Coming off of the controversial 2007 season where the Patriots were caught for not adhering to the league's policy that pertained to the use of video equipment on the sidelines, Roger Goodell went into that offseason fired up when it came to trying "to preserve the competitive integrity of the game."
It came after the NFL Commissioner, heading into just his third season, was obviously reacting to what had happened with the Patriots. However, looking closer, there were some things in his plans then that are hurting Tom Brady seven years later.
One of the things that stands out in a report by the Washington Post in from March of 2008 was that one person familiar Goodell's plans revealed that the Commissioner was trying to put in place a threshold for imposing punishment for a rule violation, and looking closer, it's something that fits perfectly with what's transpired over the past few months.
According to the report, that threshold only need to be "closer to a preponderance of the evidence than beyond a reasonable doubt."
Sound familiar?
"Too often, competitive violations have gone unpunished because conclusive proof of the violation was lacking," Goodell wrote via the Washington Post. "I believe we should reconsider the standard of proof to be applied in such cases, and make it easier for a competitive violation to be established. And where a violation is shown, I intend to impose more stringent penalties on both the club and the responsible individual(s). I will also be prepared to make greater use of draft choice forfeiture in appropriate cases. I believe this will have the effect of deterring violations and making people more willing to report violations on a timely basis."
So there you go. That laid the groundwork for where we are now, with the commissioner trying to prevent any obstacles in establishing guilt while being able to drop the hammer.
Reading that is definitely frustrating, especially in seeing how it foreshadowed what's gone down since this whole mess began. In the recent cases we've seen in the domestic violence cases with other players, there was concrete evidence that at least established proof of guilt. In this case, all there seems to be is a hunch and some theories.
Unfortunately, what happened in 2008 helped make it possible for Goodell not to need definitive proof in order to punish a player who has been a solid representative of the league for 15-years, and that's one of the things Brady's legal team and the NFLPA will have to try and overcome now that this is seemingly headed to federal court.
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