NEW YORK – There was a moment Wednesday that gave a glimpse of just how entitled and infallible the NFL believes itself to be.
It came while Judge Richard Berman was cuffing around NFL attorney Daniel Nash. Berman wanted to know how much of Tom Brady’s suspension was for the alleged ball deflation and how much was for being uncooperative.
Nash – whose three verbal settings are patronizing, frustrated and condescending – opted for the latter when he raised his head and told the court, “You know, some in the NFL wanted four games for the ball deflation and four games for failing to cooperate.”
Nash quickly moved back to the matter at hand, but that quick aside spoke volumes.
It said, “Judge, do you know what we could have done? Do you understand we’re being nice here? Do you know there are really no limits – as we see it – to what the guy who runs our $40 billion league can do because that’s how we set it up?”
No matter how many times the court system – or even former commissioners – tell Goodell and his attorneys to go get their f****** shinebox, these guys return with the same level of arrogance, the same level of surety that they can do what they want and are the smartest guys in America.
The NFL isn’t popular and successful because of you, you nitwits. It’s the game.
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But the NFL – especially its current leadership and legal crew – has shown clearly during Deflategate how bulletproof they believe themselves to be. That they’ve walked out of Berman’s courtroom the past two Wednesdays with blood on their lapels after Berman unloaded probably doesn’t faze them at all. Just grazed 'em.
Sample a brief list of decisions made by the NFL in the course of this investigation that can either be ascribed to stupidity or a “We will do this because we can and they can’t stop us...” mindset:
*Making their highest-level attorney, Jeff Pash, the co-lead investigator along with Ted Wells.
*Allowing Pash to edit the Wells Report.
*Keeping the NFLPA from questioning Pash during Tom Brady’s June appeal.
*Saying Wells could answer questions about Pash’s role and the NFLPA would have to just trust Wells’ description of the role Pash played. Like all Pash did was add commas.
*Trumpeting the independence of Wells as an investigator and then later saying it didn’t matter whether or not he was independent.
Having Wells’ law colleague Lorin Reisner appear on a conference call with Wells to defend the “independent” Wells Report. Allowing Reisner to lead NFL questioning during Brady’s appeal.
*Having Roger Goodell request additional information from Brady. Get reams of that information in the form of phone records, text message records and emails. Then hand down an appeal ruling that fixates on a “destroyed phone” – a phone which Wells himself said he never wanted to take possession of.
*Rushing to the Southern District of New York court system to get Goodell’s arbitration decision validated and to now be indignant when Judge Berman shines a light on the absurdity and inappropriateness of so many things the NFL’s carried out over the past seven months.
And what is the NFL’s response to these things?
To laugh and say, “You think that’s bad? Do you know what we could have done?”
In addition to the Wednesday punishment nugget, Nash in his Friday filing tried to paint Goodell as going easy on Brady by noting that, after the appeal, Goodell could have upped the punishment. Again, after handing over every correspondence minus an unwanted phone, this was Nash’s stance.
Additionally, Nash called Goodell’s allowing Brady to testify at his appeal in the manner Brady did, “Astonishing.”
It’s ironic, but the NFL – with implicit support, it seems, of many owners – are fighting this war to bring the Patriots to heel. The arrogance, the condescension, the “better than you, smarter than you” posture that so many in the league office accuse the Patriots of carrying off has been dwarfed by the NFL hierarchy. The entitlement of the suits and attorneys is breathtaking.
It’s got Berman’s attention and it pisses him off.
For instance, on Wednesday, Nash explained to Berman that Pash wasn’t made available because Wells could sum up Pash’s role for the NFLPA. Berman appeared to think Wells’ effort to do so was a disgrace. Berman derided Wells’ folksy description of Pash’s edits being just Pash being Pash and having to get his Harvard-trained eyes on the document. Nyuk, nyuk.
Berman said Wells’ answer really wasn’t very enlightening.
If Berman’s ruling turns on Pash’s role the irony will be rich.
The league is crushing Brady for tampering with footballs and destroying evidence? The league allowed Pash to tamper with the Wells Report – an investigation which produced the findings that were the basis for all the punishment – and then hid him from questioning.
With Berman zeroing in on Pash, the NFL and Nash are frantically trying to minimize the role of a guy who never, ever, ever should have been put on the marquee as a co-star.
A “red herring” is how Nash describes the NFLPA’s complaints about Pash. Barely involved with the Wells thing, said Nash. Pash’ role just conflated into co-investigator by a press release put out when it was announced Wells would lead the investigation.
“You all put out the press release,” Berman reminded.
There is no way to handicap how this will turn out. Berman’s tenor the past two weeks has been repeatedly dismissed as just an effort to move the NFL off its powerful spot. But watching Berman’s exasperation with the NFL the past two Wednesdays, it hasn’t looked like a ploy.
He seems amazed they put this dog-and-pony show in his inbox, aghast at the leaps the investigation made and irked by the lack of fairness.
The NFL decided to make a federal case out of its belief the Patriots think they are above the law, that the rules don’t apply to them. And they are now encountering a federal judge who’s only too happy to point out that they are the ones guilty of doing what they say the Patriots have done.
