Roger Goodell: I want your answer and the money by noon tomorrow. And one more thing. Don’t you contact me again, ever. From now on, you deal with Vincent.

Tom Brady: Commissioner? You can have my answer now, if you like. My final offer is this: nothing. Not even the fine for non-cooperation, which I would appreciate if you would put up personally.

Everything comes back to The Godfather.

I think the above is probably how the reported settlement talks in the Tom Brady suspension have gone down.

More disturbing in that article is this:

Per the source, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell is being pushed by a small handful of influential owners to hold firm on the four-game suspension.

So, other NFL owners are pushing to Commissioner to ensure that Tom Brady does not play in one-quarter of the NFL regular season.

They would have absolutely no competitive motivations for doing that, right? They are attempting to use the Commissioner to gain a competitive advantage. Well, we know that at least five owners have come out publicly in support of Goodell’s punishment of Brady.

So who are these “influential owners” trying to push Goodell into holding firm? Dan Rooney and Art Rooney? Whose Steelers play the Patriots in week one? Jerry Jones? His Cowboys play the Patriots in week five. (Which is the fourth game for New England, meaning Brady would miss the game.) Jim Irsay? His Colts, responsible for this whole mess play the Patriots in week six, which would be Brady’s first game. I’m sure they’d prefer facing the Patriots with Brady having yet to have played his first game. Woody Johnson? His Jets play the Patriots in week seven. Might be nice to have the Patriots with a couple of losses under their belts when playing this divisional game. John Mara? His Giants play the Patriots in week ten. Steve Bisciotti? His Ravens might be competing with the Patriots for home field advantage. They’d benefit from a Brady suspension.

I hope people can see just what a criminal organization the NFL is.

This scenario is all the more reason why Goodell should’ve appointed an independent arbitrator to handle this appeal. Owners wouldn’t be running up and whispering the ear of the arbitrator in order to influence the outcome of the appeal.

The PFT article concludes with this:

So while there’s still no good way out of this mess for Goodell, the safest course for him personally would be to hold firm and to force a court to reduce the suspension — since Goodell suffers little or no P.R. consequence when one of his disciplinary decisions is reduced or wiped out by someone else.

This is also the opinion floated out by Peter King.

Again, think about this. The NFL is more interested in P.R. consequences than it is in getting things right. They would rather go to court and lose, (and look foolish, AGAIN) than admit that they messed this up.

This after Troy Vincent fingerwagged the NFLPA about taking the NFL to court and wasting money that could be used to help support retired/injured players.

Criminal.

Why has there not been a big-media investigative report into the activities of the NFL? We know ESPN, NBC, CBS or FOX isn’t going to do it. So, where you at, New York Times? Wall Street Journal? The Boston Globe could sell the most papers it has sold in years if they did something along those lines, but they have another agenda. (Paging Bill Simmons, you want huge ratings for your first HBO show?)

And there’s more. Now the NFL is leaking the idea that Brady wants a settlement – with no evidence that he does – which is meant solely to create an appearance of guilt where there is none.

Criminal.

Is there any doubt that the NFL, as a whole – including the other owners – has declared war on the Patriots? And Robert Kraft took it.

Tom Curran put it perfectly yesterday:

It’s really an adversarial position Kraft put himself in with his quarterback and his head coach. Kraft doing what was good for the league aligned him automatically with the NFL in its looming fight against the NFLPA. And if Kraft advocates taking a deal, not having Brady hurts Bill Belichick’s on-field product. Never mind that Belichick must look at Goodell then look at Kraft and say, “So this is how your friends and their employees treat you? And you’re good with that?”

Last front? The other 31 franchises.

Does it help the Rooneys in Pittsburgh or Jim Irsay in Indianapolis, Jerry Jones in Dallas or John Mara in New York — or any other franchise — to have the Patriots at full strength for 16 games? The Patriots’ two AFC playoff opponents (the Ravens and Colts) showed what they think of the good of the game last January when they whined about legal formations and had equipment managers sticking needles in footballs during the game.

