When the “bountygate” scandal rocked the NFL in 2012, New Orleans Saints LB Jonathan Vilma was suspended an entire season, before successfully getting his ban revoked and being reinstated.
Vilma recently offered some advice to New England Patriots QB Tom Brady, who finds himself in a similar situation:
“I’d tell Brady to fight the emotion of defending himself publicly, lawyer up and begin to devise a gameplan to beat the NFL through the [court] system,” Vilma wrote in a text message.
Vilma, along with Saints teammates DE Will Smith, LB Scott Fujita (then with the Cleveland Browns), and DT Anthony Hargrove (then a free-agent), all eventually had their suspensions reduced or thrown out because of Vilma’s exhaustive efforts in court and ability to show Roger Goodell had shown some personal bias in his punishments.
“We based our argument off of Goodell being the face of the BountyGate witchhunt,” Vilma said in the text message. “He hasn’t done that this time around. I don’t know how he accuses Goodell of being too bias to be [the] arbitrator. I was able to prove he was biased and then let all the facts start coming out in a neutral setting.”
Vilma is right. Roger Goodell seemed much more careful in the league’s investigation of deflategate than he was with bountygate. Although the situations are similar, the Patriots and Brady have less of an argument about the league trying to make an example of them. They’ve already been caught & punished for cheating once, and didn’t seem to learn a lesson.
Brady can take the league to court, however; it seems that would just be an expensive waste of time. I predict he will get his suspension dropped to two games because, well doesn’t everyone? The Patriots however, will not be so lucky. i see them being stuck with their sanctions.
I wonder if the ball boys will find work in the NFL again? No one seems to mention them much.
[h/t ESPN]
