Ed Hillel said:
I think the players should go the other way. Get it on record that you think Brady is being railroaded and then any time the NFL office comes after you, you can instantly claim it's because of your support of Brady.
#DFG: Canceling the Noise
- Thread starter nattysez
- Start date
I think the players should go the other way. Get it on record that you think Brady is being railroaded and then any time the NFL office comes after you, you can instantly claim it's because of your support of Brady.
Via Florio, Peter King apologized for printing false info on the ball inflation. Unfornuatley he also said he didn't think his source intentionally lied:
To Florio's credit, he called bullshit.
King said he did learn something:
Glad King corrected the error, even if it is months late, but he also used it as an opportunity to make excuses for the NFL. One step forward and two steps back.
To Florio's credit, he called bullshit.
King said he did learn something:
Welcome to the first year of J-school Pete.
Glad King corrected the error, even if it is months late, but he also used it as an opportunity to make excuses for the NFL. One step forward and two steps back.
Surprisingly this came because of Ben Volin. Here is the whole part from today's MMQB. http://mmqb.si.com/monday-morning-qb-cris-carter-jordy-nelson-navorro-bowman-nfl
Jeez Pete. You really can't see that you were being used to help create their narrative?
At the time, sure, report it. But now, you gotta grow a pair and admit you were used. When the NFL issues statements clarifying any false info that comes out about them (i.e. the 4 hour window for appeal reported by Schefter, etc) and they do it almost immediately, but they leave you and Mort hanging for months, you gotta be able to see that you were used. I know he doesn't want to burn a source, but is this a source he really wants to keep close? He/she/Kensil just lied to you and made you look dumb in front of all of your readers. Come on PK!
At the time, sure, report it. But now, you gotta grow a pair and admit you were used. When the NFL issues statements clarifying any false info that comes out about them (i.e. the 4 hour window for appeal reported by Schefter, etc) and they do it almost immediately, but they leave you and Mort hanging for months, you gotta be able to see that you were used. I know he doesn't want to burn a source, but is this a source he really wants to keep close? He/she/Kensil just lied to you and made you look dumb in front of all of your readers. Come on PK!
E5 Yaz said:
Only someone as aggressively obtuse as King would look at these two examples and not conclude that he was being used by the NFL.
He could not have known that the investigation would be publicized. He wrote the article prior to Wells being hired.johnmd20 said:
http://mmqb.si.com/2015/01/23/deflategate-patriots-super-bowl-xlix
How many careers and reputations will have taken a hit before this is over?
E5 Yaz said:
I can't believe I still forget that journalism, particularly sports journalism, is all based on what scoops people give you and you really have to have loose journalistic ethics to build those ties and keep them going. It's a pretty slippery slope and you get someone like King and Mort, two of the most popular writers in pro football, who were obviously lied to, actively trying to cover for the sources that did the lying.
So the NFL can't even accurately convey the simplest facts surrounding Deflategate, but when it comes to far more complicated issues like what, if anything happened, and how, and why, we should continue to take their assertions as gospel truth?
If PK believes that his source honestly screwed up something so simple, then he should have heavily discounted everything else coming from them as well.
If PK believes that his source honestly screwed up something so simple, then he should have heavily discounted everything else coming from them as well.
This article was great for a non-lawyer like me to understand all of the hemming/hawing over the hearing last Wednesday:
http://thesportsesquires.com/tom-bradys-winning-argument/
A few quotes:
http://thesportsesquires.com/tom-bradys-winning-argument/
A few quotes:
OnWisc said:
If he really believes his source "honestly" screwed up something so simple, and wasn't being disingenuous, King should retire.
The NFL filed a brief today outlining the reasons why the case shouldn't be vacated. For all of the lawyers, does this letter have merit and should we be worried?
RedOctober3829 said:
Not more worried than before. The NFLPA gave Berman a list saying here's 19 cases where arbitrators were overturned and the NFL responded nah nah nah none of those are relevant for this, that or the other reason. It's kind of what lawyers-especially big firm grind-it-out lawyers from New York do.
Having just read the NFL 3-page response addressing the 19 cases cited, I now understand why its called a "brief".Shelterdog said:
"Your honor, those 19 cases dealt with neutral arbitrator Doesn't apply here to our biased arbitrator."
Am I making it up or at some point well before the arbitration hearing didn't the union ask for a neutral and Goodell said no I'll do it basically on the grounds that he could be neutral? Assuming that's true I'm curious if there are any ramifications to the NFL now announcing that Goodell wasn't a neutral party.
