I just re-read Judge Berman's entire decision from start to finish.
1. This ruling is made from the full assumption that Brady is guilty of deflating the balls, and the appellate team is grasping at straws in arguing that Berman asserted himself as an arbitrator of facts and not process. Berman is very careful the entire time not to wander off into that area.
2. Berman acknowledges there are conflicting precedents in several areas, including an arbitrator's power in proceedings on which witnesses are necessary and which documents can be shared. That is, some precedents imply an arbitrator can in fact make a decision to withhold these sources during the arbitration trial while others have vacated awards for that. Berman uses the word "however" a few times, or in other words, this is one where he's picking one of two courses, but another judge might not agree.
3. In my opinion, the areas that were not argued yet, Goodell's impartiality, Goodell's basis for a punishment exceeding the original appeal evidence (a very critical, underlooked area), are very strong in favor of Brady, so if there was a poison pill, this could get even more messy for the NFL.
4. One last thing I just wanted to add. A lot of people believe this case will be decided based on the political affiliations of the appellate judges. It's more complicated than that and in favor of Brady. That presumes that the judges will rule prima facie, or in other words, they will just rule on this case as though Berman never issued a decision initially. If they do not rule prima facie, they are not ruling on the case but on whether or not Berman erred in the judicial process (much like Berman is ruling on Goodell's proceedings only.)
If all the cases were just ruled prima facie with no deference to the original judge's decision, we would probably have a a lot more rulings overturned on appeal. For example, if there's a 50/50 split in Dems and Reps in the courts, and there is no attention paid to the original ruling, you'd see about 50% of the cases overturned, since it would some down only to party lines. The actual numbers are closer to 10%. In other words, conservatives and liberals don't agree on a lot of the rulings, but overturning based on judicial error and just ruling differently are two different things - assuming they don't use prima facie.
5. So, all in all, I think there's a good chance this ruling stands for the following reasons:
-If the judges do not go prima facie and ruling on the judicial decisions rather than just the arguments, there's a very small chance this gets overturned.
-Even if they do use prima facie, at least two of the judges appear to be liberal.
-Berman's initial decision makes it "more likely than not" that Brady's case is stronger; it's more likely his judgement is consistent with other judges than anomalous.
-Berman ruled 3/3 points in favor of overturning when just 1/3 would have sufficed.
-There are still three other grounds for overturning the appeal that were not addressed in Berman's ruling which could still be trouble for the NFL.
