NFL admits the "independent" Wells Investigation wasn't.. Well... Independent

RayClay said:

I'm not a lawyer but, doesn't lying over and over again hurt any case?

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The question is the magnitude of the harm, which can be anywhere from paper-cut to apocalyptic-doom.

billdog3484 said:

I disagree. I think if goodell loses this case he may be done as commish

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Losing a court case of this kind clearly doesn't hurt Goodell's standing as commish much.

What may bring him down, however, is the way the media has turned on him, much more drastically than has happened around his similar lost court cases in the past.

XLIX said:

I'm worried about that too.

Something like that happened in the Vilma defamation lawsuit against Goodell. The judge was very critical of Goodell's and the League's actions but ultimately decided to dismiss the case because the CBA says Goodell cannot be personally sued for actions he engages in as Commissioner.

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I have to admit I wasn't paying much attention to it when the current CBA was being negotiated but for the love of God exactly which Reichstag burned down to enable Goodell to obtain all the power he has under it?

Keep in mind that Kraft left his wife's deathbed to facilitate the agreement and with his continuing support helped create and protect the POS commissioner./

flasox27 said:

Keep in mind that Kraft left his wife's deathbed to facilitate the agreement and with his continuing support helped create and protect the POS commissioner./

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No good deed goes unpunished....Bet he wishes he had a mulligan on that one......I was about to ask how come DeMaurice Smith doesn't get more criticism for allowing unfettered power in the Commissioner but then I realized that past commissioners like Rozelle and Tagliabue acted in good faith and the players knew there would be a "fair" investigation, not a witch hunt...If the next commissioner is not an attorney (and for the love of G-d, Goodell is NOT an attorney despite what I continue to see on other boards, not this one) I would be shocked. I believe that someone grounded in the rule of law would have acted far, far differently. I hope Judge Berman sees it that way. While the vast majority of arbitration decisions are upheld, that is because courts believe they came to their conclusion after a fair review of the evidence and due process. In this case, you had an incestuous relationship between the client, the attorney and an "independent" investigator who invoked attorney-client privilege and hid behind his investigatory notes...This is not the Star Chamber, though it was run like the a combination of the Inquisition and the Salem witch trials...It was an investigation made to make the conclusion fit the facts. If that fails, make up the conclusions.....

Rob0729 said:

I don't buy that argument. I know people make it all the time. Goodell doesn't care about losing in court because he can sell it to the owners that he stood by the tough punishment and the courts just overturned him.

Do people really think the owners are going to ignore that he has destroyed what was left of his credibility and made a mockery of himself and his staff in the process?

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Why should I have confidence that the owners are going to fire Goodell? Our owner stood by him when he butchered the Rice scandal and capitulated when he handed down a ridiculous team penalty for deflategate. He wasn't held accountable for screwing up the Rice & Bountygate investigations. The owners 40 million dollar man has repeatedly shown he isn't capable of handling down discipline within the league and CBA guidlines. Heck, they had to bring in Tagliabue to clean up Bountygate. I think the owners are happy with Goodell because he is helping them line their pockets with $$$. I hope I am wrong but history is telling me other wise.

grux said:

Why should I have confidence that the owners are going to fire Goodell? Our owner stood by him when he butchered the Rice scandal and capitulated when he handed down a ridiculous team penalty for deflategate. He wasn't held accountable for screwing up the Rice & Bountygate investigations. The owners 40 million dollar man has repeatedly shown he isn't capable of handling down discipline within the league and CBA guidlines. Heck, they had to bring in Tagliabue to clean up Bountygate. I think the owners are happy with Goodell because he is helping them line their pockets with $$$. I hope I am wrong but history is telling me other wise.

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I don't see the owners firing Goodell for this, but this is just another hit to him. If Brady, McNally, Jastremski, and/or the Pats file a defamation suit against the NFL; it will be another hit. I think Goodell will eventually sink himself. The losses just keep mounting. At some point, Goodell will become such a black mark on the league that they will have to get rid of him.

And I think there are probably a lot of owners who want him gone. The problem is they need 24. Until they can do a behind the scenes straw poll and get those 24 votes, there will never be any signs of the owners ready to get rid of him.

ctpatsfan77 said:

The worst possible thing that could happen for NFL PR is Berman saying something on the lines of "I believe that Brady has been railroaded, but I must nevertheless let the suspension stand."

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Exactly. The average fan doesn't care if Brady was lied to. The average fan cares if he himself was lied to. If the NFL can win this case by saying "everything we told the fans throughout the process was false but the CBA allows it to be false," they've done more damage than if they lost the case.

Rob0729 said:

I don't see the owners firing Goodell for this, but this is just another hit to him. If Brady, McNally, Jastremski, and/or the Pats file a defamation suit against the NFL; it will be another hit. I think Goodell will eventually sink himself. The losses just keep mounting. At some point, Goodell will become such a black mark on the league that they will have to get rid of him.

And I think there are probably a lot of owners who want him gone. The problem is they need 24. Until they can do a behind the scenes straw poll and get those 24 votes, there will never be any signs of the owners ready to get rid of him.

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I agree. The question is how many chances does the 40 million dollar man get until the owners wake up and realize the NFL is becoming the WWE?

Anyone, even Roger Goodell, is entitled to assert his or her right to attorney-client privilege. His problem is that Judge Berman could easily rule that he waived this right by repeatedly asserting that the investigation was independent. Like virginity, once you waive attorney-client privilege it's not coming back.

