I believe that the judge took a very broad view in this arbitration, which is not unusual in alternative dispute resolutions. Strictly speaking if this were a civil action in a real court, the NFL would have sought summary judgment and may have gotten it. The NFL and NFLPA CBA is pretty clear as a contract, and not ambiguous. The NFLPA gave up all rights to Roger - whether that was dumb or not. There is nothing about being "fair" or some kind of "due process" in the contract. We all sign contracts that may be to our disadvantage, which does not automatically void them (remember when we were arguing this re our wonderful BoT).
The judge decided to rule that the process by the NFL was unfair, unclear, not understood in advance, etc, and took a very expanded position even for an arbitrator. For that reason I think his decision could be vacated. He also decided to wander out into the actual football discussion re the investigation, which made him look like he was actually ruling on whether Brady "deserved" to be suspended. I thought he was out of bounds there even for arbitration. Apply his logic to the NCAA decision re PSU re Freeh report.
What is intriguing is that this is not a criminal issue, and there is no such thing as immunity from double jeopardy. I think the NFL could actually go conduct a second investigation on the same matter, and deal with Brady/Pats from square one again. I even think they could re-use all previous facts re the destroyed cell phone, and seek to get to the two equipment guys statements. They may also be able to conduct a full electronic discovery on the Patriots systems and communications to see what may be around. For example, what if you found the two equipment guys just got lifetime contracts with a 50% raise?
I don't think this is over at all, unless the owners decide that they want Roger to stop. The arrogance of the league is similar to NCAA with us. The difference is that PSU is not the love object the Pats are.
