NEW YORK — If there's anybody who can take the hot air out of football's "Deflategate," it's a Manhattan federal judge with a history of encouraging fast resolutions to perplexing problems.
Judge Richard M. Berman quickly defined the ground rules in his first written orders after the National Football League and the NFL Players Association clashed over Commissioner Roger Goodell's four-game suspension of New England Patriots star quarterback Tom Brady — that settling the case is a priority, the heated rhetoric must stop, documents will be public and Goodell and Brady will have to come to court.
Berman is the right judge to navigate the pressures of the Brady-Goodell showdown, said Judge William H.