The NFLPA announced that it has formally requested that commissioner Roger Goodell recuse himself as the arbitrator in Tom Brady‘s disciplinary appeal. The statement reads:
“Given a process that has contained procedural violations of our collective bargaining agreement, the Commissioner’s role as a central witness in the appeal hearing and his evident partiality with respect to the Wells report, the Commissioner must designate a neutral party to serve as an arbitrator in this matter. The players also believe that the Commissioner’s history of inconsistently issuing discipline against our players makes him ill-suited to hear this appeal in a fair-minded manner. If the NFL believes the Ted Wells report has credibility because it is independent, then the NFL should embrace our request for an independent review.”
The demand has been formally made by the union, but don’t expect the commissioner to cave. Indications leading up to the meetings continue to be that Goodell won’t step aside as he wants to talk to Brady himself, Mike Garafolo of FOX Sports tweets.