The six-game suspension the NFL handed down to Cowboys running back Ezekiel Elliott was put on hold when Judge Amos L. Mazzant III granted a preliminary injunction last Friday and the legal fight has moved on to its next step.
The league filed an appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in hopes of getting that injunction overturned.
If the appeal is granted and the NFL succeeds in the next stage of the legal battle, Elliott’s suspension could go into effect. How quickly that will be decided is unclear, but chances are that it won’t happen immediately as the average time for a case to go from notice of appeal to decision is over eight months. There is the option for either side to ask for an expedited appeal, although doing that didn’t make things move much faster in the case of Tom Brady’s appeal of his four-game suspension.
The NFL ultimately came out on top in this case and is surely hoping for the same result this time around, although it may be a while before we find out.