Watson will play against Bengals

[Whatever]

(08-01-2022, 11:26 AM)Au165 Wrote: This thread, and many you see on social media have actually highlighted the bigger issue of this new system for the NFL that they didn't foresee. When the NFL handled all punishments there was an internal "ranking" of severity that allowed them to say "If this person go this for that then this person probably needs to get more/less". By outsourcing this process they have now created two punishment tracks that no longer have that reliance on each other. In cases that aren't personal conduct policy the NFL still retains control and uses their sense of morality while in personal conduct policy situations they interject a 3rd party's scale for severity.

This creates these comparisons of "x got Y, how is this real?" and that is a bad situation for the NFL to now be in. They went this route because they thought the perception of being judge, jury, and executioner was a bad look but in this new processes first implementation it has done far more damage then we have seen in previous cases where people cried unfair. The NFL now has a choice to make, do they let it stand and lean into being "impartial", or do they decide it was just too wildly out of line with their moralities and override the ruling?

A couple things for people to understand here that I do think matter. The 3rd party only heard complaints on 5 specific incidents. The NFL chose to limit it to only 5 specific incidents which in hindsight was probably a pretty bad miss by the NFL. They probably thought they could paint the best picture with those 5, however the power in this situation I think is in the sheer volume. That said, the 3rd party only made this based on 5 incidents not the 25 people keep mentioning which needs to be kept in perspective.

Another thing here that I think is worth noting is that the NFL can override the 3rd party, but that is not without other issues. The NFLPA and Watson could file for a temporary restraining order to prevent any extended punishment from going into effect. Even in past cases where the NFL succeeded the restraining orders have been issued until the cases could be heard which means such a move could have Watson on the field to open the season which the NFL probably would prefer not to happen.

The other side of this is that the NFL probably can't take those other 20 cases into account if they up the suspension as that probably would give Watson a decent leg to stand on to challenge this. This is why I come back to my first point, where the NFL screwed up it appears is in not making the argument based on the totality of cases but rather the 5 they thought they needed to drive this home.

It still seems light based on precedent even going off of only 5 complaints.  Roethlisberger got 6 games(reduced to 4 on appeal) for two settled accusations with no criminal charges filed.  Watson should've been looking at 15 games reduced to 10 on appeal based on 5 accusations with no criminal charges filed and 4-5 settlements.