When you take that into account, it really shows the naivete of Kraft saying, “The heart and soul of the strength of the NFL [is] that it’s a partnership of 32 teams, and what’s become very clear over those two decades (since I’ve owned the Patriots is) that at no time should the agenda of one team outweigh the collective good of the full 32.”

Sorry, Bob. It’s 31 on 1. And, since you capitulated, it’s the whole league aligned against your quarterback.

I don’t want to hear a single word if the Patriots happen to “run up the score” on anyone (or everyone) this season.

Bill Belichick: I don’t feel I have to wipe everybody out, Tom. Just my enemies.

Published by Bruce Allen

Automattician.

42 thoughts on “My Offer Is Nothing”

  1. Bruce,

    So, where you at, New York Times? Wall Street Journal?

    Since your paragraph hits on major outlets that are not owned or controlled by anything involved with the NFL, you’d have to omit the WSJ. They were purchased by News Corp, who also owns FOX, in December 2007.

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    1. The real answer is where is CNN…they are the only independent TV News outlet that does not have an NFL interest.

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  3. “I don’t want to hear a single word if the Patriots happen to “run up the score” on anyone (or everyone) this season.”

    Oh, but you will.

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    1. If the patriots don’t win the Colts game by 73 to 0. I will be disappointed. That day of the game should be declared a holiday in Massachusetts like Evacuation day is. Call it get lubed up early holiday. In honor of Mr. Brady

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  4. I heard a Mike Reiss interview where, in the face of the question of whether Kraft is losing Brady by capitulating to Goodell, he said that while Kraft backed off in regards to his own beef with the NFL, he is privately encouraging Brady to fight this thing tooth and nail. We’ll see.

    My main question that no one is even mentioning is whether there’s any way the Pats get those draft picks back. That the pundits dismiss the loss of a 1st because the Pats draft well is just unbelievably stupid logic.

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    1. No one is mentioning it because there’s no way they get them back. End of story. Kraft accepted the discipline; nobody else has standing to challenge the discipline.

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      1. These are people who will turn any little thing into a story so i expect that if this is thrown out in court we’ll have a whole “conversation” about why the Patriots are docked a draft pick when the offense they were punished for has been dismissed.

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        1. I think it could be said that the team penalty was for the actions of the two equipment guys. That falls under the umbrella of being responsible for the actions of your employees. Brady can get cleared because they don’t have proof of him ordering the code red. And no proof that he was sticking the needle in himself. So all the NFL can do is bang the Pats because two employees were touching the balls when they weren’t supposed to. I believe that is why the Ginger Hammer hit them so hard was due to possiblity that he knew Brady’s side of the punishment would eventually be thrown out by the courts.

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    2. “That the pundits dismiss the loss of a 1st because the Pats draft well is just unbelievably stupid logic.”

      The same pundits that say Belichick the GM is always drafting for the future, killing the present for Belichick the Coach and helping to slam Brady’s window shut by not acquiring more weapons for the present?

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    3. Over the years, I haven’t heard many local pundits admit that the Pats draft well. Usually the focus is on the trading back, flops at WR or cornerback, or that Belicheck is obsessed with TE and players from Rutgers. Nothing about the draft picks that have built a 15-year dynasty.

      The worst case is that the Pats go 0-2 or 1-3 (depending on final suspension ruling) without Brady and then key injuries (to Brady,Gronk in particular) or issues in the secondary keep them out of the playoffs. Losing a top-15 pick would be a huge deal, whether they end up taking a blue chip player or trading it for more assets that make the team better.

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      1. All that is true but not even their biggest hater can deny BB’s 1st round pick history, which has been (when he doesn’t trade out of the round) historically excellent.

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        1. “You may be too busy washing your Patriots footy pajamas, caller, but what you don’t understand is that even the first round picks that happened to work out we’re not considered first-round talent. Belichick could have easily picked them in the second or third rounds where they were projected to go, but he’s just too arrogant and needs to show the league he’s smarter than everyone else. So he missed out on real talent like Clay Matthews or someone.”

