Sorry to get in the way of your bitter argument, but on the issue of getting our picks back. I don't think its a matter of law that will get them back.
It is September now and the issue of whether Brady was in some kind of conspiracy to deflate balls to gain a competitive advantage has drastically turned since the "scandal" first broke and the Welles Report was first issued. I believe is becoming clearer every week that nothing happened at the AFCCG. By April it will be 7 months clearer.
At that point it will be VERY hard to defend taking a #1 draft pick away from a team, when everyone knows no crime was committed. Even the league office itself has pretty much accepted that nothing happened that night. Beyond all the legal arguments and appeals that might still be raised down the road, the Pats could raise a great PR campaign arguing the credibility of the justification of the league to take that pick. It would once again reflect very badly on the league and Goodell in particular. It would smack of a bitter petty man who is waging a personal attack on a particular team simply because he can.
It would take a Federal Judge about 2 meetings to see through Goodell's web of lies. A web of lies SO pervasive that a sitting Federal Judge not only called him out on it, he went out of his way to make sure anyone who read his judgement would know it too.
So yeah, I know the haters are still out there, but even now you can tell that even they don't believe the crap they are spewing. Basically they are really just trolling Pats fans and tweaking them because they know it will piss us off no end. They rarely quote the Welles report now, never try and use the science to defend their position., and the Mort Report has been deleted from their arsenal.. Every time they try and explain how and why the Pats cheated, they are almost immediately met with direct facts that totally destroy their positions. So now we are left with the Trollers to don't argue anything. They just yell "Cheater, Cheater, Cheater, You know you are Nah, Nah Nah"
They no longer are looking to damn us with any kind of logic..
And yes, I understand that Goodell still has ESPN to continue the attack on the Pats, but even they don't dare to question the reality that nothing happened on that night. They are just pawns continuing in the general attack on the Pats good name, and that's another issue entirely.
So if this is where we currently are, I would think 7 months down the road, it will only be better, and much more difficult to defend taking the pick. Think about as we near the Draft, every interview Goodell makes, he has to explain just why the Pats first round draft pick is being taken away when it's clear that the crime they were accused of didn't happen. "What's your justification Roger.