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NFLPA Can Only Blame Themselves for Tom Brady’s Failed Appeal

By Phil Naegely

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The NFL announced on Tuesday afternoon that Tom Brady’s four-game suspension for his actions in Deflategate is upheld. The event and all the surrounding news has caused much debate and controversy.

Yet, many fail to realize that no matter how ridiculous they think a four-game suspension is for deflating footballs, the NFLPA is at fault here due to what they agreed to ahead of the new NFL CBA, which took affect in ahead of the 2011 season and lasts through the 2020 season. The players association compromised on a few talking points and wants and one of them will continue to haunt them until a new CBA ahead of the 2021 season: Roger Goodell is judge and jury and he has the final say on most matters.

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While the players union will complain that there are no rules or punishment for tampering and deflating footballs, they legally agreed that Goodell as commissioner can hear appeals rather than a third-party arbitrator. Granted, the association has taken the league to court over some matters, like Adrian Peterson’s dispute, but they relinquished their right to a third-party appeals process.

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If the NFLPA was truly fed up with Goodell as both judge and juror, then they would have held out until this right as commissioner was changed. Instead, they made concessions and kept the status quo system the same and many wonder why the NFLPA gets mad at Goodell for carrying out his duties as laid out in the NFL CBA.

The NFLPA is destined to take this case to the federal court, but since Goodell has the right to act as both the punisher and the decision maker in appeals, the NFLPA may be facing an uphill battle.

One of the reasons the NFL Commissioner came down on Brady is because of how the Ray Rice domestic violence incident occurred. Yes, deflating footballs is not as serious of an offense, but the NFL’s slow response to adequately suspend Rice changed the landscape of the commissioner’s punishments.

It will be interesting to see which federal court this case ends up in; The NFL has made their intentions clear on which court they want the case heard in and it won’t be in Massachusetts if the league gets their wish.

This Deflategate case could have had a swifter and different outcome if the NFLPA would have demanded stronger that Goodell not have the right to hear player appeals. If you remember, they requested Goodell not to hear the appeal because they wanted to question him as a witness, but that didn’t get far. Now the NFLPA will have to spend more money to defend their client in court. It would be interesting if the case is thrown out of court and the judge were to rule that the CBA is the law of the land in this case.

One thing is for sure. The NFLPA will definitely be making sure Goodell, or a future NFL commissioner, can’t be judge, jury, and executioner in the next CBA negotiations.

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