PatsWillWin said:
I'm still not aware of how there can be both a ruling by the arbitor AND a suspension that is less than 16 games. I don't even know if that is possible, which is odd considering the number of people who are like "I think he misses 8 games." How?
This is the most confusing part for me, as I've read all of the "all or nothing" stuff which would seem to imply that he either gets 0 or 16 games so I was in the same boat as you thinking the only way he could get somewhere in between would be a settlement. But not sure the arbitrator is going to hand him a suspension vs. just deciding if he violated the policy or not.
Even if he does the lose the appeal, if I'm not mistaken, he violated the policy last year with the codeine and according to the drug policy he should have been suspended 4 games. But the NFL reduced the suspension from 4 games to 2 games (presumably because he had a prescription?) so it does appear that the NFL has some discretion in the penalties they hand out based on individual cases and that not all players/violations are treated 100% equal even though some people seem to imply there is absolutely no deviating from the penalties called for in the drug policy. Seems like its still possible (although unlikely) that he loses the appeal and the NFL reduces his season long suspension from 16 to 8 (or whatever) given the circumstances. If they did it before, I don't see why it couldn't happen again.