Will Brady chose to take a Four Game FINE to get off on the Four Game Suspension?

5thRing-Hunt said:

The only way Goodell comes to his senses is if Brady's lawyers so embarrassed the nfl's legal team and wells that Goodell knows they will be made to look like fools in court especially when the transcript of the appeal hearing has to come to light.

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They've been made to look like fools before even getting to court.

Too bad bad so few non-Pats fans see it.

I think Brady will accept an offer of a small fine for the cooperation issue and 0 games. Anything less and this goes to court.

It still might for defamation.

Just wish the team penalties came back.

Too bad our owner didn't have the gumption to stand up for what he knew and believed was right.
He chose future interests and favors from the commissioner as opposed to making the Patiots as strong a team and solid a reputation as it deserves.
My thought is he looked at the situation and said The Patriots arent going to grow any new fans.
The fans they have 98 percent of them will continue to buy products and sell out games.
The 2 percent he is potentially losing he can make up the revenue with a Superbowl hosting or a Draft being held in Foxboro.
He looked at this as a business man and not a fan or concerned father figure defending Bradys honor.
Right or wrong ultimately he made a decision.
Now if Brady doesn't serve any games and down the road the Patiots are given their number 1 back in a way that the NFL doesn't look bad.
Then Kraft best the house with a pair of 2's and won big on the river.

PatsFanSince74 said:

Once Brady is exonerated, in language acceptable to Yee, the interests of Brady and the NFLPA are no longer 100% in synch. I could see him accepting the $250 or maybe one game to make this all go away.

Remember, that, at that point, Brady's calculation has to include the risk of getting an unsympathetic Judge who could blow the whole thing up in his face.

Once the League accepts, as I think it has, that any deal has to include a complete exoneration of Brady for the underlying, fabricated and non-existent "crime," then it's a matter of finding the point that represents the most that Brady feels he can accept and the least the League feels it can give to avoid a trip to Court, which brings risks for both sides.

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The worst the judge can do, unless Brady knowingly perjured himself is leave the post-appeal penalty intact.

PatsFanSince74 said:

I think Goodell was genuinely blindsided by how bad the Wells report was. Myers suggested complete exoneration on the underlying "crime," but two games for failing to "fully co-operate" (whatever that means) with Wells. But, just as quickly as he wrote that sentence, he immediately added that the problem with that was the most recent precedent is the $50,000 fine to Favre for a similar "offense."

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I don't buy the "blindsided" aspect to this. Goodell could have easily have handed out a more reasonable punishment considering the lack of hard evidence in the wells report. Instead he supported Vincent's decision of the harsh punishment to the team and Brady. RG has indeed put himself into a corner where there is no easy way out. Maybe he thinks the courts is a better alternative than him folding now.

MagicMarker said:

If Goodell was looking for a way out while still saving face, all he had to do was appoint an independent arbiter to hear the appeal.

Everyone (pro and con, as well as most of the media) seems to be very cynical on Goodell.....Almost everyone believes he won't change his mind unless the risk of losing in court is worse.

But, how does Roger see himself? Maybe he does seem himself as fair....I guess we'll find out.

Really if you think about it, if Roger is worried about HIS legacy, he should try to resolve this the way and independent arbiter would have. That means no deal for either side.

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The smart thing (as I've suggested out here many times) was to appoint an independent arbiter, but Goodell couldn't take the risk that the arbiter would trash the Wells report and exonerate Brady. So, it was never really an option for him.

Now, he's backed into a corner and is clearly trying to find a way out.

Going to court brings risks for both sides. That risk is far greater for Goodell but is not non-existent for Brady if he gets the wrong judge. So, where is the way out?

Myers posed this in his article on Wednesday and again yesterday and his connection to 345 Park is so good that I think it's fair to infer that he is reflecting their thinking.

Myers suggests that exonerating Brady is now a given. The question is how much can Goodell get away with in terms of penalizing Brady for "non-cooperation" regarding his cell phone records when the precedent is the $50,000 to Favre?

Four games is clearly out of the question. I think two probably are out of the question as well. But one game or the max fine of $250k might be close enough to make Brady not want to take the risk of losing even more in court.

ctpatsfan77 said:

The worst the judge can do, unless Brady knowingly perjured himself is leave the post-appeal penalty intact.

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Not if the NFL insists that "nothing is agreed until everything is agreed" and makes any reduction in penalty contingent on Brady's not litigating further.

juny said:

I don't buy the "blindsided" aspect to this. Goodell could have easily have handed out a more reasonable punishment considering the lack of hard evidence in the wells report. Instead he supported Vincent's decision of the harsh punishment to the team and Brady. RG has indeed put himself into a corner where there is no easy way out. Maybe he thinks the courts is a better alternative than him folding now.

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I think Goodell took the Well's report and Vincent's interpretation thereof at their face value and I doubt that he gave it a serious read himself. In that sense, he would have been blindsided by the incompetence of his employee, Vincent.

And I agree. There is a point at which the courts are a better alternative for each side. Now, the two sides are just trying to find where that point is.

MagicMarker said:

If Goodell was looking for a way out while still saving face, all he had to do was appoint an independent arbiter to hear the appeal.

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except the independent arbitrator did not spend 5M on a bogus report.....

anyone truly independent would at worst reproduce the fine that favre got as a worst case, and goodell can't have that

BlueThunder said:

I still don't see how Pats can get docked draft picks and a HUGE fine if Brady is exonerated of all charges except failing to turn his phone over to that phone(y) Wells......

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Goodell: "Upon examining all the evidence myself, I find there is no evidence that Brady was "generally aware" of deflation activities and he is thereby exonerated of that, but will be fined $50K for not fully cooperating with the investigation. However, I believe that Jastremski and McNally were performing deflation activities on their own initiative. Since they were team employees, the penalties against the team stand."

