Ah, Roger, being King isn’t what it used to be.
The N.F.L.’s unionized vassals have struck yet another legal blow at their overlords. Judge Richard M. Berman of Federal District Court in Manhattan pushed questions of deflated balls and texts and a destroyed cellphone to the side Thursday. He ruled that the league’s commissioner, Roger Goodell, who is fond of acting as judge and jury, cannot make up legal procedure as he goes along.
The words “fundamentally unfair” appear in Berman’s decision, accompanied by a chaser of “inadequate” and “improperly denied.” Goodell, the judge noted, tried to dispense “his own brand of industrial justice.