In the event that the Commissioner or any other officer of the League shall be convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude or be physically or mentally incapacitated to perform his duties or shall fail or refuse to abide by the Constitution and Bylaws of the League, and the Executive Committee finds that such action by such officer is detrimental to the best interests of the League, or in the event the Commissioner or any other officer of the League fails or is unwilling to perform his duties, then such Committee shall have the power after notice and hearing to suspend or remove said officer and to terminate any contract between such Commissioner or officer and the League.

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There is an out if they think Goodell's hurting the league and don't want to pay him fully.

Also, if up to four owners want to not cast a vote, they can dump him with 20 votes.

http://blogs.denverpost.com/broncos/2014/09/09/take-remove-roger-goodell-nfl-commissioner/29392/

Would losing this lawsuit cost Roger his job?

It certainly could....An adverse ruling might be a major scandal. What if Judge Berman finds Goodell not only declared himself judge, jury and executioner, but created the crime as well? That is simple enough for non-followers of this story to understand and would be the biggest commissioner scandal ever.

MagicMarker said:

Would losing this lawsuit cost Roger his job?

It certainly could....An adverse ruling might be a major scandal. What if Judge Berman finds Goodell not only declared himself judge, jury and executioner, but created the crime as well? That is simple enough for non-followers of this story to understand and would be the biggest commissioner scandal ever.

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I think the only way he could lose his job is if Judge Berman orders the NFL to turn over the interview transcripts and notes from the Wells investigation and it exposes the entire investigation as a sham or the NFL refuses to give that over because of attorney-client privilege and the media scream bloody murder for the double standard of punishing Brady for not giving over his cell phone and then claiming privilege and/or the fact that the supposed independent investigation wasn't an independent investigation at all. Just a loss in court will not be enough for him to lose his job.

FWIW, I think the best NFLPA legal argument is that the NFL violated its own standards, the law of the shop. It set an ad hoc standard after the fact by the unprecedented, make-believe and absurd "generally aware" standard of conduct. Then it imposed that standard without notice to the union or players in violation of the CBA solely for the purpose of "getting" Tom Brady. Then its King ordered a draconian punishment way out of proportion to any prior penalty for similar conduct, again without notice or precedent.

About the CBA, one cannot negotiate away in a contract "remedies at law" that are available to you. In other words, the law supercedes the contract (or CBA in this case). If remedies at law are available to TB, he will be able to use them. I'll let the lawyers on the board expound on what may be available

The fact that the NFL is now acknowledging that the Wells report was not independent has also value for Kraft and the Patriots organization. In the email chain between the Patriots and the NFL, published on the Wellsreportcontext.com, the Pats are asking for Wells to review the NFL conduct on the night of the AFC Championship and the aftermath, at least to review the league's leaks.

If the report was not independent, then how can the NFL use that report to prove that they were not at fault for the leaks, and at the same time punish the Pats for 1 st rounder, a 4th rounder and $1M ???

Is it too late for Kraft to ask for an appeal ?

Rob0729 said:

Apparently in their 15 page argument, the NFL is getting ready to fight the Judge for turning over the notes, transcripts, etc. from the Wells investigation and any communications between Wells and Pash about the writing of the report by claiming the Wells investigation wasn't independent and nor does it require to be in Article 46.

I think this is a huge PR mistake because they sold this as an independent investigation. According to Michael McCann it could be the reason they lose the case too.



https://twitter.com/adbrandt/status/629817472363982848



https://twitter.com/McCannSportsLaw/status/629820584323588096

https://twitter.com/McCannSportsLaw/status/629821378129195008

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This is unbelievable to me. Don't understand it...............for 8 months this was promoted and sold as an independent investigation, then in the 12th hour it is retracted.

Those notes must be incriminating......

How can any Court acknowledge this argument?

You would think at some point the owners would be tired of pissing away millions in legal fees to be spent on Goodell's personal agenda.

I'd argue that Wells inherently had a bias not to just make a favorable decision, but to make 'any' decision. Any rationale person would see based on the data and all the unknown variables and horrible procedures around collecting data (ignoring weather, not sure which gauge was used, letting balls sit before you measure them[or not letting them sit long enough][variable times between measuring each team's balls at halftime], only measuring 4 of one teams balls vs 12 of the other, etc). Simply no conclusion could be determined from the data. The problem for Wells is the data ("you guys are in big f'n trouble!") was the basis for the investigation in the first place.

Think about how bad it would look for Ted Wells if he stated, correctly, that given procedures around measuring and handling the footballs no conclusion could be drawn confirming the balls were actually deflated after measured by the referees. After they paid him all this money, especially if he wants repeat business from the NFL. For him to draw the correct conclusion he would have to slam the NFL for not having good process around handling footballs and even make Wells investigation seem incompetent for not being able to get to the bottom of it... How is this not bias?

But try to explain this to your average every day person sitting at a bar drinking bud lights staring at TV screens with NFL games on it, yeah right.

This reminds me of Independent Council laws, that created a office independent of the justice department to investigate certain charges -- like Whitewater, Monica Lewinsky. The problem was the sole job of the person in the job was to make the case, not find nothing wrong and go away. So, of course, Wells was going to find something. Or say he found something, because he never really did find anything.