So once Goodell re-issues the suspensions, the judge will only have her personal preferences to use as a reason to rule against the NFL. If she does that, the Appeals Court will strike her down.

Well, I’ll be candid with you. I would like to rule in Mr. Vilma’s favor. I think the proceedings were neither transparent nor fair. I think I made that clear the other day. I think the refusal to identify the accusers, much less have them at the hearing to be cross-examined, to look at biases, flaws in their testimony, and 18,000 documents that apparently were relied upon by Mr. Goodell, less than 200 were actually provided to you, many of them were redacted. (My words here: the Judge saying this clarifies 2 things. One it kills the NFL’s shield of we are trying to protect the whistle blowers and two for those who say Goodell doesn’t have to show the evidence are call witnesses it’s not in the CBA. I would think the judge knows more about the law then you are me. She is saying he does)

I do think you did exhaust your remedies at that hearing, because in essence, I think you were thwarted at every time by Mr. Goodell’s refusal to provide you meaningful access to witnesses and to documents. So I think you did, in fact, do everything you could at that hearing to exhaust. As you know, I do think the whole — I think this should have been dealt with by the System Arbitrator since it was a pay-for-performance program, or at least it was unnecessary roughness or unsportsmanlike conduct. It should have been — gone to mutual hearing officers. I think the penalty hearing was too harsh. I think it’s pretty obvious how I feel about all of that.

My question, though, I guess my concern is, and you mentioned it a couple seconds ago, there is still an appeal pending which is going to be heard, I understand, on August 30th. So while I do think you exhausted your administrative remedies at the hearing before Mr. Goodell, I have some — I don’t think they are exhausted with respect to Mr. Burbank’s decision. So I don’t know that I can do anything prior to that 30th hearing. I guess I would like your thoughts on that.

In sum, the judge thought that the NFL ran a kangaroo court style appeal process in front of Goodell.
She did not make a ruling as she was waiting for the Burke Appeal Panel to make a ruling and let the CBA play out. If Goodell suspends again she can now step in and make a ruling as the players have no other recourse. Jonathan Vilma’s Defamation Lawsuit is also still in play it has not been dismissed. I think that is why Vilma is having a meeting on Monday ahead of the players. To see if Goodell will be transparent and show the evidence. If it’s more of the same as before then look for Vilma to walk out and go to court as he has more chips to play in this high stakes poker game.Also look for Judge Berrigan to issue TRO while all this plays out in court.

Vilma walked out of the hearing because of it’s obvious unfairness (i.e. not letting players include evidence or witnesses). The rest of the players stayed the entire time.

If you followed it, you would realize it was not a hearing at all. It was just the NFL showing their power point presentation of 180 pages. There was no interviewing of the accused or witnesses.

Goodell could have easily ended if he had an 8th of the evidence he claims.

The fact that the accused were never contacted prior to punishments issued should say it all. (look it up. Vilma’s name was in the media as a possible defendant, but was never formally accused by the NFL prior to punishments)

If he is on a roster next year it will be after being cut and resigned before the second game. He would make a very good insurance policy at linebacker but is probably no longer a starter.

The process is that at the initial hearing is where Goodell is supposed to provide evidence, that would be the hearing that Vilma didn’t attend. That would be the hearing that was also where the discipline was determined.

Since there were no players at the initial hearing to refute the evidence, Goodell could’ve decided to only use that 1% of the evidence to make his decision. If then during the appeal, he showed what he used, it wouldn’t matter if he was showing 1% or not because he was showing 100% of what was used.

If he wasn’t showing all that was used, then you are correct there is incredibly unfair. However, being objective, it is hard to hold Goodell to the fire about the exact process of the CBA when the players aren’t following it either. However that point is neither here nor there.

In the end, now we have an arbitration panel that says Goodell just needs to clarify, I don’t know how much showing he is really going to do.

With that ruling though, if Goodell clarifies the statement to only show Conduct Detrimental, Berrigan won’t have any grounds as the only thing she was going to rule on was jurisdiction. And that issue would’ve been cleared up. She has already stated that regarding defamation it looked to her that what Goodell had said was reasonable within the realm of his job to say what he said if his intention was to inform and not malign.

For Vilma to prove that he was trying to malign is an uphill battle that would be exceedingly hard to prove.

To Roger and the league: Tell the truth – it’s easier to keep your story straight.

How could Goodell show Vilma any evidence when Vilma refuses to meet with the Commish.

Goodell gave players plenty of chances to come to Park Ave and speak with them and instead the players lawyered up.

In my opinion if the defendants (the players) felt the need to lawyer up instead of have a face-to-face meeting with the Commish that proves that even they knew that they did something against the rules in place by the NFLPA and NFL.

You realize part of the CBA dictates that the players receive a fair appeal, right? that alone leaves a judge room to say he violated the CBA. which part of the appeals process was fair? The part where 1% of the evidence was shone and then proven inaccurate and flimsy at best? Or the part where the NFL denied any entrance of explicable evidence and testimony?

No a union contract does not give a person unilateral, dictatorial power. However, Goodell has not made up or usurped any power that the CBA does not specifically give him. Everything he has done so far has been within his rights as defined by the contract. And despie what Judge Berrigan may do, eventually the truth that the courts are required not to interfere with a properly negotiated contract will win the day.

