This ia not 16th century England, where the supposed royals have supreme authority over common folks.!!!!!!

Its time for godell to put up, or shut up. But since he apparently lacks the integrity, that he expects other to exhibit, this fight will continue.
If he doesn’t have proof, he should not win, so please quit reading your crystal balls.

Except in this case, Mark Sanchez had a normal hand-off. Brett Favre’s was a roll-out. Also, at the exact moment McCray hit him, Favre was in a direct line between McCray and the ball carrier. Favre was in essence a blocker.

They were NOT legal, clean hits.

For example in the 2009 NFC title game they blasted Brett Favre a very long time AFTER he handed off the football on a running play. I’ve never seen that type of dirty hit even at the high school level. They followed it up with a number of very late hits, and the completely illegal ‘high-low’ hit that broke Favre’s ankle. They were paid to do that…

Which means they were paid to deliver dirty and illegal hits with the intent to injure.

No way, we’ve been asking for the truth since day one, and w’ll keep waiting for it and supporting our guys until Goodell show us that they are guilty, if he can..

Or at least over-simplistic. Definitely incomplete.

There might be a subset of posters/readers who believe that Goodell’s only recourse lies in the “intent to injure.” But not all of the responses who are critical of Goodell are of the mind that he must substantiate the pay-to-injure.

Let me state it this way: no matter *what* Goodell claims as the basis for the suspensions, he will have the same problem as he did before… namely that the evidence he released is insufficient to substantiate that claim. Whatever he claims, he’ll have to substantiate it, which means he’s likely going to have to release more of the supposed 50,000 pages of evidence.

In the universe where you reserve judgment until you have evidence (and also the right to come down on the players at a later time when that evidence might ever be revealed), it is still possible to come down on the NFL and Goodell *now* for expecting to shape public opinion (basically expecting us to all form a judgment) in a derth of any evidence.

So while you are correct that Goodell doesn’t have to pursue the intent-to-injure angle, that is an over-simplification of the reaction to the appeal decision. Goodell *still* has problems.

You state:

the league’s policies prohibit offering cash for those kinds of actions. And the league regards it as conduct detrimental to the game.

If salary cap violations are considered “conduct detrimental”, then Goodell needs to suspend Jerry Jones, Jason Garret, Dan Snyder, Mike Shanahan, and others for 1 year for their salary cap violations too.

If it is because they got some extra cash for hitting someone, well, that’s what football player who play defense do: they get paid for hitting others as hard as they can. That’s what they all wear helmets.

And Goodell was VERY clear at the beginning of his very public smear campaign this was about intent to injure.

The appeal panel has made it clear that if the “pay for performance” program did not have a specific “intent to injure” component to it, then it is a salary cap violation and nothing more. If it is a salary cap violation, it is something that Goodell does not have the authority to suspend players for. he just does not have that power under the CBA. It cannot be a salary cap violation and also “conduct detrimental” that is an argument that cannot be made with a straight face. Goodell can only suspend players for the so-called “bounty” program if Goodell finds a specific “intent to injure” component to the program, and then any suspension he hands down has to then go to an appeals board that is not just Roger Goodell. If Goodell tries to use the conduct detrimental” language to suspend for a salary cap violation / pay for performance program he will be slapped down in court so fast it will make his head spin. He cannot do it, it is beyond his authority in the CBA.

Goodell is in a box now. He can fine players under the CBA, but he cannot suspend them without a specific intent to injure, because the power to suspend for a salary cap violation / “pay for performance program” is something that is specifically not within his powers and players cannot be suspended for salary cap violations under the CBA.

“In our view, the alleged bounty program was both an undisclosed agreement to provide compensation to players and an agreement to cause, or attemp to cause injury to opposing players. Therefore, the System Arbitrator would have exclusive jurisdiction to impose penalties for undisclosed compensation terms of the bounty program. And the Commissioner woul have exclusive jurisdiction to impose penalties for the players’ agreement to seek to injure opposing players.”

The problem with your thought process is the league states in the “League Policies” that rewards for pay for interceptions could be considered “conduct detremental” as could a QB giving watches to an OL during the season. This hasn’t been argued and I’m sure the CBA language would trump this very very broad document.

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Defensive players are already paid to make hits. It’s called a Player Contract. Know what else? There are performance incentive clauses in these contracts for defensive players to do just that. In case you forgot, we’re talking about football, not badminton. Laying hard hits on offensive players IS the name of the game.

There is no such thing as bad publicity when it comes to the NFL. Players cheat, lie, steal, and even rape or murder and we continue to watch the game. Goodell has managed to keep the NFL in the papers and on tv ALL year long, tons of free publicity. Not bad for a unhonest hides behind the “Shield” scum bag. I imagine, he will run for president when he finally gets ousted.

If there is no intent to injure, then all that happened was the players were given more financial incentive for their play that was off the books.

When the CBA calls for salary cap violations to be with the special arbitrator, it will be very difficult for Goodell to make a successful legal argument that a salary violation can be punished under both the special arbitrator and as “conduct detrimental to the game”. The CBA is clear in assigning violations to do with salary to someone other than Goodell. It’s one of the (apparently) very few powers specifically not given to Goodell.

It will be relatively easy for the players’ lawyers to argue in court that this issue has to be handled by Burbank and the current suspensions lifted, pending his response, because they can’t be punished twice for the same violation.

1) This gave the appearance of a shot to Goodell’s authority. He looked wrong, or overly harsh. Sure, he’s going to correct that by re-issuing his original punishment. But just like his initial denouncement of the players, the perception that he was wrong is now out there.

2) Based on the perception above, he is going to appear unfair to many more when he “redetermines.” For the first time, several national NFL media figures not named Mike Florio called on Goodell to either end this fairly with the players or commit to changing his process in the future. He will do neither. And these men who faithfully reported his account of events throughout this process will finally see that he has no intention of a fair resolution, but a show of unmitigated power in the media glow of the concussion accusations.

This ruling basically says that there was a clerical error in the way the suspensions were written. It is a lot like if the bank put an extra 0 on your pay check when you deposited it. You can celebrate being rich and make a tool out of yourself, but you know eventually they will correct the error and you will be no better off than you were before. In the player’s case… they could be worse off.

POW!