Well the final say is in and Brady will be playing opening night! Man, Goodell must feel like the biggest idiot right now you were just over ruled by federal court. With the season starting a week from tonight Brady will be allowed to play. To the relief of all fans Deflategate may be settling down finally. There has been no word yet if the NFL will appeal the ruling. If the NFL does decide to appeal it can take up to 2 years to get our next answer.
ESPN’s Adam Schefter says “It’s an embarrassment for the NFL” which sums up just how everyone in New England feels about the NFL anyway. One thing that was surprising to me is in Judge Berman’s ruling he put quotation marks around the word “Independent”. This makes me think that even Berman was thinking this was not an independent investigation.
Another key point in Berman’s decision was the fact that they denied the opportunity to question Pash. You can tell this is a big deal to Berman because he referenced it on multiple pages of his release.
Former New England Patriot Dan Koppen took to Twitter just after the ruling tweeting this:
Boom!!! Gillette is going to be insane next Thursday! And, they raise another banner. It is a good day #FreeBrady #Patriots
— Dan Koppen (@koppen67) September 3, 2015
In a statement Roger Goodell said: ” We are grateful to Judge Berman for hearing this matter, but respectfully disagree with today’s decision. We will appeal today’s ruling in order to uphold the collectively bargained responsibility to protect the integrity of the game. The commissioner’s responsibility to secure the competitive fairness of our game is a paramount principle, and the league and our 32 clubs will continue to pursue a path to that end. While the legal phase of this process continues, we look forward to focusing on football and the opening of the regular season.”
Patriots owner Robert Kraft also broke his silence saying: “As I have said during this process and throughout his Patriots career, Tom Brady is a classy person of the highest integrity. He represents everything that is great about this game and this league. Yet, with absolutely no evidence of any actions of wrongdoing by Tom in the Wells report, the lawyers at the league still insisted on imposing and defending unwarranted and unprecedented discipline. Judge Richard Berman understood this and we are greatly appreciative of his thoughtful decision that was delivered today. Now, we can return our focus to the game on the field.”
This whole ruling makes me want to have the biggest banner ceremony on next Thursday night. I want to see fireworks with an F-16 flyover. I want them to bring the banner in with a helicopter. Then I want cirque du soleil there doing flips off of elephants into a pool on the field during the fireworks. Then to top it all off with the Boston Pops playing We Are The champions when we raise the banner.
More to Come…
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