He DID NOT SHOW VILMA EVIDENCE. How can he refute something that isn’t there? Inf fact the NFL refused to look at any counter evidence the players had. (not much of a fair appeal if you ask me…,which is required in the CBA)

Correct, according to the ‘Bounty Rule’—pay-for-performance fall under it, but that is not what Goodell portrayed. That is not what the most extreme punishments in league history are for. punishment does not fit crime. in short, the rule is worded to allow pay-for-performance to fall under a “bounty”, but that does not mean it is not a salary cap issue, that a judge won’t overturn on those grounds alone. I think it is quite funny to go back and look at the accusations Goodell has put forth over the course of time. first it was “incentive to injure players”. Now it is “money for big plays that may or may not injure players”. Kinda sounds like backtracking because he has no evidence to back it up. Every play is a play that may or may not injure a player.

The judge can definitely rule in the players favor now.

Think about this! What is that source turns out to be Payton, or Vitt, or even Vilma himself! Suppose they were told to challenge things publicly so as to throw suspicion away from themselves.

Tell me. Is this idea really anymore radical than what the “He has no evidence!” Crowd is saying. The truth is WE DON’T KNOW WHAT IS GOING ON BEHIND THE SCENES AND WE PROBABLY NEVER WILL.

Where is Sean Payton and Greg Williams on this matter? How come they have accepted the sanctions placed upon them? They cheated to win and therefore won a Super Bowl for a decaying fanbase.

Everyday its crybaby Jonathan Vilma and his lawyer with the “boo hoos” and the “it wasn’t me” garbage.

Players from other organizations that were coached by Greg Williams have stated that there was a bounty during games; former players like Chris Carter and Herm Edwards even claimed that a bounty was just something that gets imposed in a locker room prior to a game.

when talking about evidence, like I said, it doesn’t matter if you, myself, or anyone else agrees with it if the judges believes it. The judges perception is the one that matters.

The players refuted being part of a bounty program but said that they were part of a Pay for Play program. Judge Berrigan later stated that Pay for Play can be considered a bounty program.

So with regards to conduct detrimental, that is enough.

Does what Goodell has released show definitively show that Vilma or any of the other 4 had intent to injure, I don’t know. I don’t think that it is enough to say that they took money. However I am not the judge. He is.

And let me know tell you, if I was Vilma, I would be in there every time he said meet so I could say, this evidence is wrong and here is why.

However I am also not the player.

So what I think doesn’t matter.

reality is also this:
- in spite of this procedural misstep, the NFL has the CBA right to discipline players for a very wide variety of behaviour.
- these players had a bounty system… people admitted it
- they are gonna get punished and rightfully so

the only variable is how much money Ginsburg is going to hoover out of Vilma’s bank account…

and that’s Vilma’s own fault…

Sorry but you are waaaay off AGAIN. Goodell the DICTATOR has not provided the players or their attorneys ANY evidence. That is one of the reasons they have so far refused to participate in Goodells Sham hearings. How can a person defend themselves against charges if they don’t know what evidence is supposedly assembled against them?

Prosecutors must provide the defense with the evidence against the accused, but Goodell doesn’t have to?

In my husbands union contract at his employer it states that the company can fire “at will” any employee that participates in any act of sabotauge against company property. If the company wanted to fire hubby, they only have to make an accusation saying he destroyed property and can him. They don’t have to show him any proof.
Does that make it right?
Does that mean he has no other recourse?
Does that mean he should just accept and not hire legal representation to defend himself?
Does that mean the law can’t say hey, wait a minute, that is not legal?

Just cause there is a union contract, it doesnt mean a company or DICTATOR can just do whatever they want

But, for the sake of argument, let’s say the Saints are guilty of trying to break kneecaps to win. Then why did Goodell do such a horrible job of bringing them to justice? Seriously, his case has been a joke this whole time. If you seriously think the Saints are guilty, then you should be mad that Goodell has snarked this up so bad.

WHAT are you talking about?! Not only did the players refute what little evidence he provided to them, but the NFL themselves said it was inaccurate after the issue were brought up.

1. 180 pages of evidence of the supposed 50,000. less than 1%.
2. ledger . contains Vitt’s name. Vitt complained, and Goodell said it was inaccurate. If that is wrong, why should any of the ledger (which was a typed copy…never saw original) be taken as evidence.
3. Greg Williams speech and interview with player.
a. greg williams speech is over the top, but not proof bounties in any way. Goodell did not know about this speech unitl after suspensions were handed out.
b. Interview with player did not even exist until after suspensions were issued. How can that be part of you evidence? It doesn’t even say anything beyond pay-for-performance.

sorry, no evidence has been shown to anyone outside of the NFL office.

You are a little off.

Goodell isn’t a dictator, he didn’t make the policy, the both the Union and the League did. It was agreed upon by both sides. A dictator makes the choice by them-self.

He isn’t providing inaccurate, he is providing the evidence that he used to make his decision. It is the responsibility of the players to refute the evidence, which they never did in a hearing. The spouted off about it to the media but never in a hearing.

That is on them, not the commissioner. If they think the evidence doesn’t show their guilt they should go talk to him and show him how it doesn’t. Remember a he said/she said doesn’t work in that case because it isn’t them against the commish. It is them against the evidence the league provided.

That is any court case – just ask OJ

If that doesnt state that the suspensions were overturned or that Goodell overstepped his power, i dont know what does. Its no longer just a matter of proving pay for performance, which has been around on every team since NFL was started, its now a matter of proving intent to injur which would fall into Goodells authority under detrimental to the game.