NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith has described the outcome of the league’s “independent” investigation of the Patriots as the client getting what the client wanted. Former Dolphins offensive line coach Jim Turner believes that’s not the first time this has happened.
In a press release issued Monday regarding Turner’s suit against Ted Wells and the Paul, Weiss law firm, Turner accuses Wells of “echo[ing] the NFL’s predetermined conclusion that [Jonathan] Martin was the innocent victim of bullying and harassment and ignored and mischaracterized what really occurred in the Dolphins locker room.”
(Patriots fans are currently sporting their shocked faces.)
Turner, through lawyer Peter Ginsberg, contends that the NFL’s investigation had more to do with responding to public pressure than getting to the truth, and that the NFL “could not afford to be perceived as insensitive or unwilling to take harassment seriously.”
Turner specifically claims that Wells and his firm “withheld and ignored key information from the final Report, including testimony and potential testimony of several former and current Dolphins players and coaches.” Turner contends that Wells and his firm “falsely accused [Turner] of helping to create the atmosphere that allowed bullying and harassment to happen.”
Said Ginsberg to close the press release: “The Defendants, reflecting the NFL’s and Commissioner Goodell’s mindset, ignored and simply did not care that they were sacrificing the reputations and careers of people like Jim Turner in order to fashion a public relations campaign designed solely to ‘protect the shield.’ It takes someone like Jim, with courage and conviction, to stand up against the NFL machine and its law firm hired guns.”
It indeed takes plenty of courage for Turner to do this, because filing a lawsuit definitely not one of the steps for getting back into the NFL. With more than a full year passed since Turner was fired by the Dolphins, that’s apparently not happening anyway. So why not fight back?