Oh, the judges wish. This was an unauthorized filing. The NFL did not have the balls to file anything substantially longer, which probably would have gotten bounced.bankshot1 said:
If lawyers generally wrote with this same economy, more judges would smile.
Look, the cake is baked at this point. If the NFL is going to win, this won't change that. If the NFL is going to lose, the judge will likely hand this to a clerk and say "let's make sure we add a sentence or two dealing with these points."
The wait until next Monday will suck for us all, these lawyers included.
You have got to love NFL strategy -
The report is independent!
No it isn't, here's proof!
Okay, it isn't, but that doesn't matter.
Brady testified to "x".
No he didn't, here's proof!
Okay he didn't, but that doesn't matter.
The arbiter is neutral!
No he isn't! Here's proof!
Okay, he isn't, but that doesn't matter.
If I was teaching a college course called "Create an Utter Fucking Shit Show" the NFL would be the God damn valedictorian.
The report is independent!
No it isn't, here's proof!
Okay, it isn't, but that doesn't matter.
Brady testified to "x".
No he didn't, here's proof!
Okay he didn't, but that doesn't matter.
The arbiter is neutral!
No he isn't! Here's proof!
Okay, he isn't, but that doesn't matter.
If I was teaching a college course called "Create an Utter Fucking Shit Show" the NFL would be the God damn valedictorian.
Was the NFL compelled to at least respond to the 19 cases cited? When you say "unauthorized" what does that mean? Would a longer rebuttal be more vulnerable to a judicial hatchet, (bounced?) and put the NFL into arguments and on record with arguments they do not feel strongly about, but a shorter reply seen as a necessary?dcmissle said:
Excellent. I'd add..Punchado said:
Brady was "generally aware."
No, he was an evil genius architect!
Well, it's RG privilege anyway since Gene Upshaw was a hack.
We don't need his phone.
Wait, yes we do!
Well, let's just leak the part the makes him look bad.
You'd think that, at the very least, he'd call up his source and demand an explanation. That whole paragraph reads like "i don't know and I don't want to find out, either"johnmd20 said:
Mort has the same attitude with his now infamous Tweet of Fuckitude. I can sort of forgive him for the initial tweet- he got fed bad info in the heat of the moment by sources that he previously trusted- but to do NOTHING for months after he KNEW it was wrong was totally atrocious. PK should know better as well but has done basically the same.AB in DC said:
ifmanis5 said:
There's something fundamentally weird about would-be journalists expressing mild irritation that their sources might not always be straight with them and musing that it sucks that the record is therefore inaccurate.
Do these guys ever wonder why their jobs even exist?
Peter King seems like he's now gone on record as saying that anytime he's reporting on a situation that occurrs out of sight of the public, that he'll report what the NFL wants rather than what happened.
The issue isn't so much all the fucked up reporting, it's the fact that the reporters are acting like reporting false information or being repeatedly deceived by sources just isn't a big deal. Claiming that you too would have tailored your report to the NFL's wishes, or justifying erroneous reporting on the basis that you feel your source really did believe what he said doesn't make the situation better, it makes it much, much worse.
EDIT: Okay, it's the fucked up reporting, too.
The issue isn't so much all the fucked up reporting, it's the fact that the reporters are acting like reporting false information or being repeatedly deceived by sources just isn't a big deal. Claiming that you too would have tailored your report to the NFL's wishes, or justifying erroneous reporting on the basis that you feel your source really did believe what he said doesn't make the situation better, it makes it much, much worse.
EDIT: Okay, it's the fucked up reporting, too.
If Mortenson, King, and the rest report unflattering facts the NFL doesn't want to coming to light, their access dries up and they become persona non grata. At least that's what they seem to believe,OnWisc said:
I think it's what they believe, and probably justifiably. But you can't have it both ways. If you want to break the story to the FF crowd in week 6 about how Tampa is going to give more carries to their backup RB, fine. But don't present yourself as a reliable source for anything bigger than that. The fact that neither Mort nor King are offering a huge, unqualified, mea culpa over this should basically be viewed as a giant red flag that they're going to go down this road again.JayMags71 said:
I just wanted to thank all of you for providing such a wellspring of humor, irreverence, and sagacity to the various threads devoted to this most ridiculous but absorbing of issues. As I have gotten older, I seemed to have come to embrace Dylan's adage, "I was so much older then; I'm younger than that now." Of the 6,300 posts I have made on SoSH, 5,500 of them were written in the first five years I joined (thanks to Bill Simmons). I have been doing a lot more listening and reading than adding anything to the fray, but I do want you to know that I truly appreciate what the vast majority of you seem to do on a daily basis - make me smile; scratch my head; disagree, nod my head affirmatively - or just think. Carry on. Sorry for the interruption.
