The New England Patriots picked up another win.
It wasn’t a Super Bowl, but it was a win in court.
The Patriots and NFL Player’s Union won their appeal against the NFL, nullifying Patriots quarterback Tom Brady’s four-game suspension.
The decision has directed fire back at Commissioner Roger Goodel, who has come up short yet again in a case of player discipline.
Goodell’s struggles started in 2007, just 18 months after he became the NFL’s new commissioner. The Patriots faced allegations after being caught taping opposing teams’ hand signals in what would eventually be known as “Spygate.”
Four days after the allegations came up, Goodell punished the Patriots by fining head coach Bill Belichick and the team and taking away a future first-round draft pick.
Goodell ordered league officials in a disclosed NFL meeting to destroy the tapes by stomping on them; then to shred files of hand-written notes.
The stomping of the tapes was the worst call Goodell could have made. Regardless if the tapes were obtained legally and thus made proprietary, Goodell should have looked further into their information to see how long the tapings continued, in what way they were conducted and which games could have been altered due to the videotaping of other teams.
“Why destroy the notes?” said former U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., in an interview with ESPN. “The sequence is just incomprehensible.”
Were any games, playoff results or Patriot Super Bowls an outcome of Spygate? Some Patriot executives, coaches and players still don’t have the answers.
Mike Martz, 2001 head coach of the St. Louis Rams, released a statement in May 2008 saying he was satisfied with the NFL’s investigation of Spygate.
Martz’s Rams lost to the Patriots in Super Bowl 36 during the Spygate era.
However, Martz had said in an interview with Outside the Lines that a panicked Goodell requested Martz release the satisified statement in fear of a congressional investigation reflecting badly on the league.
Fast forward to the 2015 AFC Championship Game that pitted the Patriots against the Indianapolis Colts. The Patriots were once again accused of cheating when league officials discovered some of the balls had been deflated with the Patriots’ knowledge.
New England was not only an 8-point favorite, but it also had one of the best defenses in the NFL and, to many people’s disapproval, arguably the greatest quarterback ever in Tom Brady.
The ball could have been filled with helium, and the Patriots would have still gone on to the Super Bowl.
Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers said in a week 13 interview with CBS’ Phil Simms that he likes to “push the limits” when it comes to how much air is in the footballs to see if the officials would take air out because it makes it easier for him to grip.
The NFL rules state the ball must be 13 pounds per square inch and be stamped by an official in order to be used in play, but why can’t balls be under or over-inflated as long as both teams know?
In a promise to deal with cheating more seriously, he issued a four-game suspension to Brady to begin the 2015 season while taking away the team’s 2016 first-round draft pick and 2017 fourth-round pick.
Many owners were supportive of Goodell’s harsh punishment in Deflategate, while others called the actions a “make-up call.”
However, after months of hearings on Brady’s suspension appeal, U.S. District Judge Richard M. Berman overturned the suspension Sept. 3.
On Friday, another haymaker was thrown at Goodell, as the NFL Players Association demanded the commissioner remove himself from the arbitration process involving Deflategate and legal processes. If not, Goodell should remove himself from the case completely.
It didn’t matter what Judge Berman ruled on the suspension. It didn’t matter that the Patriots accepted the punishment despite believing they did nothing wrong.
It’s the fact that Goodell tried to make amends for his actions in Spygate, and it backfired.
The commissioner and the league lost, again. The Patriots and the NFLPA won, again.
Now Brady is back in the NFL, where he should be. As for Goodell, he finds his record at 0-5 — from the Saints’ Bountygate through Deflategate — and himself on the hot seat, where he should be.
micbhern@indiana.edu