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          3. Mike, if Bawb Kraft really cared about the fans, he’d get rid of Belichick and bring someone in who can run a draft room, like Art Shell or Herm Edwards. Maybe then we wouldn’t have to suffer through these years of making the playoffs with cast-offs and retreads. Fact, not opinion!

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        2. Belichick has drafted more convicted murderers than current Hall of Famers. Fact, not opinion!

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      2. But I think the point is they ARE apples and oranges but are being treated as if they’re both apples

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        1. I’m not sure I understand what you mean. Any comparison of a criminal case to a violation of NFL rules is apples and oranges.

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          1. If it’s strictly a criminal case then it should be handled through the criminal justice system, not the NFL. By making it up as they go along on – and having the commish as judge, jury and executioner – they are inviting the comparison between punishments. I agree they SHOULDN’T be compared, the NFL is making them comparable, which I believe is the point.

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          2. Perhaps it’s my personal preference to not compare them. The NFL has to take infractions within an NFL game a bit more seriously than a criminal act during an athletes free time IMO. I don’t even like to compare DUI cases within the court system because of stallworth and little. It just seems like a sure fire way to frustrate yourself.

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      3. Actually, it’s not — from a league perspective, both of these are infractions that are only punishable by the league office pursuant to the exact same provision, namely the personal conduct policy.

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  6. I can see that the league office has gone to great strides to patch up it’s media leaks. These Jets fans in the NFL office just cannot keep quiet. They must be high giving around the office like frat boys every time one of their leaks is carried to the mainstream media defsming Tom Brady. Jealousy is a disease.

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    2. I’m glad John Splaine is concerned with a stupid baseball team when Iran is building a nuclear bomb to kill us all!!! #priorities

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    1. You know, at this point I think you are right. After spending $5 mill to attempt to railroad Brady, its clear the NFL is not interested in following its own rules. They exhorted $1mill from and 3 draft picks from Kraft by basically threatening to throw him out of the “club” if he did not play ball. They are now saying they will only reduce Brady’s sentence if he is willing not to go to court to contest. Which sounds to me like a protection racket. The arbitrary and captious nature of the Brady persecution sounds very similar to me as to what FIFA is being investigated for. Having said that FIFA’s crimes are less serious, those people are only accused of influence peddling, money laundering, bribery, extortion and wire fraud. Imagine if there had been a World Cup game played with a football that naturally fell 1 PSI under the approved inflation rate due to the ideal gas law and atmospheric conditions?

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  9. Dramatically less traffic during the Olympics according to a study?

    Dear Pags/all the other elites who want that garbage in Boston, it is more probable than not that using Exponent to conduct your studies results in erroneous results.

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  10. From last night:

    Start printing a million coasters to be given out at every eatery in Patriots Place?

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  11. Listening to Tanguay talk about anything is painful. Listening to him talk about the Olympics is actually a form of torture banned by the Geneva Conventions.

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    1. I’m surprised ISIS hasn’t called him up to be their Director Of Interrogations. It’d probably pay better than his Comcast gig.

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    2. In the car for 10 minutes this am. Heard the last part of the interview with the No to the Olympics guy and then I heard what was arguably the single worst 3 minutes in radio history when Tanguay assaulted the guys bushy eyebrows and explained that he has his waxed once a month…even getting in a plug for the women who performs the service…not once but three times. So again I switch to 98.5 and this time I listen to a rebroadcast of yesterday’s Stan Lee interview. When T&R are doing better/more thoughtful interviews…there are issues.

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    1. Very solid. I’d just add that I think the likelihood of an injunctive stay is very, very high, because while the main harm to Brady is financial (and therefore easy to recoup later if assessed invalidly now), there is an irrecoverable harm from not being allowed to play in the games, and courts tend to err on the side of avoiding irrecoverable harm in a case where the plaintiff has a reasonable chance of prevailing.

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