On Thursday morning, Judge Richard H. Kyle transferred the lawsuit filed Wednesday by the NFLPA in the Tom Brady case to New York, where the NFL had initially filed a lawsuit against the NFLPA a day earlier. NFLPA outside counsel Jeffrey Kessler shrugged at the decision.
“It really doesn’t matter to us where the case is,” Kessler told PFT by phone. “What we finally have is a neutral forum. Before a neutral forum, we are very confident in our position.”
Asked about the appointment of the New York case to Judge Richard M. Berman, Kessler said, “We’re very happy to have him.”
Perhaps the NFLPA should be very happy to not have Judge Richard H. Kyle, to whom the Minnesota case was assigned. His order sending the case to New York was worded somewhat strongly against the union, questioning among other things the decision to file in Minnesota in the first place.
Kessler explained that the paperwork filed Wednesday in Minnesota will be re-filed in New York. He said the documents will have “some revisions,” but that “ostensibly we will be making the same arguments.”
Kessler also reiterated that the plan remains to request a ruling by September 4 or, alternatively, an order allowing Brady to play pending the resolution of the case.
Look for more content from the Kessler interview to be posted here throughout the day, and to be discussed during the upcoming three-hour daily look at the latest news and information in the football world, PFT Live on NBC Sports Radio.