I'm of course not claiming or expecting that Goodell would actually say anything like that (I don't see him exonerating Brady because he believes himself to be infallible), but they absolutely can exonerate Brady w/o undoing the team penalties.

Nowhere in anything the NFL says will they admit -- formally or informally -- that deflation didn't happen (thank you again, Bob Kraft!). This is only going to be about whether they say Brady knew or not.

ctpatsfan77 said:

The worst the judge can do, unless Brady knowingly perjured himself is leave the post-appeal penalty intact.

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The only way Brady is going to get an exoneration from the league is if he agrees not to go to court in any way on this.

I think the best way to look at Brady's appeal (in a realpolitik sense) is that it's essentially a pre-trial settlement discussion. Neither side wants to go to court. It's obvious why the NFL doesn't, but court also has risks from Brady's side: Things are more public. The timing of a court loss could be bad (what if Brady loses and the judge dissolves any temporary injunction against the suspension in late December?). And so on.

I think either the parties strike a deal that eliminates the suspension and has the NFL say on the record they don't believe Brady knew anything, or else the suspension is left at 4 games and Brady goes to court.

(This is of course bogus, since it puts the lie to this being an "appeal".)

Triumph said:

Goodell painted himself into a corner and threw away the key.

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Mixed metaphor alert!! Maybe he threw away the brush?

QuantumMechanic said:

Goodell: "Upon examining all the evidence myself, I find there is no evidence that Brady was "generally aware" of deflation activities and he is thereby exonerated of that, but will be fined $50K for not fully cooperating with the investigation. However, I believe that Jastremski and McNally were performing deflation activities on their own initiative. Since they were team employees, the penalties against the team stand."

I'm of course not claiming or expecting that Goodell would actually say anything like that (I don't see him exonerating Brady because he believes himself to be infallible), but they absolutely can exonerate Brady w/o undoing the team penalties.

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And where is the actual evidence that J & M deflated the balls?

There is no admission and the balls had no deflation as shown by the IGL.

vyrago said:

Mixed metaphor alert!! Maybe he threw away the brush?

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There is a door in the corner.

THAT is the door for which Goodell threw the key away.

Unfortunately the key landed in the open paint can.

The Gr8est said:

And where is the actual evidence that J & M deflated the balls?

There is no admission and the balls had no deflation as shown by the IGL.

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Why do you think that matters at this point?

The NFL has already said they believe it happened. They are not going to change their statement that they believed it happened for two reasons:

1. Kraft gave them all the cover they need to not change their minds.
2. They want the team penalties to stick because they hate NE.

QuantumMechanic said:

Why do you think that matters at this point?

The NFL has already said they believe it happened. They are not going to change their statement that they believed it happened for two reasons:

1. Kraft gave them all the cover they need to not change their minds.
2. They want the team penalties to stick because they hate NE.

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I think I'll start a thread speculating on what roadblocks/penalties/whatever the league office decides to throw in our path this coming 2015 season since Kraft's cave has signaled it's a free for all open season on the Pats franchise for the league office and the other 31 owners.

The Gr8est said:

And where is the actual evidence that J & M deflated the balls?

There is no admission and the balls had no deflation as shown by the IGL.

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None of that will matter unless they end up in court.

But, the only party to this case that really, really, really wants to go to court is the NFLPA, since its agenda is to undo what it foolishly negotiated in the CBA.

The NFL sure as hell doesn't want to go to court because it will likely get creamed.

Brady wants to be exonerated in unequivocal terms of having had anything to do with the deflation that (absurdly) never occurred. If he gets that, his incentives to go to court all hinge on the games that the NFL will try to play around the penalty for not co-operating with the Wells investigation.

The indications are that the NFL seems to know that it has to completely exonerate Brady if it's not going to end up in court, but wants to save face by penalizing Brady for not fully co-operating with the investigation (********, yes, but that's what it wants). Their problem is that the precedent is a $50,000 fine for a similar infraction by Brett Favre.

So, the game now seems to be, how much of a penalty will Brady accept for non-co-operation without feeling he has to take the risks inherent in any court proceeding. The odds are good that Brady would prevail in court, but you never know when it comes to going to court. There are always risks.

So, where's the tipping point in Yee and Brady's mind at which accepting the risks of going to court by an exonerated Brady outweigh accepting the penalty imposed for non-co-operation? That's going to be the million dollar question.

Aside from the whole thing going away, the ideal solution from Brady's perspective would be Favre's $50,000, but the CBA apparently allows the NFL to fine him up to $250,000, which is more or less pocket change for himself and Gisele. Meantime, the League is clinging to the hope that they can get him to accept a one or two game suspension for said offense.

The NFL seems to be negotiating this in the media through Gary Myers and, to a lesser extend, Florio.

I think it's all going to come down to a game of chicken between Yee and Goodell at the end, but I don't think it's going to court.

I'm surprised that Goodell hasn't started an investigation into the Patriot's use of drones in OTA's............not sure why Dallas and the Giants get off scott free...oh wait...It has something to do with the Patriots.....

Is there such a thing as spying on yourself??????

Is fining someone four game checks without suspending him even possible? I'd be really surprised if that's allowed under the CBA. It's 4x the maximum fine for teams, after all.

Sounds like Florio is just spitballing and trying to drum up clicks on a slow news Monday.

Even if the NFL agreed to exonerate Brady, I wouldn't trust them not to give background comments to reporters that "it wasn't really an exoneration" and "we wanted to get this behind us".......besmirching Brady.
F them all...........
This whole thing is a sham, a scam and a sting devised at NFL headquarters.................