Judge Starstruck, Brady Is Still A Weasel

"Judge discredits NFL findings, lifts Brady’s 4-game suspension" (Friday Sports) reads the title of one article on Deflategate.  "Has NFL boss done more harm than good?" reads the title of another.  Based on the reportage, sports fans might believe that New England quarterback Tom Brady has been completely exonerated of the NFL charges that he conspired to have his footballs under-inflated, and that commission Roger Goodell trumped up the charges against him, but that is far from the truth.

For starters, federal judge Richard M. Berman comes across more as a Brady Fan Boy than he does a judge.  His black and white ruling concludes that the NFL was wrong, and that they victimized Brady by denying him his rights as a defendant, citing "several significant legal deficiencies” in the league’s handling of the controversy, including no advance notice of potential penalties", and "a refusal to produce a key witness."  The problem with Berman's conclusions is that Brady was accused of workplace misconduct, not a crime, so he was not entitled to the same protections. 

And it is anybody's guess what kind of Pandora's box Berman opened for HR departments across the land with his assertion that Brady was entitled to "advance notice of potential penalties".  If the NFL was required to advertise a schedule of punishments for the 1001 potential ways that players could alter a football, their uniforms, the playing surface or any other aspect of the sport, it's safe to assume that everything about employee misconduct can now be litigated, endlessly.  

What is most startling to me, though, is Berman's complete lack of curiosity about the facts that the NFL did provide regarding Brady's culpability, including the text messages between the trainers discussing their conversations with Brady, the suspicious destruction of 10,000 messages on his cell phone, and his general stone-walling.  Judge Berman presides over a court of law.  Wasn't he required to consider the incredible assertions of Brady as vigorously as he challenged the credible assertions of the NFL? 

If this thing progresses, inevitably Tom Brady is going to have to put his hand on a bible and swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and the stakes are going to be a lot higher than a piddling four game suspension.  With his unilateral actions, Berman may have postponed Brady's day of reckoning, but he just upped the consequences by an order of magnitude.  The NFL has no choice but to pursue the matter further, or risk the integrity of their sport, and Brady will finally be forced to testify.

His day of reckoning just got a whole lot darker.

Pete Smith

Houston, TX