Did Goodell Pull a Fast One? Could AP Have Played All Along?

[wilwhite]

Is a player on the exempt list barred from team facilities?

Or from attending team meetings?

Or from practicing?

No.

The only thing the policy says is:

The List includes those players who have been declared by the Commissioner to be temporarily exempt from counting within the Active List limit.

That's the only explicit effect. You don't count against the 46-player limit for active players. (The 53-man limit is for the combined Active and Inactive lists.)

Some serious-sounding and possibly contradictory language follows:

The Commissioner also has the authority to determine in advance whether a player's time on the Exempt List will be finite or will continue until the Commissioner deems the exemption should be lifted and the player returned to the Active List.

"...returned to the Active List..." hmmm... that implies that if you're on the exempt list you're NOT on the Active List. But that makes the first statement nonsense. Players not on the Active List don't count against the Active List?

Another reading is that "returned to the Active List" actually means "will again count against the Active List." That makes sense. That would be consistent with "exempt from counting within the limit." (Commissioners don't decide who's on the Active List anyway; clubs do.) If in fact that's what meant, that would be why the arbitrator decided the league could keep AP on the list - because being on the list doesn't in itself even keep AP off the field. (Obviously in that case, if AP was going to play, Goodell would take him off the list so the Vikings wouldn't get an extra active roster spot.)

In fact, that second reading lets Goodell off the hook entirely - the only thing he did "wrong" was let people run wild with their assumptions about what the List meant. Of course it wasn't a discipline from the league - not only was he paid, he could have been playing!

Included among those who jumped to the wrong conclusions would obviously be the NFLPA. A player "agreeing" to be on the list wouldn't mean anything - the list is just a favor to a club to have an extra spot on their roster. The player and the NFLPA wouldn't be affected at all.

No matter how you read it, after (or even before) his plea deal, AP could have been with the Vikings, trained, gone to meetings, and practiced. And then any questions about the List would have been cleared up. In fact AP can do that right now while his suspension is appealed.

But people somehow came up with the idea that the Exempt List meant AP couldn't be with the team at all; that's clearly not the case. Goodell never said it was, but he wasn't about to correct anybody.

The question is whether the Vikings knew the real deal or not. Because maybe the Vikings have been keeping him away the whole time, and Goodell has been throwing a smoke screen to let them do it.

(Not that I want to see AP celebrate touchdowns or anything. It would be great if he showed up at the Vikings facility just to put the squeeze on Goodell, actually saw the field this weekend and Goodell had to sheepishly take him of the list, but was fat and addled and got 1 yard on nine carries with a fumble, and next week his suspension was upheld - preferably by a neutral arbitrator.)

 

[SmokingMonkey]

Not sure of all the intricacies of the NFL rule book, but one thing I can assuredly chime in on here is the Vikings wanting to avoid the PR nightmare it would have been to keep AP around the facility amid this turmoil.

The rest of the NFL owners learned 1 key thing from the Ray Rice debate - the more you know and the more you're involved, the more you can be implicated for when the hammer falls.

Since I had 0 teams with AP on them and no horse in the race, I think the Vikings did the right thing in immediately distancing themselves from and admitted, and non-remorseful child abuser.
And I'm all for spanking kids to teach them lessons, AP clearly went above and beyond the normal means of disciplining a small child in this case, no matter how you look at it.
Texas is messed up! (check the great googler for a story about a teenage girl filming her dad beating her - he was an F'ing judge down there!!!)

 

[TREFF]

Texas is messed up! (check the great googler for a story about a teenage girl filming her dad beating her - he was an F'ing judge down there!!!)

which was why I was pretty sure the DA would allow a generous plea deal. All it would've taken was 1 like minded individual on the jury and he wouldn't have been civics of anything at all. And, in Texas, that's no stretch at all to expect to find a couple of 'em.

 

[TREFF]

My take on the whole thing Will just laid out. .. sounds like the NFL and the Vikes conspired/colluded to find a mutually beneficial arrangement which kept them in the good graces of the court of public opinion.

I'm not getting into why I think what they did was illegal. .I just don't have the energy, especially since it'll again sound like I'm rooting for a child beater.

 

[HaroldSeattle]

Not sure of all the intricacies of the NFL rule book, but one thing I can assuredly chime in on here is the Vikings wanting to avoid the PR nightmare it would have been to keep AP around the facility amid this turmoil.

The rest of the NFL owners learned 1 key thing from the Ray Rice debate - the more you know and the more you're involved, the more you can be implicated for when the hammer falls.

Since I had 0 teams with AP on them and no horse in the race, I think the Vikings did the right thing in immediately distancing themselves from and admitted, and non-remorseful child abuser.
And I'm all for spanking kids to teach them lessons, AP clearly went above and beyond the normal means of disciplining a small child in this case, no matter how you look at it.
Texas is messed up! (check the great googler for a story about a teenage girl filming her dad beating her - he was an F'ing judge down there!!!)

I'd call that a hard whipping , Monkey. That was nothing compare to some I got as kid. The difference for me is the reason for the whippings I got, were for things like stealing ( last time I did that) playing with fire (my folks already had a house burned down, due to faulty wiring) etc. Didn't receive many whippings, but when I got one they were much harsher then the one the judge gave. I suspect I come from a older generation then yours, where the saying " share the rod and spoil the child" was believed and followed. Now the judge was giving a harsh whipping over his daughter being on the internet. Not a good enough reason for a harsh whipping like that IMO and now a days whipping and spanking are out of favor, one of reasons so many kids are little disrespectful snots.
Now whipping your kid to the point of drawing blood is way over the top and needs to be stopped, but now a days you can't even give a kid a swat on the butt without getting dirty looks or worse. Kind of makes it hard for teachers and parents to keep children from going wild and feeling like they don't have to respect anyone. Yeah, I know there are other forms of discipline and even back in my day, parents used things like groundings or no TV etc, but there times those form of discipline just don't do the job.

 

[TREFF]

I'd call that a hard whipping , Monkey. That was nothing compare to some I got as kid. The difference for me is the reason for the whippings I got, were for things like stealing ( last time I did that) playing with fire (my folks already had a house burned down, due to faulty wiring) etc. Didn't receive many whippings, but when I got one they were much harsher then the one the judge gave. I suspect I come from a older generation then yours, where the saying " share the rod and spoil the child" was believed and followed. Now the judge was giving a harsh whipping over his daughter being on the internet. Not a good enough reason for a harsh whipping like that IMO and now a days whipping and spanking are out of favor, one of reasons so many kids are little disrespectful snots.
Now whipping your kid to the point of drawing blood is way over the top and needs to be stopped, but now a days you can't even give a kid a swat on the butt without getting dirty looks or worse. Kind of makes it hard for teachers and parents to keep children from going wild and feeling like they don't have to respect anyone. Yeah, I know there are other forms of discipline and even back in my day, parents used things like groundings or no TV etc, but there times those form of discipline just don't do the job.