Patriots President Jonathan Kraft said that it "might be time to rethink the NFL's disciplinary process in which commissioner Roger Goodell has ultimate decision-making authority," according to Mike Reiss of ESPN.com. Kraft during an interview Saturday on Boston-based WBZ-FM was "clear that he wasn't speaking specifically about the NFL's handling of its investigation" into Deflategate, but instead "from a big-picture viewpoint." He said, "The world has changed and the complexity of some of the situations -- things that I don't think we ever thought we would be dealing with, we're dealing with. ... There probably needs to be a rethinking so that the league office and the commissioner aren't put in a spotlight in a way that detracts from the league's image and the game -- even if the league office is doing the right thing, or the wrong thing, or whatever you think. It probably needs to be rethought for the modern era that we're in and the different things that are coming up that I don't think people anticipated and how the public wants to see them treated." He added, "It's a general big-picture issue that needs to be addressed, but I don't have any answers for you today. ... The league office, with the business of football, there is so much to handle day to day, and so much to do. I think there needs to be a prescribed process for how certain parts of the discipline process are going to work, especially probably the appeals, so that the spotlight and the attention doesn't all have to fall on Park Avenue. I'm not saying Park Avenue is capable or not capable. I'm not making a value judgment with what I'm saying. I think I'm just making a big-picture macro observation" (ESPN.com, 8/23). Meanwhile, Kraft said that he "didn't have a problem" with NFL Giants President & CEO John Mara declining a chance to help mediate a settlement between Tom Brady and the NFL. Kraft: "John’s a good friend. He probably doesn’t want to be dragged in ... I understand why he respectfully passed on the opportunity to get involved" (BOSTON HERALD, 8/23).
OUT OF THE SHADOWS: In DC, Sally Jenkins wrote Goodell "set out to expose" Brady, but instead he has "exposed himself and the entire league." It was at first "baffling to watch Goodell commit such acts of overreach" and has since "become merely revealing of a catastrophic arrogance." Goodell has "steadily etched out his real character and attitudes, and in doing so he has bared himself and the league to searing judicial review." The Brady case "teaches us a lot about labor laws and how the NFL regards itself as above them" (WASHINGTON POST, 8/22). But in Boston, Ben Volin writes despite all of the "good points being made by Jeffrey Kessler and the rest of Brady's legal team, and the intense grilling" Judge Richard Berman is "giving league attorney Daniel Nash, the NFL just might hold the trump card." The NFL's CBA affords "high deference" to arbitration awards, meaning that "only under extreme circumstances should a federal court intervene with an arbitrator’s decision" (BOSTON GLOBE, 8/24). ESPN.com's Lester Munson writes under the header, "Don't Be Fooled By Judge In Deflategate Case; NFL Will Win In End Over Brady" (ESPN.com, 8/21).
