Stop - hold the bus!!!!
I take back everything I've said about any $25k fine of Brady being appropriate. As it turns out, even that much is a gross overstepping of what's allowed. (Stick with me Darwin, I'll try to use smallish words so you can follow - but repeat after me - No, the NFL cannot do whatever it damn well pleases.)
Check out the following article on details coming to light about the
NFLPA's suit against the NFL over this whole hot mess...
The most relevant highlight to our conversation here? The ball pressure isn't even in the player's rulebook! It's in the "Game Operations Manual" that's provided for the benefit of the teams, and not published to the players. So, Brady's being penalized for being generally aware of a rule being broken that isn't even in any materials that are published for him or any of the other 51 guys on the Pats active roster.
But wait. There's more. (And Hoppy, this is gonna make you mad for Beastmode - definitely looks to me like he got shafted.)
The policies that ARE given out to players provide for specific, collectively bargained (see, that term!!!!) fines for equipment violations - the policies cite stickum or slippery compounds, for example. Nothing specific about ball pressure - though I grant that maybe that could fall into their catch-all about modifications that could grant a competitive advantage, assuming somewhere in there they include guidelines as to what pressures don't grant a competitive advantage. But since when do funny colored shoes grant any kind of competitive advantage? Beastmode got shafted. (Unless there's some other bit of the CBA that covers uniform colors and penalties for not adhering to them.)
And the Player Policies - again, under the CBA - specifically limit a first time offender to a fine of $8,268.
So. IF the Player Policies, or some other player-published rules state what the pressure should be in the football (and the NFLPA already established they do not - but we'll ignore that because everyone wants to ignore everything in favor of Brady here), and if we assume guilt, he should've been fined no more than $8,268. Anything more than that is a violation of the CBA.
So now, we're forced to assume that all the rest of his quarter-season suspension is because he failed to cooperate with the investigation by refusing to hand over his phone. Which, again, he absolutely positively does not have to do, and the NFLPA would've gone bonkers on him if he had. And the article goes into plenty of detail as to why this is ridiculous too, which I'll let you all read at your leisure.
None of what the NFL has tried to do here will stand up in court. The CBA alone ties their hands, and the fact that they've clearly violated it here kills any argument they may believe they have.
