Patriots Fans Sue NFL Over Draft Pick

Patriots Fans

A group of New England Patriots fans has sued the NFL in an effort to recover the first-round draft pick that was taken from the team as punishment for the “Deflategate” scandal.

The seven fans include a season ticket holder from Connecticut who said the scandal has left his seven-year-old daughter disillusioned and a Florida man who said the NFL’s sanctions have caused him stress and lost sleep.

The complaint filed on Tuesday in US district court in Boston says the NFL made an “arbitrary and capricious” decision to revoke the pick in this month’s draft even though there is no proof the team deliberately deflated footballs in the 18 January 2015, AFC Championship game against the Indianapolis Colts.

The complaint alleges, among other things, common law fraud, negligence, intentional infliction of emotional distress and racketeering.

The NFL commissioner, Roger Goodell, and team owner, Robert Kraft, are named as defendants.

The complaint says the league and Goodell relied on “false premises and biased ‘investigations’” in handing down punishment, which also included a $1m fine and a four-game suspension for quarterback Tom Brady. Brady’s suspension remains under appeal.

The suit criticises Kraft for not fighting the league’s punishments harder.

“Defendant Robert Kraft had remedies to attempt to get plaintiffs’ draft pick back, but he chose his fellow billionaire owners above the plaintiffs and fellow fans,” the suit said.

Sports law experts tell the Boston Herald the suit is a Hail Mary because fans don’t have standing in the matter.

“Paying for a ticket to watch the Patriots play isn’t interfered with by the team losing a draft pick or two,” said Michael McCann, a sports law professor at the University of New Hampshire Law School.

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NFL Commissioner Supports CTE Link

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has supported the assertion of a senior league official who last week acknowledged the connection between football and the degenerative brain disease CTE, describing the statements as “consistent with our position over the years”.

Goodell’s comments on Wednesday at the annual owners meetings directly referenced NFL senior vice president Jeff Miller, whose remarks to a congressional roundtable last week represented the first time a league official has acknowledged a link between football and CTE by a league official.

“The most important thing for us is to support the medicine and scientists who determine what those connections are,” Goodell said. “We think that the statements that have been made by Jeff Miller and others have consistent with our position over the years. We’ve actually funded those studies. So we’re not only aware of those and recognize them but we support those studies. A lot of the research is still in its infancy, but we’re trying to find ways to accelerate that.”

The remarks came one day after Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones characterized the connection between football and CTE as “absurd”.

The commissioner addressed a broad range of topics at the news conference on Wednesday, including the potential relocation of a team to Las Vegas and the reports suggesting the league is near a deal to host a regular-season game in China in 2018.

Goodell wouldn’t dismiss America’s gambling capital as a potential home for an NFL team when asked about Oakland Raiders owner Mark Davis’ interest in moving his club there.

“Mark Davis is appropriately looking at all his alternatives,” Goodell said, adding the city’s association with legalized betting “are things we’d have to deal with. We would have to understand the impact on us. Each owner would have a vote; it would be a factor many owners would have to balance, the league would have to balance.”

The commissioner stopped short of confirming the Los Angeles Rams’ would play a regular-season game in China – news first reported by the Los Angeles Times on Tuesday and by NFL.com on Wednesday – but acknowledged the league’s well-documented global ambitions.

“I think the size of China in the global marketplace, that’s something you can’t ignore. We know we have lots of fans over there, and more important, potential fans over there,” Goodell said. “We have multiple teams that are interested in playing. We have more than we can handle at this point in time.”

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NFL Vote on Touchbacks and Ejections

The NFL has moved touchbacks to the 25-yard line and passed a new ejections rule – despite objections from coaches.

NFL owners voted to move the ball spot on touchbacks after kickoffs to the 25-yard line, to try to limit the number of returns after injuries on the play rose in 2015. They also ruled that players will be subject to automatic ejection if they commit two unsportsmanlike conduct penalties in the same game. Specifically, a “player penalized twice in one game for certain types of unsportsmanlike conduct fouls” will be “disqualified”.

The automatic ejection proposal was suggested by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell just before the Super Bowl.

Both rule changes will be reviewed after the 2016 season before the NFL decides whether to make them permanent.

The owners were concerned about player safety on kickoffs – but the decision to move the touchback up five yards could have the opposite effect.

Some coaches suggested that the number of kickoff returns could actually increase, with kickers using “mortar kicks” that drop close to the goal line and require a return.

According to Deadspin, two veteran special teams coordinators told the Chicago Tribune the new rule will lead more teams telling the kickers to get as much hang time as possible while landing the ball near the goal line in an effort to cover a kick and pin the offense inside the 25 or even inside the 20.

Coaches also claimed that opponents will bait players into committing penalties that qualify for the ejection rule, but owners say that won’t happen. Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said: “I think it points to our emphasis on good sportsmanship.”

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