A lot of the job now is just about access. Access to the top people in your industry.There is no Rev said:
This is getting off topic but people like King and Mort are where they are because they have access to top decision makers and those sources flow Top Secret info down to them. If they started to actually investigate the one-sided BS they get from RG and his staff of lying idiots they'd lose their special access and there goes their career. Even King realizes there's a lot of fishy details around #DFG but damned if he's actually going to chase that dragon for reals. They're picking access over truth and it's never been more obvious then with this story. Mostly this would be a problem with their audience but as we've also seen, the audience hates the NEP more than just about anything else NFL-related so it's a free pass here for most to just repeat whatever RG tells them. Sally Jenkins gets why her job exists but most others don't or can't afford to.
ifmanis5 said:
From back when the story broke in January:
Access to quality content is often a determining factor separating the most successful from peers. It reminds me of the criticism levied at video game journalism (non-gamergate related criticism), though bribes or gifts instead of access might be a more prevalant issue in the latter.
well juicy content, free press passes, access to player only events to NFL writers is bribes just like getting early access to a game demo, or a visit to developer HQ where they show the new title they are working on. It's all the same.natpastime162 said:
Otherwise, you have to go out and buy the new console and buy the game the day it comes out, quickly write a review, and hope you don't get lost in the sea of reviews from the publications that got a early-shipment of the game to test. It's not cheap.
Same dynamic here.
jacklamabe65 said:
Well said, and completely agreed: I'm not even much of a Patriots fan, and yet this thread is like crack to me. On a different website I used to use the Wittgenstein quote "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent" as my tagline - I don't have anything particularly substantitve to add here, so I remain silent, but this thread has certainly given me the ammunition with which to out-argue any casual NFL fan and/or Patriot-hater who only gets his news from the likes of ESPN. And the more people who come to think like I do now, the more the truth will shine and the more (deserved) trouble the NFL will find itself in going forward.
Something jumped out at me when I was driving in and the radio mentioned a quote from the NFL lawyer but I haven't been able to find the exact quote in this thread. They said Nash answered a question from Berman that "Some owners wanted 8 games." I might have heard it wrong and it might have been "some in the NFL", but if it's owners I have some questions. Does the CBA allow for owners to influence decisions on player discipline? And if it's "some" how many? And which ones? The Giants owner declined to come to court and broker a settlement because a conflict of interest. Wouldn't influencing the decision be a bigger conflict of interest? Even if it's not owners I think the NFLPA and Brady have the right to know who are the "some in the NFL" that were influencing the decision. Regardless of who it is I'd want to know how much time they spent reviewing the case and how seriously Goodell took their input. Again, if they are owners then he must have taken them very seriously. They are his bosses.
ifmanis5 said:
The problem is that there are two different "jobs" here. We think of people like King and Mort as "journalists", but they're not. They're information brokers. They're just middlemen. They get handed information from a speaker and then convey it to ESPN viewers. As brokers, they don't particularly care whether the information is true or not; as long as someone is selling (speaking) and someone else is buying (viewing), that's all that matters.
Nash never said owners. He said there were some that wanted more which could fit the original description of Troy and his team worked on the punishment. Roger sat in on some of the meetings. Then they gave him a recommendation that he then applied.
Some people around that table probably wanted to ban Brady and Belichick for a season or more. So Nash's comment doesn't really push it beyond the NFL's already established punishment story.
Some people around that table probably wanted to ban Brady and Belichick for a season or more. So Nash's comment doesn't really push it beyond the NFL's already established punishment story.
That makes sense but I still think it's a fair question to ask who was pushing for 8 games.edmunddantes said:
https://twitter.com/MaxLaw360/status/636207364895559681
Full text of Kessler's response to the owners
*edit*The gist of it is "We did allow for Goodell to serve as arbiter, but not to abdicate his responsibilities as an arbiter, which he definitely did."
Text response below
Full text of Kessler's response to the owners
*edit*The gist of it is "We did allow for Goodell to serve as arbiter, but not to abdicate his responsibilities as an arbiter, which he definitely did."
