme is also the result of an arms length negotiation between well represented parties each of whom benefits greatly from the terms of the contract and each of whom had substantial strong bargaining position. It appears, as lots of people noted at the end of the last work stoppage, that the players yielded some power to the owners for cash. Whatever the judge decides to do, one thing that is most unlikely, IMO, is that he will rule that such a negotiated scheme is not enforceable.Let's compare that situation to the typical situation that involves something like cable or telephone service contracts. The service provider generally picks and pays the arbitrator chooses which states law that will be applied, and your choice is simply not to sign the contract. Those terms are enforceable. Who picks the arbiter?Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Exactly. I'm not making an argument about fairness. But unlike the case when you sign a phone contract, this is not a contract of adhesion. The agreement between players and owners was negotiated. Obviously there are terms in the contract that favor each side. There weren't any hidden terms, and both sides had lawyers. I don't think, "we couldn't read the contract" is going to be a useful argument. I don't know enough to say. As we'd surmised... The pre trial injunction might not exist during the entire exercise. Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

DupEdited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Of course Brady would seek the injunction but it may not be granted. The standard for granting a pre trial injunction is irreperable harm and substantial chance of prevailing on the merits.As for arbitration, the process by which the NFL issued Brady's unishment is not arbitration. There was no arbitration. Just an internal process, an internal appeal, and then a court review. I have seen no indication that either party is surprised by proceedings so far. Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

The original decision was rendered by Vincent and not Goodell.Secondly being angered and complaining about the process does not mean that there was surprise over the process.In a previous situation, Goodell actually did review his own decision. If the players were surprised this time, they are idiots.I am away from my computer and cannot do a proper link, but the dispute and appeal process is described in article 46 of the CBA. Nothing unforseeable about Goodell hearing the appeal. I would not call that process arbitration unless an outside arbiter was used.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

I'm not ignoring article 43. But article 43 clearly does not apply unless arbitration is used. Attempting to call the process arbitration is what causes you to look at 43. But what is clearly going on here is an internal process where the league/commissioner applies punishment to a player. The entire process for that is described in section 46 and does not require arbitration at all.Using lay definitions here clearly leads to the wrong answer. What I see is that I'm not allowing you to play games. Of course 'surprise' was my word. It's also the word I used before you asked me if I had heard about the player's complaining. I'm defending my position and not the position you are assigning to me.My position is that the particular process being used is spelled out in a negotiated agreement that both sides and their attorneys had an opportunity to read before signing. I am not claiming that the NFLPA likes that position. But if there is any surprise at this point, the reflects pure stupidity. Even the press seemed to know what to expect from the process even before the Wells report came out. Well, rather than just having one side's position in this thread we appear now to have both sides' positions established. I don't see anything wrong with that.

I think the context under which I used the term surprise is missing here. The procedure being used here is well spelled out in the CBA, and in fact has been used before. Neither side should be surprised that Article 46 procedures are being used here.The press may be calling the hearing officer an arbitrator, and that's fine unless you are having a discussion about the details. I don't find this argument the least bit credible. What did the NFLPA think that the quoted sentence meant?

Calling the hearing officer an arbitrator is of no consequence whatsoever. Who really cares what the guy is called. But not understanding that you are having a hearing rather than an arbitration is beyond ridiculous. Maybe I could understand being caught off guard once, but the procedure we are discussing has been used several times. The CBA contains an explicit statement that the Commissioner can appoint himself as a hearing officer. I can understand the NFLPA arguing that such a procedure is unfair. But I don't find it credible that their lawyers thought the statement did not mean exactly what it says. I don't know. What if the process instead was that the boss of my boss would decide the appeal?I'm not an expert in employment law. But that said, it would not be all that surprising to find that there was a level of internal review before there was any appeal outside of the company. That is the process I see described in section 46. What I would expect under that process is that the NFL would pick one or more hearing officers, each of whom is likely to be NFL staff including the Commissioner. Isn't that exactly what you read?I know even less about union/employer law. Maybe there should be an additional level of appeal, but I see no reason why two levels of internal review would be illegal. In this case, perhaps the only level of external review is to appeal to district court exactly as Brady has done.Does that mean that there is anything wrong with the union asking for arbitration. No. Is it possible that the NFL's procedure won't pass muster in court? Of course that's possible. I've even read some commentary from one lawyer that such a process would not pass muster in his state and recommending that the NFLPA try to file there (in Missouri) for that reason. But I don't see any way that the NFLPA can claim not to have agreed to the current procedure as written in section 46.Edited by NoNukes, : add some additional info re Missouri law.