So, King Roger Goodell still sits on the Iron Throne.
There's no other way to interpret Friday's surrender by Tom Brady, on Day 544 of Deflategate, than as complete victory by Goodell and the NFL. He rules. The United States federal court system says so, and everybody who disagrees has run out of arguments.
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King Roger on the Iron Throne (SN Illustration)
Goodell is the Godfather. Today, he settled all family business. Thankfully, Brady isn't Moe Green in this scenario. But right now, it would be hard to find a more definitive victory in Goodell's tenure as commissioner.
Not even the 2011 lockout itself. The victory the NFL won there, the power he was granted in, basically, a union concession to keep the season from being cancelled, is the foundation of this Deflategate win.
The public can scowl and smirk and groan and roll eyes all it wants at his media conferences and his outlandish statements. Those won't stop. None of it will matter. He's fully in charge. He's all but bulletproof.
Goodell can check off all the Deflategate boxes now.
— Patriots sign off on the punishments? Check. Last year, when Robert Kraft gave in rather than fight his old friend and supporter. The Patriots accepted the fine and, as of this past spring, have surrendered the first-round pick.
— Brady sign off? Check. Did that Friday in a statement that — like the aforementioned Patriots' stance — admitted to nothing.
— The union beaten? Check, for now. The NFL Players Association reserved the right to continue the fight to the Supreme Court, just not with Brady. But the appeals court decision in place right now, the one that knocks Brady out for this season's first four games, slapped the union down hard. No, what the league did and how it did it makes no sense, the ruling said in essence … but this is what you agreed to. You gave him the bat, it said; you can't sue him now for using it.
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— The players still under the NFL's thumb? Check. That's related to the union's fight on Brady's behalf, but also separate. Don't think that when it's time to fight over a labor agreement — and the owners lock the players out again — that the league won't remember that even the NFL's most iconic active player had a breaking point.
It's a dent in the perception of how much resolve the players have to stay out, in order to take away the commissioner's absolute disciplinary power. It's a dent in their leverage. Time will tell how big a dent it is.
It's a pure, untainted win for Goodell. A comeback win, actually, 10 months after getting taken down a peg by a lower court which allowed Brady to play. In the end, Goodell got what he wanted.
He is the king. Someone else can claim the throne if they want. They'd better bring a big dragon. Brady, the union and the rest of the players don't have one.