Text response below
Dear Judge Berman: We do not intend to make a point-by-point response to the NFL’s belated letter submission. The NFLPA and Mr. Brady’s prior briefing addresses each of the League’s arguments and provides additional authorities that the NFL yet again ignores (e.g., Peterson, Supreme Court authority that CBA arbitration decisions are part and parcel of the CBA itself, and evident partiality decisions dealing with sports league Commissioners serving as arbitrators). These authorities, however, are not all that the NFL’s submission attempts to sweep under the rug. For example, Mr. Nash’s letter also ignores the undisputed fact that the CBA requires advance notice of discipline and its consequences (Goodell himself testified to this in Rice), as well as a fair and consistent basis for imposing discipline (same), making the NFLPA’s essenceof-the-agreement authorities directly on point. The NFL further ignores the fact that the Award Case 1:15-cv-05916-RMB-JCF Document 43 Filed 08/25/15 Page 1 of 2 August 25, 2015 Page 2 violates the express fine amounts that were collectively bargained by the parties and set forth in the Player Policies for equipment violations of this type—just like in the cases dealing with violations of express CBA terms. In addition, the NFL’s submission ignores how the denial of fundamental fairness in the arbitration at issue here so closely resembles the denials of fair process in the decisions we presented to the Court. Indeed, as the Court observed, the failure to provide testimony from Mr. Pash concerning his edits to the Wells Report, the summary denial of Mr. Brady’s delegation argument without hearing any evidence, and the denial of the Paul, Weiss investigative files all caused substantial prejudice to the NFLPA’s and Mr. Brady’s undisputed right to a fundamentally fair hearing. The Union may have agreed to Mr. Goodell serving as arbitrator under Article 46, but it did not agree he could abdicate his responsibility as an arbitrator under the LMRA and FAA and conduct fundamentally unfair proceedings in which he cast aside undisputed CBA requirements, adjudicated his own conduct, and issued an unprincipled arbitration award based on his unilateral notions of industrial policy. This is exactly the type of “extreme” case that even the NFL now concedes the Court has the power to vacate.
Not that he hadn't already done so, but Kessler really earned his money with that filing. Note that the extreme language from his prior filings is gone. This is written by someone who thinks the judge is leaning his way and just keeps it simple.
So, for those uninitiated into the fine points of litigation, for (virtually) every motion, there is a moving brief, a response brief, and then a reply brief from the moving party. The reply is often the most telling, because after a party makes its case (the moving brief) and gives the other party a chance to respond (the response brief), the moving party then gets to point out the deficiencies in the response, with its reply brief, i.e., why the response does not adequately deal with the affirmative/moving position. This is typically a short, biting brief that tries to turn the dagger. (It's been said that there are really just three arguments in litigation (i) "This guy's an asshole" (moving brief) (ii) "Oh yeah? So what?" (response brief) (iii) "So's his mom." (reply).)
This sequence we just witnessed is analogous. The "motion" was the NFLPA handing the Judge some supplemental materials at argument, and asking the Court to consider them. The "response" was the letter submission from the NFL (as noted, even if not permitted by the rules--strictly speaking--the Court is going to permit the NFL an opportunity to respond to new arguments or authorities offered by the NFLPA). And this is a masterful reply by Kessler, highlighting for the Court that the NFL's response is grossly deficient. It also pushes the boundaries of the reply by bringing in all of the issues "not addressed" by the NFL, and reminding the Court of the many, many bases on which to vacate.
Still bullish for the NFLPA.
Agree with this.
This sequence we just witnessed is analogous. The "motion" was the NFLPA handing the Judge some supplemental materials at argument, and asking the Court to consider them. The "response" was the letter submission from the NFL (as noted, even if not permitted by the rules--strictly speaking--the Court is going to permit the NFL an opportunity to respond to new arguments or authorities offered by the NFLPA). And this is a masterful reply by Kessler, highlighting for the Court that the NFL's response is grossly deficient. It also pushes the boundaries of the reply by bringing in all of the issues "not addressed" by the NFL, and reminding the Court of the many, many bases on which to vacate.
Still bullish for the NFLPA.
nattysez said:
Agree with this.
PBDWake said:
Hat tip to our resident lawyers, who basically covered this letter in their posts in the other thread. I refuse to let myself get optimistic about a just outcome, but it is admittedly getting harder to feel that way.
That's the way to address the NFL letter. Confident, to the point, and short.
"Belated" is all that needs to be said, and should be said, about the filing yesterday. You don't go all douchebag and move to strike and so forth because -- remember -- it didn't lay a glove on you. And because it didn't, your case benefits marginally from this closing exchange.
"Belated" is all that needs to be said, and should be said, about the filing yesterday. You don't go all douchebag and move to strike and so forth because -- remember -- it didn't lay a glove on you. And because it didn't, your case benefits marginally from this closing exchange.
I like that Kessler letter a lot. Matter of fact assassination like that plays better, IMHO.