John Dowd (man who condemned Pete Rose?) comments on Brady

Has anyone seen any links from this. I quickly caught a comment (and it was very pro Brady), but wanted to confirm it.

and, no Google isn't helping me find them, yet.

EDIT:
(a lengthy report) Report started by saying, "Tom Brady was ambushed during the appeal process by Roger Goodell"

and ends, "The entire NFL disciplinary process lacks Integrity and Fairness."

I'd love to hear the middle as well.

Haven't seen it this time, but 1) yes, he's the Pete Rose guy, and 2) I fee like I heard about some rumblings from him a couple of weeks ago, which only bolstered my opinion of this whole ordeal even higher.

http://www.foxbusiness.com/industri...gator-says-tom-brady-was-ambushed-by-goodell/

Attorney and lead investigator in Pete Rose’s gambling ban John Dowd is “troubled” by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell’s decision to uphold Tom Brady’s four-game suspension.

“It appears that they ambushed Tom Brady,” he said.

Dowd argues that Tom Brady is being convicted and suspended for an offense that he had no notice of.

“He was not suspended for failing to produce his telephone. If you read The Wells Report, it was based on alleged tampering and the text information. It wasn’t until he got on appeal that he was advised for the first time that his failure to produce the phone was a separate charge -- and that is a gross violation of fundamental fairness and due process if you will,” he said.

Dowd speculates that the report was weak.

“The scientific evidence had been gutted by all kinds of independent experts and the standard they used was ridiculous and most of all, I’m not sure what this is all about, apparently every team does this, and every officiating crew has their own way of measuring it -- so, this is a case without any standards at all,” he said.

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Dowd will be on WEEI at 3pm (fun fact: I used to work at the law firm he works for but different office).

Dowd just went off on the Wells report, without specifically going off on Wells. He made it clear that he'd never have 'convicted' Brady based on the evidence.

Just listened to the interview. Dowd was very direct in stating that the NFL's case is incredibly flimsy and they overreached in punishment even if it weren't. I suspect it'll be on WEEI soon enough.

I think at the end of the day, all the tactics that the NFL went through needs to come out and see the light of day. This will only be when Brady has concluded any and all business. The masses need to see how duped they were and while the great majority will never back down from their position, many will look at the sum of the facts and come to the right conclusion.

Oswlek said:

Just listened to the interview. Dowd was very direct in stating that the NFL's case is incredibly flimsy and they overreached in punishment even if it weren't. I suspect it'll be on WEEI soon enough.

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but towards the end he didn't seem to think the NFLPA would be successful in convincing a judge.

Hoodie said:

but towards the end he didn't seem to think the NFLPA would be successful in convincing a judge.

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Yeah, it was the stock, "courts don't like to overrule arbitration" commentary which, admittedly, carried more weight coming from him.

Oswlek said:

Yeah, it was the stock, "courts don't like to overrule arbitration" commentary which, admittedly, carried more weight coming from him.

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He just kind of drifted away. Didn't know quite what to make of it.

Oswlek said:

Yeah, it was the stock, "courts don't like to overrule arbitration" commentary which, admittedly, carried more weight coming from him.

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Doesn't Bountygate and Adrian Peterson sort of disprove this though?

Oswlek said:

Yeah, it was the stock, "courts don't like to overrule arbitration" commentary which, admittedly, carried more weight coming from him.

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True and that commentary has been the new narrative that ESPN/NFL wants everyone to hear.

The thing is, the court system itself has an appeals process and when does a judge that was part of the conviction get to handle the appeal? Isn't there a clause in the CBA that talks about fair? I understand that Goodell can be the arbitrator and this was agreed upon. However, in the case where he is the only person that can assign guilt, I would think fair judicial process would not allow him to be arbitrator as well.

Plus Brady has a whole team of people much smarter than I am to work this through the system.

JMC00 said:

Doesn't Bountygate and Adrian Peterson sort of disprove this though?

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It certainly mars it a little, which is why I said I took Dowd's comments more seriously than I had Lester Munson's or whatever talking head was parroting it at the time.

I think some people thinking it will be hard are missing the fact that the initial punishment was handed out by troy vincent who per the CBA had no authority to hand out the punishment.

Heard the interview it was interesting ... he backed Brady's side for the most part but was confused by the more probable than not ... he's a lawyer so that was perplexing. Came out later that he is a rabid Steeler fan ... that info is refreshing as his interview in no way exposed any hatred of the Patriots. Danced around sloppiness without calling the NFL case sloppy ... but he sure meant they were a mess.

So I guess the biggest hurtle right now is to get a judge to accept the case?

Oswlek said:

Yeah, it was the stock, "courts don't like to overrule arbitration" commentary which, admittedly, carried more weight coming from him.

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Yeah - but having been involved in some arbitration on behalf of management in a union shop, while that statement may be true - I expect the NFLPA has a pretty clear and strong case to make that the arbitrator was NOT fair or unbiased - in part because of the aspects that Dowd himself raises

When you have a CBA you have rules that we as management have to follow on disciplining or terminating our employees. We can't just make it up as we go - if we did, a neutral, independent arbitrator would call us on it - but that's not what you have here. Goodell the arbitrator, not surprisingly took Goodell the Commissioner's side.

His "report" moves the goalposts - now basing his discipline on something that was NEVER before an issue in the entire investigation - indeed Wells is on record - and many of us corrected the misstatements of some on MANY occasions to make clear that the NFL DIDN'T WANT Brady's phone.

Then, in the middle of the hearing, Goodell does a 180 degree turn, demands something that he really can't under the CBA - or at the very least one would think he would have to prove that a rule was broken before making a credible demand - but what EVERYONE will agree is something that he never wanted UNTIL he needed a NEW excuse on "lack of cooperation" because Brady bought "new information" to Goodell in the form of the copies and names and numbers of everyone he was in contact with

I'm sure this is part of the reason why Goodell's "ruling" basically abandons the Wells Report - "may have been generally aware of something that may have happened" type sentiment - and without any new information, Goodell jumps to the "he definitely knew about something that definitely happened"

(I'm really not quite sure yet how Goodell just abandons his $5 million "report" and draws new, contrary conclusions of guilt but I'm sure we'll see that analysis eventually)

JMC00 said:

I think some people thinking it will be hard are missing the fact that the initial punishment was handed out by troy vincent who per the CBA had no authority to hand out the punishment.

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This is where I think the unfairness part plays in I think. Either Vincent made the decision which we've read he did, and he's not supposed to do... or goodell did, and was arbitrator. The latter is what I think the NFL* has been trying to kinda-sorta not-really clear up in goodells statements and punishment letter. They can't have it both ways.

TheBeers said:

This is where I think the unfairness part plays in I think. Either Vincent made the decision which we've read he did, and he's not supposed to do... or goodell did, and was arbitrator. The latter is what I think the NFL* has been trying to kinda-sorta not-really clear up in goodells statements and punishment letter. They can't have it both ways.

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Also that Brady's punishment was issued under a policy (Competitive Integrity Policy) that explicitly applies to teams and not to players.

I heard him on WEEI before. He opened up by sayin this is like Seinfeld episode. All About Nothing. He can't make any sense of it going back to wells report and now cell phone. He says in report there is nothing in it saying Brady ordered Code Red and More Probable Than Not is a joke and he's being ambushed as stated throughout posts.