Brady seeks another hearing
Tom Brady’s lawyers asked a federal appeals court for a new hearing before an expanded panel of judges, telling them on Monday that it is not just a silly dispute over underinflated footballs — it’s the basic right to a fair process that is shared by all union workers.
Setting the stage for the “Deflategate” scandal to stretch into its third season, and putting Brady’s fourgame suspension back in the hands of the courts, the players’ union asked all 13 judges of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to hear the case that a threejudge panel decided in the league’s favor.
“As a union that believes in its obligation to fight for its members, it’s an easy call to fight on this,” NFL Players Association executive director DeMaurice
Smith told the Associated Press. “We are looking for affirmation that when a person decides to cloak themselves as a neutral arbitrator, they buy into due process. No arbitrator is allowed to go rogue.”
The NFL did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Brady was initially suspended four games for what NFL commissioner
Roger Goodell said was an illegal scheme to use improperly inflated footballs in the 2015 AFC championship game. The suspension was overturned by a federal judge on the eve of last season, but a threejudge circuit court panel ruled 2-1 last month that Goodell was within the rights granted to him by the collective-bargaining agreement.
An appeal to the full 2nd Circuit — called “en banc” — is Brady’s next step in his attempt to avoid the suspension, but such hearings are rarely granted. The New England Patriots quarterback could then appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, where the odds of obtaining a hearing are even slimmer.
Report: NFL tried to influence brain study
NFL officials improperly sought to influence a government study on the link between football and brain disease, according to a senior House Democrat in a report Monday. New Jersey Rep. Frank Pallone says the league tried to strong-arm the National Institutes of Health into taking the project away from a researcher that the NFL feared was biased.
The NFL had agreed to donate $30 million to the NIH to fund brain research but backed out after the institutes refused to take a $16 million grant away from prominent Boston University researcher Robert
Stern. He’s a leading expert on the link between football and brain diseases such as chronic traumatic encephalopathy. Taxpayers are instead bearing the cost.
The NFL denied Pallone’s findings.
“The NFL rejects the allegations,” NFL spokesman
Brian McCarthy said in a statement on Monday. The league acknowledged that it had raised concerns about the study and a potential conflict of interest involving Stern, but McCarthy said the NFL had communicated its concerns through appropriate channels.