The Deflategate Case Is Over. Now Here’s How To Change The NFL.

Deflategate exposed the NFL’s disciplinary approach as arbitrary, ineffective, biased and corrupt. Here are five ways the League can overhaul its processes and start to earn back respect and credibility.

Photo: Keith Allison, Flickr.

In overturning Tom Brady’s four game suspension today, Judge Berman didn’t just ensure that justice was served — he fundamentally repudiated the League’s approach to rule-making and discipline.

Not only did Berman find there wasn’t enough evidence to punish Brady, he cites multiple instances in which the League violated Brady’s due process rights and overstepped its authority under the CBA, including giving Brady inadequate notice of both his alleged misconduct and discipline, failing to allow Brady’s team to examine relevant witnesses (namely lead investigator and NFL general counsel Jeff Pash) and denying equal access to investigative files, including key witness notes.

In the past year alone, the NFL has seen three high-profile disciplinary rulings overturned or reduced upon appeal, and that is a fundamental problem for the NFL. When the League is unable to discipline its players — targeting innocent players or screwing up the process so badly that guilty players are exonerated on a technicality — it throws the entire game into chaos. Perhaps more concerning is the fact that the NFL is singular in its inability to effectively render punishment — -no other league has these problems and no other athletes live with their careers in this kind of limbo.

Following today’s ruling, the NFL must examine how its disciplinary processes could have failed so spectacularly and affect substantive changes to restore respect and credibility in the eyes of the public, ensuring no players are ever subjected to such a travesty again.

Here are five simple changes the NFL could make to its disciplinary process going forward. While these recommendations are just a start, they would help the League restore basic fairness, transparency and consistency.

1. Hire an independent Special Counsel — mutually agreed upon by the League and the NFL Players Association — with criminal trial experience, integrity, and fairness, who is free of conflicts, maintains no other business or relationship with the League, and remains committed to devoting his or her full time to the completion of a confidential, leak-free investigation.
2. Enable the player’s counsel to raise, confidentially, any objections to the League’s handling of the investigation for an immediate ruling within one week by Special Counsel, who should be required to notify all parties as the investigation progresses.
3. While failure to cooperate by the player should remove the player from the field until full compliance, failure to cooperate by the Commissioner or the League should void the inquiry until full compliance. Failure to cooperate means any endeavor to frustrate, impede or obstruct the inquiry — including leaking information relevant to the investigation.
4. Upon completion of the inquiry, Special Counsel should make a confidential draft report with interviews and exhibits available to both sides for expeditious comment. The full working papers of Special Counsel shall be available to assist in examining witnesses or providing additional evidence, and both sides may examine any witness interviewed by Special Counsel. All suggestions and comments of both sides shall be considered and duly noted by Special Counsel in the public Final Report.
5. The standard of proof for the Special Counsel and any ensuing arbitration shall be “beyond a reasonable doubt.” Arbitrators shall be experienced, independent, and unbiased — as well as selected and agreed to by both parties. If the parties fail to agree with five days, the Special Counsel shall have the power to select the Arbitrator to hear the case. The Arbitrator shall hold a full and fair hearing with all witnesses and evidence available on the final record.