What you’re about to read is not quite a stirring round of applause for NFL commissioner Roger Goodell or another 800-word picking-apart of Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson following the news that Goodell will appeal Watson’s six-game suspension and almost certainly win.
In life, there’s merit in recognizing the moments we fall short of ideal and correcting the behavior (though the real secret sauce seems to be realizing that we fall short more often than we reach whatever ideal would seem to be at the moment and keep chugging anyway). Judge Sue L. Robinson, the NFL and NFLPA’s hand-picked independent arbitrator in these disciplinary cases, pointed out that the NFL’s past precedents in disciplinary cases made it difficult for her to reach the kind of yearlong suspension of Watson the league would have wanted.