Newsweek: Brady Suspension About NFL’s Absolute Power
In a manuever befitting a Christopher Nolan movie, the NFL’s filing of the lawsuit against Tom Brady and the NFLPA’s court case in New York effectively cut off the NFLPA’s attempt to have the case heard in a more historically player-friendly state. Crazy how the NFL anticipated the NFLPA would sue in a state they’ve won in before, huh?
If the Christopher Nolan joke doesn’t make sense to you, watch “The Dark Knight” again. Batman did this, because he knew the Joker would do something, but then the Joker anticipated Batman reacting a certain way and had already laid a trap, but Batman knew he would set a trap and set his own trap, and…
(Good movie, just an overused plot device)
Back on topic: Patriots Nation keeps hitting refresh on Twitter and NESN hoping for even more delightfully incredulous quotes about the NFL from Judge Richard Berman, who seems like he’s one line away from “ Mr. Madison, what you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.”
For Patriots fans, a federal judge blasting the NFL’s arguments and decisions with a rocket launcher and then teabagging the league’s twitching corpse is schaudenfraude at it’s finest. As satisfying as it is, though, Newsweek’s Brian Holland has a far more sinister theory: DeflateGate has never been about facts, fairness, competition, or “integrity of the game”. Holland puts it this way:
“This is really the most important point: DeflateGate has nothing to do with football. And it certainly has nothing to do with “the integrity of the game.”
“In a sense, it never did. Instead, DeflateGate has always been about power.”
“Yes, fans hate to hear this. They want to debate right and wrong, guilt and innocence, crime and punishment. They want to argue about Tom Brady’s involvement and his legacy. They want to talk PSI and the Ideal Gas Law. Some want to cast the Jets or Colts as the jealous underlings who started this whole thing, while others want to finally bring Patriots Coach Bill ‘Beli-cheat’ to justice”
“But none of that matters. Not to Roger Goodell and the NFL. What matters is preserving a very lucrative business model, one that requires complete and total control over your product, including raw materials and labor (in the somewhat twisted world of the NFl, players fall into both categories).”
Holland then asks the next logical question: why target Tom Brady and the Patriots, and then conduct the investigation in a way that even Frank Drebin of The Naked Gun would laugh at, and then slap a penalty on the Patriots that, as Holland asks, is “almost begging for an appeal”?
The conclusion:
“The answer, I think, is rather simple. Take on the game’s biggest player, the league’s most successful team and even a federal judge. Cut them down to size. Make clear that each is less powerful than the league itself.”
Translation:
This is Roger Goodell, Commissioner of the NFL, going big-game hunting, taking down M. Bison in Street Fighter II (RIP, my childhood allowance of quarters), grasping at the One Ring that Binds Them All, and trying to win the shot game in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. And the end goal is to make sure that no player, no matter how famous, no matter how asinine the supposed offense, or whether the offense in question actually even happened (Oh hey, Ben Roethlisberger, didn’t see you there!), is never disputed in an NFL disciplinary scenario again.
Having been previously overturned in discipline Goodell probably thought was a slam dunk to get the public on his side (see: the Saints and BountyGate – who wouldn’t approve of historically crippling punishments for a team trying to hurt other people?), Newsweek’s conclusion is that Goodell’s only option to reaffirm his power and labor model is to put together the NFL-vs-player suit and tie equivalent of the Rumble in the Jungle, and then win by any means necessary.
Even if you believe that the Patriots are completely and unequivocally guilty – and there are plenty of people that still do – the degree of hubris and Othello tactics required to pull this off should make anyone sick.
Remember when we watched sports to see great games?