It was about to be all bad for the Dallas Cowboys this season. Their star running back Ezekiel Elliott was about to be suspended for half of the season and then they were given a lifeline. Federal judge Amos Mazzant granted a request by the NFLPA for a temporary restraining order, which will block the NFL ruling for a six-game suspension.
As of now, the NFL Players Association, Cowboys and Elliott will wait for the legal proceedings to play out in court and will wait for the final ruling until they adhere to the NFL suspension. If they would have failed, they would have taken it up with the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
According to the court, Elliott did not receive a “fair” appeal hearing.
The #NFL can now appeal this decision to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, but a source indicated to me that they're not likely to win that.
— Mike Leslie (@MikeLeslieWFAA) September 8, 2017
As Judge Mazzant put it:
“The question before the Court is merely whether Elliott received a fundamentally fair hearing before the arbitrator. The answer is he did not. The Court finds, based upon the injunction standard, that Elliott was denied a fundamentally fair hearing by Henderson’s refusal to allow Thompson and Goodell to testify at the arbitration hearing.”
The NFL’s breach of the [collective bargaining agreement] is only compounded by Henderson’s breach of the CBA. Specifically, Henderson denied access to certain procedural requirements, which were necessary to be able to present all relevant evidence at the hearing.”
People are starting to use “conspiracy” for what’s happened to Zeke, coming from the NFL and Roger Goodell, but there is still a lot more to uncover before we get to the truth of what happened with this incident and the ruling by the NFL.
You can read the full ruling HERE.