The NFL acts as if it’s above science and the law — and that’s unacceptable

[Leto]

Sally Jenkins makes the connection between the NFL's lying throughout the deflagate case and their lies during the Concussion cases.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/redskins/the-nfl-acts-as-if-its-above-science-and-the-law--and-thats-unacceptable/2016/05/24/0096199c-21d2-11e6-aa84-42391ba52c91_story.html

“Biased, agenda-driven, and self-approving.” With that powerful smack of a sentence, attorney Theodore Olson summed up the NFL. This is how the league conducts itself under Commissioner Roger Goodell, whether in its travesty of an arbitration with Tom Brady or its sham of a commitment to the National Institutes of Health on brain study, and attempts to foil and discredit legitimate researchers.

A pair of short, ringingly clear documents delivered a one-two punch to the league Monday. First, a congressional report condemned the NFL for its “improper” attempt to steer the NIH study of brain diseases afflicting players. Then an appeal by Olson on behalf of Brady to the 2nd Circuit brilliantly destroyed Goodell for running “roughshod over the rule of law” in suspending the New England Patriots quarterback for four games on no evidence. They should be read as companion pieces, and read closely, because they form a consistent portrait of how the league does business. It has no real respect for law, or labor or science.

Throughout the Brady case, the league has focused on Goodell’s “power,” as opposed to the legally responsible exercise of that power. There was zero evidence that the footballs in the 2015 AFC championship game were deflated by human hand — scientists agree that Goodell and his staff flunked basic physics in failing to recognize the effects of cold, wet weather. Faced with public embarrassment, Goodell instead “falsely portrayed” a league investigation as independent, ginned up some bad self-serving science and misused an arbitration hearing as “an opportunity for management to salvage a deficient disciplinary action by conjuring up new grounds for the punishment,” Olson writes.

The league did this with no thought for the rights of its employees, or for the integrity of American arbitration law.

“The decision and the standards it imposes are damaging and unfair — not only to Tom Brady but to all parties to collective bargaining agreements everywhere,” Olson writes.


New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady is appealing his suspension for the "Deflategate" scandal for the second time. Brady's suspension was reversed in September 2015, then reinstated by an appeals court in April. (Reuters)
That’s the heart of the matter and has been all along.


The league’s conduct with the NIH was strikingly similar: a deficient and false process, with an attempt to strong-arm a predetermined result. In 2012, the NFL pledged $30 million in a partnership with the NIH for the study of brain diseases, especially chronic traumatic encephalopathy, which is deeply relevant to the health of its players. It agreed that the funds would be “governed by federal law” and by NIH policy, ensuring that the research would be independent and peer-reviewed.

Other sportswriters should be embaarresed when they compare their work to that of Sally Jenkins.

[geronl]

Leftist are the ones who deny science and facts.

[Maj. Bill Martin]

The difference is that the concussion case was purely a matter of law.  Deflategate, on the other hand, is a matter of contract.  The "legally responsible exercise" of that power is a bunch of gibberish.  The parties got the deal for which they bargained, and that included giving the Commissioner this authority.  Had the parties wanted such decisions to be reviewable by an independent, outside arbitrator for "fairness" or "being responsible", they'd have done so.  They didn't.  The bargain to which they agreed should be enforced as written.

The truth is that the Union consciously made this deal to give the Commissioner that much power, and got other things in return during the negotiating process. The reason you do this is to avoid long litigation over disciplinary matters.  This is a case the Supreme Court shouldn't even take, and if they do, it basically amounts to de novo review of arbitration decisions.